Mark and Terry Drury and Their Buck Deer of Brotherly Love
Day 2: The Wind Advantage and Stand Preparation to Successfully Hunt Deer with Terry Drury
Editor’s Note: Would you give your brother the opportunity to bag a buck bigger than any deer you'd ever seen or killed in your life? Would you scout hard to pinpoint just the right place to take a deer, know that you had a 140-plus class buck to hunt, set-up a tree stand and then let your brother harvest the buck of your dreams? That's exactly what Terry Drury of Bloomsdale, Missouri, the co-owner of Drury Outdoors, did for his brother, Mark.
 Drury mentioned that the trail he had pinpointed to hunt (see Day 1) had the advantage of having a huge pile of bulldozed-down trees and a high mound of dirt laying only about 5-yards off the trail. Drury realized that if this area got a favorable wind that blew across the trail and straight into that high mound of dirt and timber, a buck wouldn't have any way to circle downwind of him and pick up his human odor. Although the buck easily could move over that high mound of dirt, Drury didn't think a buck would expend that large amount of energy, unless he had intensive hunting pressure on him. "I believed that if I approached the trail from behind the mound of dirt and set-up a tree stand in the first trees beside that mound that I'd almost have the buck boxed in," Drury reports.
 This 1/2-mile-long mound of brush and fallen timber would funnel deer into the bedding site Drury had discovered. Most hunters would have chosen to take a stand between the bedding region and the feeding area where they could see the most scrapes and rubs. But Terry Drury chose instead to move further up the trail to within sight of the bedding place. "I like to beat a buck to his bedroom," Drury mentions. "I know that older age-class bucks always will circle downwind of their bedding sites, before they move into them. Because this mound of dirt and fallen timber would keep the buck from completely circling downwind, I felt that if I could set-up my tree stand close to the mound, the trail and the bedding area, then the terrain in that region would funnel the buck along the trail to within 5 to 20 yards of my stand. I knew if I could get a northwest wind, which would blow across the trail and the mound, then I could see and take him without any chance of his smelling me."
Stand Preparation:
 Drury picked as his best stand site a spot about 100-yards from the bedding area he'd pinpointed. He wanted to remain at least that distance from the bedding cover. Then if any deer lay in the bedding area when Drury arrived at his stand, the animals wouldn't see him climbing the tree. He also realized that to go to his stand from downwind he'd have to climb through a tangle of brush and fallen timber where he might make noise that would spook any deer coming down the trail.
 "To solve this problem, I took a chainsaw in the middle of the day into the woods 2 months before bowhunting season opened and cut a small trail from the back side of the mound straight to my tree stand," Drury says. "I cleared out the brush, so I could move quickly and quietly along the trail and get to my stand." After clearing a path to the tree he'd picked to put his stand in, Drury hung two tree stands in the same tree. Because Drury's brother Mark almost always hunted with him and they filmed the hunts, Terry Drury knew he'd need one tree stand for the hunter and another for the cameraman. Placing the stands in the same tree would enable the cameraman to have a good view of any deer moving along the trail. The hunter also would have a clear and open shot. Terry Drury went through all this work without ever seeing a deer on the trail or in the area he planned to hunt.
For more deer-hunting tips, get John E. Phillips’ Kindle eBooks "How to Hunt Deer Like a Pro,”
“How to Hunt Deer Up Close: With Bows, Rifles, Muzzleloaders and Crossbows,” and “PhD Whitetails: How to Hunt and Take the Smartest Deer on Any Property,” or to prepare venison, get “Deer & Fixings.” Click here on each, or go to www.amazon.com/kindle-ebooks, type in the name of the book, and download it to your Kindle, and/or download a Kindle app for your iPad, SmartPhone or computer.
About the Author
John Phillips, winner of the 2012 Homer Circle Fishing Award for outstanding fishing writer by the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) and the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA), the 2008 Crossbow Communicator of the year and the 2007 Legendary Communicator chosen for induction into the National Fresh Water Hall of Fame, is a freelance writer (over 6,000 magazine articles for about 100 magazines and several thousand newspaper columns published), magazine editor, photographer for print media as well as industry catalogues (over 25,000 photos published), lecturer, outdoor consultant, marketing consultant, book author and daily internet content provider with an overview of the outdoors. Click here for more information and a list of all the books available from John E. Phillips.
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