PLOT YOUR WAY TO A BUCK
How
To Find Your Buck
Editor’s Note: You can blueprint a deer's movements
and accurately predict when, where and from what direction
you can expect a deer to show up. But to have a successful
deer hunt, you must get to your stand without spooking
the buck you hope to take. Although most deer hunters
know this fact, few sportsmen understand how to accomplish
this feat. This week we'll look at ways to plot your
way to a buck.
I like to believe I'm very competent when searching
for wounded deer. I can follow a blood trail and deer
tracks. I understand where a wounded deer wants to go
most of the time,
and I know what to do when the deer's blood trail stops.
However, if I have to trail the deer for a long time
in an area I'm unfamiliar with, once I find the buck
or lose his trail, I may be lost. I stay so intent on
trailing and tracking my deer that I often am not aware
of noting landmarks that will lead me back to my stand
or my vehicle.
Because I often hunt in deep woods, I sometimes find
a compass not very effective in finding my way out of
those woods. A compass only shows you how to get back
to the car if you know your reading and the car's. Honestly,
most of us don't take compass readings before we leave
our cars. If we do, we may not know where we are in
relation to the car or the roads we've walked on or
any other landmark. Therefore, we can't use a compass
effectively.
But a GPS receiver is idiot-proof. Simply push the
QUICK-SAVE button
on the GPS receiver when you get out of your car. Then
you can turn your GPS receiver on when you locate your
deer or lose the trail. The GPS receiver will show you
where you are, where the car is, the distance you are
from the car, and the shortest route you need to travel
to get back to the car. Once you start moving, you'll
learn from your GPS receiver how long you'll have to
walk to return to the car. You'll also find the GPS
receiver particularly helpful when trailing a wounded
deer. The device allows you to mark significant spots
along the blood trail as waypoints using the QUICK-SAVE
button. GPS also aids you in locating your deer when
his blood trail enters the water. If a blood trail goes
into a backwater slough or a flooded-timber area, then
you have to assume that either the buck has died in
the water and you must wade out into the flooded timber
to find it, or the buck has crossed the water and come
out on the other side.
In cold
weather, I don't want to wade through icy water to find
my deer unless I must. I'd rather assume the buck has
crossed the water and come out on the other side, where
I can pick up the trail. In this type of trailing situation,
I know once a buck enters the water most of the time
he'll try and run or swim in a straight line across
the water. By marking the place as a waypoint where
the blood trail enters the water on one shore, I can
go to the far shore. Then I can use my GPS receiver
to draw a straight line from where the blood trail has
stopped at the edge of the water on the opposite shore
and my position on the other side of the flooded timber.
This one feature of the GPS receiver can save a tremendous
amount of time when you look for a blood trail on the
other side of a barrier. This same technique will help
you find a trail when a buck runs into thick cover and
you don't know if he has come out on the other side
or not.
By simply punching the WAYPOINT button on my GPS receiver,
I now can call up the waypoints I've saved along the
blood trail and backtrack to leave the woods. Regardless
of where a trail takes you or what type of terrain barriers
you encounter, with a GPS receiver you can concentrate
your efforts on locating a buck and not worrying about
how to find your way back to your vehicle.
TOMORROW: WHY YOU HUNT MORE EFFECTIVELY WITH GPS
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