Learning From Mistakes to Become a Better Big Deer Hunter

Most of us aren’t exclusively trophy hunters or meat hunters. We’re deer hunters who love eating venison, but who would also rather shoot big bucks than little ones. I’ve been deer hunting for about 30 years myself, and I’ve always hunted areas with high deer numbers and generous bag limits. As a result, I’ve killed my share of whitetails. I’ve lucked into some decent bucks along the way, too, but my success rate on mature animals has increased dramatically over the past decade.

Is that because I’ve started trophy hunting exclusively? No, I still have an itchy trigger finger. Is it because I have all kinds of great new land to hunt? Far from it; most of my best bucks have all been taken on the same family ground I’ve hunted since childhood.

The difference in my recent success on bigger deer is tied to simple changes I’ve made in tactics and mindset. These changes in particular have made the biggest difference.

Access First

Back in my 20s, if I saw a bunch of deer using a soybean field corner, I’d walk right across that field the next day with a climbing stand on my back and set up in the corner. I killed many deer that way, but one good hunt was usually all I’d get in such a spot because I had to climb down and walk back across the field at dark, spooking huge numbers of deer in the process. The flaws in that plan seem obvious now, but this is how I hunted for years. I didn’t know any different and besides, I was killing deer, albeit mostly does and young bucks.

When I stopped asking myself, “Where can I kill a deer tomorrow?” and instead started asking, “Where can I kill a deer tomorrow without spooking anything else?” My success on big bucks increased.

Bumping some deer is unavoidable when you’re hunting. But one deer catching your wind in a travel corridor doesn’t hurt much. Multiple animals seeing you exit a stand on a crop field is catastrophic. Once you spook deer at the spot where you’re depending on them to go—bedding area or food source—patterning them becomes much more difficult.

Now, the first thing I do is plan my ambush around the access. If I can’t get into and out of a spot mostly undetected, I sit somewhere else. I seldom sit on the edges of major food sources. I focus heavily on travel routes, where I don’t see as many deer, but where I can kill the ones that I do see, and can get in before they get there, and out after they’re past. My access is more creative, too. On our farm, which is bordered on one side by a large creek, several of my best stands are hung right on the creek bank, and I paddle to them in a canoe.

Designated Doe Days

I love filling doe tags with my bow, and I usually shoot three or four per season. But I used to just go deer hunting, and if a doe walked out before a big buck—which, they usually do—I shot her, almost regardless of the spot or time of year.

My doe missions are more intentional now. I hunt them almost exclusively from mid-September through mid-October. I do most of that hunting in “secondary” spots, along the fringes of our farm, or on other properties where I have permission to shoot does, but not bucks (you’d be surprised how many farmers will still grant access for that).

Shooting does allows me to stock up on venison, sure, but I don’t just view it as a freezer-filling mission. It’s something I need to do in order to be at my best when I start hunting bucks later in the season. I’ve written about that several times in this column. Encounters with big deer are hell on the nerves, and when they get away, lack of confidence and decisiveness is frequently to blame. There’s simply no better way to steel your nerves than by making good shots on live animals.

Finally, the timing of my doe hunting is important. Doe family groups are easy to pattern and knowing where specific groups bed and feed is critical for the rut strategies I use in November. Hence, why I hunt secondary spots when I can and also why, come mid-October, I stop shooting does altogether until the late season.

Ready to Drop Everything

Used to be, when I saw a good buck out scouting or on my trail cameras, I hunted him immediately, every chance I got. Now, my sits are more strategic, but when the time is right—like any of these four times below—I’m aggressive.

• Early September: There’s no easier time to pattern big bucks than when they’re in late-summer bachelor groups. Kentucky’s archery season opens the first week in September, and that’s when I’ve taken several of my best bow bucks.
• October Cold Fronts: If I see a strong front in the forecast that’ll drop daytime temperatures by 20 degrees or more any time after October 15, I’m going to be in the stand. It’s the closest thing there is to a guarantee of getting big bucks to move in daylight.
• Daylight Photos: Most of my cameras are set over food plots and feeders, where I can check them from the truck at midday. Consequently, most of the big buck photos I get are at night. But when a good one shows up just after dark—or especially within shooting light—it’s time to call in sick, skip court or otherwise ignore any other obligations I have. Big deer don’t stick to daylight patterns long.
• Anytime in November: I hunt morning and evening every day I can from November 1 through about the 10th of December. Yes, being self-employed and writing about deer hunting helps make that possible. I shoot most of my big bucks during the rut, but it’s a time when persistence is required and often rewarded.

Pass Those 3-Year-Olds

One sunny morning last November, I watched a tall and wide 8-pointer trot across a frosty pasture in Tennessee, nose down and ears pinned. I grunted at him, and when he stopped, I hit him with a snort wheeze. Oh, man, here he came.

Seconds later, he was marching through a 15-yard shooting lane under my stand, steam huffing from his nostrils and leaves crunching under his hooves. He was gorgeous, and I was clipped to my bowstring and ready to draw. However, based on body size and composition, I guesstimated the buck to be 3 ½ years old, so I let that buck walk.

It’s taken me a couple decades of hunting—and a pile of 115-inch deer racks—to have that restraint. And because I’m just a deer hunter, and not exclusively a trophy hunter, this is still the milestone I struggle with most. Sometimes, those gorgeous young bucks walk past, and I get excited and shoot them. But of all the milestones listed here, this one may be the most important. For a buck to become mature, he has to live beyond his fourth birthday. In the real world, where most of us hunt, not many bucks live that long. To even see one, much less shoot one, requires extreme patience—but after it happens, having restraint is a little easier the next time around.

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