When millions of deer hunters take to the woods on fire arms openers nationwide they severely alter daily wildlife routines. Most of what is written about normal daily deer behavior becomes virtually immaterial when the various state’s openers occur.
For me, hunter success on opening day usually depends on squatting over a travel route. When the invasion of two footed predators first materializes in the woods, younger more inexperienced deer run around thoroughly confused. These deer make up the bulk of the opening weekend kill. They pick an escape route and charge into trouble waiting just down the trail.
Deer surviving several firearms deer seasons, acquire college-equivalent doctorates in survival techniques. They know what an annual influx of humans into their backyards means.
For three years, I saw two virtually identical bucks in one area. They eventually developed from six pointers into beautiful 10 point basket-racks. I suspected they were brothers. During the summer months, one was never without the other. Seldom saw them after summer’s change to fall.
I spent hours watching these two guys. Got to know them well. Though I hunted the same area during firearms deer season, it was years before framing one in a rifle scope during hunting season. I had so often done it with a camera lens at various other times of the year.
They were survivors. They changed their habits and patterns to avoid confrontations that in the past previously removed siblings and acquaintances from their neighborhood.
First priority a hunter should sort out before deer season’s opening day is whether to hunt meat or a trophy. Elementary as this might sound, that decision decides the entire tempo of an annual deer hunt.
I am a meat hunter. (If the beef industry depended on me for a living, they would be in serious trouble.) Venison is an important part of my annual diet. While a trophy rack is a welcome prize from the hunt, it does not make as good a stew as it does a hat rack. I only own so many hats.
However, a certain class of hunter is driven by the tremendous challenge a mature white tail trophy offers in tracking it down successfully. Many regard it the most difficult trophy to hunt successfully in the world. That consensus probably explains the species’ longevity stretching from the end of the last ice ages to current times. A lot of giant lizards didn’t handle evolutionary adversity that white tails solved winding their way down through the eons.
These elite hunters quietly pursue measures of personal skill graded against similar inherent qualities in their quarry. When hunting trophies, these elite hunters are determined to pass up the opportunities presented by immature animals. They know that the end of the season might arrive without them tagging a deer. Their ultimate goal is not the kill itself. It is the matching of wits with probably the most reclusive game animal in the world – a whitetail “superbuck.”
A reasonably abundant availability of modern deer populations, legally represented in some cases by unlimited any-deer tags and bonus tags designed to reduce deer populations, tempts trophy deer hunters. However, succumbing to temptation may warn away a dream buck in the area when selecting a lesser animal.
Priorities of time, food and personal motivation thus determine how hunters plan their deer hunting strategy. These decisions become time honored traditions passed down within families and various hunting camps from generation to generation. Boys grow into men practicing in everyday life the basic principals learned from these associations - bad as well as good - depends on the teachers.
In modern day deer hunting, knowledge of your quarry’s travel routes is paramount. I’ve found that true whether hunting mule deer in the Rockies or whitetails in the Midwest. Having some idea where other hunters will probably enter the hunting scene and how deer will react to that outside pressure is an important factor to judge in a successful hunt as well.
First, I secure permission to hunt an area. Then, I look for draws and funnels leading into gaps or saddles that cross over ridges or lead into cover in another area (brushy draws, timbered fence rows, etc.). Hunting pressure in lower drainages usually moves deer up through saddles and funnels that expedite and camouflage traffic from one location to another. These are excellent sites to intercept deer reacting instinctively to the closest escape route to elude two legged trespassers in its domain.
However, older, wiser bucks know better than to use their species regular highways and established travel routes. They have long memories of relatives that disappeared down those paths in the past. Instead, they might cling to brushy draws and isolated trails paralleling the more defined paths. More subtle trails should raise a question whether a mature buck might have made it. Most of these “super-bucks” will probably limit their travel entirely. What gallivanting about that they do will probably be limited to nocturnal hours until after the end of the hunting season clears the woods of the annual influx of two legged predators.
I hunted out of tree stands for years in an intricate funnel system leading to several gaps that crossed over ridges into other Missouri Ozark drainages. On several occasions, I filled both an any-deer tag and a bonus tag within minutes or seconds of each other while hunting from these stands. They consistently satisfied my philosophy as a meat hunter.
I know to stick with these stands the first two days of hunting. No matter how long it may take, if hunters are in the woods, they, usually, eventually move deer by one of them. A sack lunch and snacks load my pockets to reinforce a decision to wait all day if necessary. Seldom has it taken past mid-morning of opening day.
After the first two days, the character of the hunt virtually turns a one-eighty. Even the more naïve survivors know it is war and they are the target. Mature deer as well as educated teenage survivors now usually either go completely nocturnal or at least hold tight to cover during the daylight hours.
Successful hunting tactics must now change drastically. See Part II