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My "unorthodox hunting" theory

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BSK

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Joined
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Nashville, TN
OK, this is going to be a weird question, but something that has really been rattling around in my head for a couple of years. And it was brought to a head this year.

To set the stage, we've killed exactly 108 bucks off our property over 37 years. Ranking the bucks highest to lowest by rack score, every hunter who regularly hunts the property is represented all over the list. With one exception - the Top 10. They are all my kills. Now I would love to pat myself on the back and think, "Dang, I'm the MAN! I'm a great hunter!" However, the problem is that I'm not. In fact, the older I get the more I've turned into the laziest hunter in the group. I fidget in stand, I read books in stand, I send and read text messages, and I'm usually so bored after a few hours I'm out of my stand by 9 AM. I do not even come close to putting in the most hunting hours.

Now some might say, Well, because of what you do for a living and all your research on habitat/deer movement patterns, you understand how/when deer will move through." There is some truth to that, but more about that later. Someone could say, "You run the cameras so you have the most knowledge about how deer are using the property that year." True also, but before each hunt, I go over with all the hunters each of the "shooter" bucks and where they're being photographed and what I believe their travel patterns are. So every hunter knows where every shooter buck frequents. But here's the part that has produced my theory in question. What started about 10 or so years ago as a joke, has turned into a tradition, and that is, no matter how many hunters are in camp, I always choose the stand I'm going to hunt last. Before each hunt, all the hunters gather together and start choosing stands. No matter how much I'm pressured to choose early, I always wait until everybody else has chosen their stand, and then I choose mine. Quite often (almost always) other hunters have chosen the stands I had as my top priority stands. This forces me to choose something I didn't have on my list, so I often choose a truly unorthodox stand for the conditions. And that's where things started getting weird. Ever since I started choosing last, and often choosing unorthodox locations, the big bucks started piling up. Some of the kills are just "crazy wrong" for the timing and situation.

So that's where this "unorthodox hunting" theory started to develop in my head. Why am I killing the best buck on the property almost every year - and very quickly, usually in the first week of MZ - when I'm always choosing stands I didn't really want to hunt or have any confidence in? Could it be something to do with the fact I'm NOT hunting the obvious hotspots?

Has anyone experienced something similar? Does anyone actually use this as a type of hunting strategy? I could be totally wrong, and I could just be the luckiest hunter in the world, but luck doesn't keep coming around year after year after year. There is a pattern here and I'm trying to figure it out.
 
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BSK said:
OK, this is going to be a weird question, but something that has really been rattling around in my head for a couple of years. And it was brought to a head this year.

To set the stage, we've killed exactly 108 bucks off our property over 37 years. Ranking the bucks highest to lowest by rack score, every hunter who regularly hunts the property is represented all over the list. With one exception - the Top 10. They are all my kills. Now I would love to pat myself on the back and think, "Dang, I'm the MAN! I'm a great hunter!" However, the problem is that I'm not. In fact, the older I get the more I've turned into the laziest hunter in the group. I fidget in stand, I read books in stand, I send and read text messages, and I'm usually so bored after a few hours I'm out of my stand by 9 AM. I do not even come close to putting in the most hunting hours.

Now some might say, Well, because of what you do for a living and all your research on habitat/deer movement patterns, you understand how/when deer will move through." There is some truth to that, but more about that later. Someone could say, "You run the cameras so you have the most knowledge about how deer are using the property that year." True also, but before each hunt, I go over with all the hunters each of the "shooter" bucks and where they're being photographed and what I believe their travel patterns are. So every hunter knows where every shooter buck frequents. But here's the part that has produced my theory in question. What started about 10 or so years ago as a joke, has turned into a tradition, and that is, no matter how many hunters are in camp, I always choose the stand I'm going to hunt last. Before each hunt, all the hunters gather together and start choosing stands. No matter how much I'm pressured to choose early, I always wait until everybody else has chosen their stand, and then I choose mine. Quite often (almost always) other hunters have chosen the stands I had as my top priority stands. This forces me to choose something I didn't have on my list, so I often choose a truly unorthodox stand for the conditions. And that's where things started getting weird. Ever since I started choosing last, and often choosing unorthodox locations, the big bucks started piling up. Some of the ki8ls are just "crazy wrong" for the timing and situation.

So that's where this "unorthodox hunting" theory started to develop in my head. Why am I killing the best buck on the property almost every year - and very quickly, usually in the first week of MZ - when I'm always choosing stands I didn't really want to hunt or have any confidence in? Could it be something to do with the fact I'm NOT hunting the obvious hotspots?

Has anyone experienced something similar? Does anyone actually use this as a type of hunting strategy? I could be totally wrong, and I could just be the luckiest hunter in the world, but luck doesn't keep coming around year after year after year. There is a pattern here and I'm trying to figure it out.
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Interesting…you could make an entire YouTube video on that one.
 
First and foremost, I have always believed that we are given Grace and opportunity for success by the Father. I have always said that everyone hunts the deer but like everything it's a gift, from Him. If you rush to effort and virtue, you are wrong. Call me crazy, make fun of me but self-sacrifice and hopes in others to achieve the goals is why. You can't out give Him.
 
No surprise really, as I'd bet that you are hunting the least hunted and pressured spots on the property. That, or the pressure the others put on the "prime" spots forces bucks your way.

I've done similar with my buddies. Anytime we are on a draw hunt, I always give them first dibs on the known producing spots. They just don't want to branch out and try a new holler that's tough to get to or ignored. That usually forces me to scout/hunt a new area, and boom….literally.
 
I would say it comes down to some type of pressure from the "hotspots" if I'm in a funk I'll hunt weird to just to do something different. It's paid off a few times but not enough to keep doing. Very strange but cool trend for you at least.
 
BSK said:
OK, this is going to be a weird question, but something that has really been rattling around in my head for a couple of years. And it was brought to a head this year.

To set the stage, we've killed exactly 108 bucks off our property over 37 years. Ranking the bucks highest to lowest by rack score, every hunter who regularly hunts the property is represented all over the list. With one exception - the Top 10. They are all my kills. Now I would love to pat myself on the back and think, "Dang, I'm the MAN! I'm a great hunter!" However, the problem is that I'm not. In fact, the older I get the more I've turned into the laziest hunter in the group. I fidget in stand, I read books in stand, I send and read text messages, and I'm usually so bored after a few hours I'm out of my stand by 9 AM. I do not even come close to putting in the most hunting hours.

Now some might say, Well, because of what you do for a living and all your research on habitat/deer movement patterns, you understand how/when deer will move through." There is some truth to that, but more about that later. Someone could say, "You run the cameras so you have the most knowledge about how deer are using the property that year." True also, but before each hunt, I go over with all the hunters each of the "shooter" bucks and where they're being photographed and what I believe their travel patterns are. So every hunter knows where every shooter buck frequents. But here's the part that has produced my theory in question. What started about 10 or so years ago as a joke, has turned into a tradition, and that is, no matter how many hunters are in camp, I always choose the stand I'm going to hunt last. Before each hunt, all the hunters gather together and start choosing stands. No matter how much I'm pressured to choose early, I always wait until everybody else has chosen their stand, and then I choose mine. Quite often (almost always) other hunters have chosen the stands I had as my top priority stands. This forces me to choose something I didn't have on my list, so I often choose a truly unorthodox stand for the conditions. And that's where things started getting weird. Ever since I started choosing last, and often choosing unorthodox locations, the big bucks started piling up. Some of the kills are just "crazy wrong" for the timing and situation.

So that's where this "unorthodox hunting" theory started to develop in my head. Why am I killing the best buck on the property almost every year - and very quickly, usually in the first week of MZ - when I'm always choosing stands I didn't really want to hunt or have any confidence in? Could it be something to do with the fact I'm NOT hunting the obvious hotspots?

Has anyone experienced something similar? Does anyone actually use this as a type of hunting strategy? I could be totally wrong, and I could just be the luckiest hunter in the world, but luck doesn't keep coming around year after year after year. There is a pattern here and I'm trying to figure it out.
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Gotta be hunting the lower pressured stands. Or the spots where the bucks think you will not be hunting because they are as smart as you are BSK.
But you are a lot wiser at it than me.


But the obvious answer is because BSK still has the "Big fluffy kittens Deer" to use as a lure.
 
I was thinking the same about maybe pressure or just natural movement changing. I'm assuming that a lot of the earliest selected spots are ones that have shown better activity on cameras. Are the spots that you end up with the same or similar either in location on the property or similar in the makeup of the area? Anything that you would think is different when it gets down to the locations that you are left to choose?
 
When you say unorthodox, what way do you mean this? That could take many shapes; not a travel route, a location close to a road or camp site, or marginal wind direction just to name a few.

I have a only a few trees I hunt multiple times even on property I've lived on. I scout and hunt, it doesn't matter how many years I have had access on the farm I'm hunting, I constantly scout. This method often puts me in strange places.

I will say this, most of my really big deer if they are alone; I am almost always in a situation with a marginal wind for that spot. I've just learned over the years how to move 20 or so yards to skirt my scent just past the deer. Most of the big deer are traveling with the wind blowing across the front of their face in these scenarios which puts me on the verge of being smelled but I'm always on the downwind side of the travel route by a hair. For this reason I like about a 4-5 mph wind that's fairly steady. And this is the main reason I always pack in and pack out my climbing set up. I will sometimes hunt the same area quite a few times until I kill the deer that's using that area but many times I can see every tree I've sat in and sometimes they are just 30-50 yards depending upon the wind that day.

So I would say in most cases I'm in an unorthodox location for wind directions in many cases.
 
How to do select the best of the "worst" stands?

It may be that you change the selection criteria in your mind to try to optimize the "best of the worst" which is somehow playing into the stand choice and resulting success.

Also how many stands are you talking about? How many are taken and how many are left?
 
My guess is you spend plenty of time on your property. The deer grow somewhat comfortable to your presence, to the point that they somewhat dismiss your scent to an extent. Now Saturday morning you throw 7 or 8 more hunters into the mix that dont regularly use the property. The deer skirt those hunters putting their senses on high alert, but they are comfortable enough with yours that they will dismiss it as safe because they are use to it. This may not amount to a hill of beans, but it seems to be a regular occurrence is similar situations.
 
BSK said:
OK, this is going to be a weird question, but something that has really been rattling around in my head for a couple of years. And it was brought to a head this year.

To set the stage, we've killed exactly 108 bucks off our property over 37 years. Ranking the bucks highest to lowest by rack score, every hunter who regularly hunts the property is represented all over the list. With one exception - the Top 10. They are all my kills. Now I would love to pat myself on the back and think, "Dang, I'm the MAN! I'm a great hunter!" However, the problem is that I'm not. In fact, the older I get the more I've turned into the laziest hunter in the group. I fidget in stand, I read books in stand, I send and read text messages, and I'm usually so bored after a few hours I'm out of my stand by 9 AM. I do not even come close to putting in the most hunting hours.

Now some might say, Well, because of what you do for a living and all your research on habitat/deer movement patterns, you understand how/when deer will move through." There is some truth to that, but more about that later. Someone could say, "You run the cameras so you have the most knowledge about how deer are using the property that year." True also, but before each hunt, I go over with all the hunters each of the "shooter" bucks and where they're being photographed and what I believe their travel patterns are. So every hunter knows where every shooter buck frequents. But here's the part that has produced my theory in question. What started about 10 or so years ago as a joke, has turned into a tradition, and that is, no matter how many hunters are in camp, I always choose the stand I'm going to hunt last. Before each hunt, all the hunters gather together and start choosing stands. No matter how much I'm pressured to choose early, I always wait until everybody else has chosen their stand, and then I choose mine. Quite often (almost always) other hunters have chosen the stands I had as my top priority stands. This forces me to choose something I didn't have on my list, so I often choose a truly unorthodox stand for the conditions. And that's where things started getting weird. Ever since I started choosing last, and often choosing unorthodox locations, the big bucks started piling up. Some of the kills are just "crazy wrong" for the timing and situation.

So that's where this "unorthodox hunting" theory started to develop in my head. Why am I killing the best buck on the property almost every year - and very quickly, usually in the first week of MZ - when I'm always choosing stands I didn't really want to hunt or have any confidence in? Could it be something to do with the fact I'm NOT hunting the obvious hotspots?

Has anyone experienced something similar? Does anyone actually use this as a type of hunting strategy? I could be totally wrong, and I could just be the luckiest hunter in the world, but luck doesn't keep coming around year after year after year. There is a pattern here and I'm trying to figure it out.
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When we had the family farm (1990-2018) and hunted it hard my dad killed 2, my uncle killed 1, and my cousin that tied down the best spot killed 3 really nice bucks. I killed 1 before 2012 . I too learned to hunt the pressure and explore the unexplored. I killed 4 bucks from 2013-2017 that grossed over 140 that way. That being said we all would kill an okay buck half the time for an average of 3-4 per year that were 2.5-lower end 3.5.

You are really on to something with the thinking as a survivalist rather than meeting your needs. I also learned to play the wind and minimalize hunting until the stage was set.
 
Thinking back. I believe every buck I have hung on the wall was killed the first time I hunted any particular stand (that year)

And the two I killed while walking was the first time i was in those areas (that year)

with that being said, I don't hunt any of those farms these days as I've lost all of them. So the farms have changed over the years but the one constant is all my best bucks were from hunting each stand for the first time.

Never that I can recall (terrible memory) have I killed a target or mature buck after hunting the stands multiple times.

But for the last 5 years I only hunt two diff stands on one small property and I haven't killed anything to talk about
 
It's said that 90% of big bucks are killed by 10% of hunters. You can't do what everyone else does and expect your results to be different than theirs. And what's everyone doing? They hunt where they'll see a lot of deer, thinking just by sheer numbers they'll eventually see a big one. And where do they see a lot of deer? Where there's lots of food and/or sign.

My guess is those big bucks you're killing are likely the only deer you seen. In my experience it's because older bucks are not tolerant of other deer. They don't want to be around other deer. Everybody talks about hunting pressure but there's also social pressure. Old bucks don't like either one. Sure they show up to get laid but otherwise they're reclusive. And the only way to be away from other deer is to be where deer don't want to be. Therefore if you're going to target older bucks you've got to hunt where deer aren't.
 
Ski said:
My guess is those big bucks you're killing are likely the only deer you seen. In my experience it's because older bucks are not tolerant of other deer. They don't want to be around other deer. Everybody talks about hunting pressure but there's also social pressure. Old bucks don't like either one. Sure they show up to get laid but otherwise they're reclusive. And the only way to be away from other deer is to be where deer don't want to be. Therefore if you're going to target older bucks you've got to hunt where deer aren't.
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This Probably doesn't get talked about enough. Even in a higher deer density if you see a mature deer come out in the field with other deer they tend to stay away from the other deer and eat alone.
 
deerhunter10 said:
This Probably doesn't get talked about enough. Even in a higher deer density if you see a mature deer come out in the field with other deer they tend to stay away from the other deer and eat alone.
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Absolutely. The only time I see older bucks with other deer outside of the rut is when they're using other deer as decoys. They let younger bucks go out ahead to encounter the danger. Otherwise they stay alone.
 

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