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What could you be doing that your not doing?

Winchester said:
muddyboots said:
The best one i could do would be to get access to some better property. I jsut cant find the right circumstances.
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Same here!! Along with going back to spending the time it takes scouting! I simply dont have the time to scout like I once did, 2 boys will spread you thin but they will only grow up once!!!
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Now wait a minute Winchester...we have had similar conversations in the past along these lines...:D

As I recall you have always advocated that one can make the time to hunt and be more than moderately successful if they really wanted to by making hunting a priority, taking vacation to hunt,etc. Based on the same argument you have used in the past, just spend less time with your kids and more time scouting :D

Just ain't that easy is it?
 
I could: Hunt more, scout more, stay in the stand/blind longer, be more cautious of entry and exit routes, pay more attention to the wind and wake up earlier.

I don't because that takes some of the fun out of it. If I get two or three does a year I've got enough meat for the year, and getting that many does just isn't a huge deal under most typical circumstances. Not saying it's easy, but I certainly don't have to do all those things I "could" do. After the meat is accounted for I just go and hang out in the woods. I might shoot more, I might not. Depends on if I feel like gutting something.

I was super-serious about deer hunting for about the first five or six years. Then I decided hunting for fun and meat was more important to me than all that other stuff. Now I measure success by having an enjoyable day in the woods, enough venison to get me through until the following October and a few pictures to stick in my photo album. Bucks have become a pleasant bonus instead of a goal. It made things a lot easier.
 
Honestly I don't know...

I work really hard at deer hunting year round. I focus on key times, use lots of different set ups, scout a bunch, and have lots of properties to hunt (public and private).

My focus this year is finding bucks I want to shoot before I hunt with cameras and post season scouting. Also I want to keep better records.

I'm going to try and find a shooter for KY opener...if not I may go to Indiana and dove hunt with the FIL.

I'm interested in learning more but in my group of hunters I'm the most accomplished and successful.
 
I do a lot of hunting out of town, 2 and 3 day weekends. Im thinking about hunting less weekends but stretching them out to 4 and 5 days.

I use a lot of time and energy just getting packed, unpacked, to and from... 2 or 3 more days would be days I could focus only on doing the things I need to do to kill a good buck.
 
I hunt some portion of every single day of all seasons. BSK, you only hunt 14-16 days but are against shortening the gun season?
 
My obsession with hunting our family property is what is killing me and I wish I could change that. I would rather kill a 120" buck off my property, than kill a 160+" buck off any other tract of land. When hunting other properties, all I can think about is where I would be on my property at that exact moment. It makes me sound crazy. I get restless and cant sit still when hunting other properties (I cant get serious). Everytime I see a deer, I backtrack in my mind where that deer came from. I cant help it. As much pressure our neighbors put on their properties, I believe we do FAR much hurt than we do good....We are talking about 600 acres. I get around alot and will go to ANY extreme, no matter how far the walk, to get where I think I have the best opportunity. The bowhunting on our property, imo, is what kills us the most. We are the only ones that bowhunt around us. Therefore, our property is pressured when the neighbors are not. I do save my best spots for when I can get a gun in my hand, and wont go ANYWHERE near those areas until the right timing and weather conditions permit.

Whats killing my hunting and what I wish I could change, is hunting other properties I have permission to hunt and not putting all of the pressure on my property.

Trying something new this year....Something that I have always known all along. We are going to try bow hunting other properties and not touching our place until the opening of muzzleloader. I know Bryan does this. I will go and kill a doe opening weekend as I have done every year for quite a few years now, then not hunt it again until muzzleloader. That will get the pressure off our place and I will have new opportunities at different locations. I have over 3,000 acres of private land can I can hunt, but for some reason, the only place I hunt is our 600 acres. I am hunting some public land too. I will get my "woods time / therapy" and it will help me for when I get a gun in my hand :)
 
Jcdeer I wait until prime time to hunt my property too. It's much smaller (104 acres) but seems to work well there. We really don't start getting decent bucks up from the bottoms until mid October. Pressuring our does isn't something I'm interested in.
 
I need to get to bed earlier and get up earlier on days I'm going to hunt. I'm not a morning person, which is a bad thing when you want to be in your stand well before sunrise. I stay up late messing with my gear and then I can't get my butt out of bed early enough. You would think this would be an easy problem to fix, but for some reason I struggle with it. My body just does not function well in the early morning hours.
 
what is the attraction of ladder stands? i have never understood it. they are big, cumbersome, obvious to sight and almost impossible to get high enough. i am amazed so many people like them so much.

but back to the question. i could hunt a lot more (for deer)
 
redblood said:
what is the attraction of ladder stands? i have never understood it. they are big, cumbersome, obvious to sight and almost impossible to get high enough. i am amazed so many people like them so much.

but back to the question. i could hunt a lot more (for deer)
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Thew obsession is, they are comfortable, safe, easy to climb. hard for deer to detect and are plenty high enough. Of course, they are not really portable.
 
For me it's that I'm too stubborn or maybe "comfortable" in what I'm doing to make crucial changes....and it's the same for bass fishing tournaments as it is for deer hunting.

For both if I want the big buck or sometimes the big bass in a tournament I need to adjust to what the fish wants or adjust to find or get a shot at a big buck. And, I don't do it...because I like hunting a certain way and it gives me enjoyment and is fun...same for the bass tourneys, I enjoy fishing a certain style and if I lose, at least I had fun.

So, I guess for me it's "knowing" how to increase my chances for a nice buck and not "acting" on that knowledge
 
i suppose there are a lot of things i could do different to increase my odds but i enjoy the methods i use and am successful enough to keep on keeping on.
 
This is a loaded question for me, since I'll be starting this fall in a new state with no hunting contacts, but things I should have done if I was still going to be here in Wisconsin and should do in the future in Tennessee:

1) Don't stop looking for places to hunt after I find 1 piece of land. Ideally, 1 small local spot to hunt after work or just morning/evenings when the wife has something for us to do and 1 that is the 1-2 hour drive away for my "man weekends".

2) Have more that 2 stands for bow and 1 blind for gun season.

3) Run cameras year round, so I can adjust the stands based on real time info instead of base it off what I saw last year. Add this to alot more off season scouting.

4) Not sure what the rules are on predator hunting, but I should have done it alot more on the land I had access to up here.

5) Work food plots more, while not all my fault, I should have worked my friend/land owner more to plant micro plots or even just apple trees since we were surronded by corn, bean and alfafa fields already.

6) Work the hard to get places more, I had access to a nasty 30 acre "cedar swamp" that was just an absolute pain to move around in, so it got ignored but all 5 of us. I just know it had some big ones using it as a bedding area.
 
Headhunter said:
I hunt some portion of every single day of all seasons. BSK, you only hunt 14-16 days but are against shortening the gun season?
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Yes. Those 14-16 days are stretched over a month or so, all of it firearms seasons (plus a few weekends in December and into early January for doe hunting). I would like all of November and December to be firearms season.

Now in my area, buck hunting is virtually over by the beginning of December, because that is the end of the rut. But in parts of TN, peak breeding doesn't occur until mid-December, and in a few locations along the AL and MS line, not until late December or early January. I want every TN deer hunter to be able to hunt their local peak of the rut with their weapon of choice. The only way to do that with the wide spread of peak breeding dates is firearms seasons that last for at least 2 months.

Luckily, in my part of TN, bucks are not being over-harvested under our current seasons and bag limits. But that's probably not true in all parts of TN.
 

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