What has made you a better hunter?

[Bphillips]

Better camo. By better I mean warmer. Not sure it has made me a better hunter but more successful hunter being able to sit longer.

 

[philsanchez76]

I was one of those proponents of cells cams. They've helped me out quite a bit on public these past 5-6 seasons (or so I thought). I usually have about 40 sits every year because I can make my own schedule. Well this year saw a job change and I only got 5 sits all year and killed only one deer. And guess what, the cell cams did NOTHING to help me. I realized the reason I was always on the deer in previous seasons was cuz I was constantly in the woods observing, scouting and shifting with the deer. Now I will still run the cams next season, but I have down graded them in my list of priorities thats for sure. Very interesting lesson for me.

 

[Wooden Arrow]

i've had deer come in straight upwind to me, and stand in the wet leaves where i'd recycled iced tea, sniffing and looking around. had one young buck bed down like he was waiting, scared him off when i climbed down.

 

[wobblegobble]

trail cams

 

[AlabamaSwamper]

Cameras… period

I've been doing all the other stuff for years but unless you are in the right small area none of that matters.

Cameras fixed that years ago

And through cameras just a few 100 yards makes a huge difference apparently.

 

[DMD]

1. Hunting high
2. stop relying on tricks so much - such as scent control, scent products, etc. and rely on scouting and woodsmanship more
3. Sitting longer
4. During the heat of the rut - Paying less attention deer sign and more attention to terrain features

 

[MrJim43]

Patience-patience-patience

 

[BSK]

4. During the heat of the rut - Paying less attention deer sign and more attention to terrain features

This is a biggy. All of our stands are pre-positioned before the season. They are place along favorable terrain features. Now often, the exact place we choose is a location that has displayed a lot of buck sign in previous years, but there is no telling which areas will have the best buck sign in a given year. But the buck sign has appeared there in the past because it is a favorable terrain feature for buck movement! During the rut-month of November, we are going to hunt those locations buck sign or not, although I will admit I will lean towards those stands near hot buck sign. The biggest caveat is food sources that year. We find one set of terrain features will be hot in a good acorn year, but another set in an acorn-failure year. So whether or not there are acorns that year will determine how we set up our stands and which will get hunted most.

 

[peytoncreekhunter]

All of my mistakes over the past 50 years of hunting...