BUCKS?!

[Bassboy1645]

Heres my dilemma. i do everything right or apparently right to my knowlege and i have yet to get a legal buck gun or bow. I watch my wind, set my stands in bottlenecks, rub lines scrape areas 100 yards downwind of bedding areas on trails all the good spots ect. but all i see and maybe get are does. ive see nsome nice bucks from some of thses stands but they always throw me a curve. wrong trail, too far, to thick ect. this is my third year bow and fifth year gun hunting and a legal buck has yet to fall to my choice of weapon. any buck ive had in my sights was a result of climbing out of my stand and trying to stalk them. any tips on better stand placement and how to get these smart deer?

[Gissert]

From your post, it looks like you are doing the right things.

I am convinced one of the biggest factors in success that is often overlooked is simple: Sitting still.

Scent control, location, time of day, etc. are so often covered in many magazine articles and TV shows, but simply concentrating on eliminatating sudden movements can be the biggest factor in success. That first hour or so is easy. When you are 3 plus hours into a stand is when it gets hard, and where I still struggle.

[CodyDawg]

Gissert makes a great point. many people just cant slow down their lives while on stand. I look at it this way, there is normal time and there is woods time. Under normal time, if you want a candy bar, you reach into your bag, unwrap it and chow down. On woods time, this should take you a half hour.

Another thing I will add is noise. Any noise. We have a hunter in our party who coughs, clears his throat, etc all the time. I can hear him over 200 yards away! He rarely shoots a deer and is in a prime spot.

Oh, one more possibility, if you are shooting the does, are you making sure there is not a buck following them before you drop the string/hammer? A large percentage of the time, bucks will be following does...as much as hundreds of yards behind. So if you kill her, you wont see him. Just a thought. Also, have you tried grunting? I have pulled in quite a few buck by grunting and have never scared one off. Good luck to ya.

[Stratosman]

Biggest piece of advice I can give is to not get discouraged, only third year of bowhunting and no buck? I don't think I arrowed my first bow buck until after 5 or six years. Now it is almost every year. Goes to show you how time in the woods and knowledge acquired by experience is your greatest tool, learning behavior, patterns, locations and techniques all play a role. Hunting in the peak periods is a huge key to bagging a buck as well. In October most bucks will develop nocturnal patterns making it difficult to bag a buck, let alone a mature one, it still happens, just not as frequently. But come then end of October until the first weekend of gun season, I would try to spend as much time in the woods as possible, it will happen, I guarantee if you put the time in you will have an opportunity. Also don't overhunt a location, two consecutive days in a stand is my max. roatate spots, keeping them fresh. Everything else according to your post seems like you're on the right path, one day the pieces will fit and you'll score. The first one is the hardest!

[bigbucks]

I would agree with most of what was said. I didn't kill my first deer with a bow until year 3. (Yes, I missed a few those first couple of years.) I didn't shoot another bow deer until year 6. Then later that year I shot a 6 pointer with the bow. In the 8-9 years since then I've only not shot at least two deer with my bow once & that year I lost a smallish 8 pointer that would have been deer number two. I've gotten much pickier with bucks, but definitely could have shot at least one every year since then & probably 10 different ones each of the last few years, 3 so far this year. Keep being diligent & spending your time out there learning, looking for new spots, trying different tactics & it will all click eventually. Once you learn exactly how & when to hunt one certain spot, you can start applying that to other areas. They won't all work the same, but there will be a pattern to each one. It won't always seem logical, but somehow it will be.

I agree on the movement thing to a point, but over the years I've learned if you're careful with your movements & always looking, it's amazing what you can get away with sometimes. Noise not so much, unless it's a natural noise. I'd much rather risk the noise of breaking off a limb I didn't realize was in my way, than give up a big chunk of good shooting area, especially if it's windy. Branches break in the woods all the time & most of those sounds the deer would have to be awfully close for it to be noticeable to them.

[NELS-BELLS]

Location, location, location and I'm not talking about stand location, although that is very important also. I am talking about the property that you are hunting. If it is a heavily hunted area...good luck, because you will need lots of it. You need to find some good private land that is not overhunted if you really want to put the odds in your favor and then you need to call me so I can hunt it with you.

Nels

[pikerliker]

Gissert I agree totally with you!! I've shot my best bucks when I was able to sit still and be comfortable for a long time. Bring a bottle up the tree to pee in, make sure your tree stand is comfortable for you, etc. Experiment and find out what it takes to stay put! Also work on reducing any noisy clothing, crunchy candy bar wrappers, etc. Some times you don't realize that a candy bar wrapper in single digit temps in the woods sounds like a train coming through when your ripping it open and crumpeling it up. It's also an unnatural noise which will draw a deers attention much more quickly than say a twig snapping which is a normal sound in the woods.

~piker

[FL SNIPER]

I unwrap the candy bars and other food and put them in a zip lock baggy before I head out hunting. I've found the zip lock baggy makes much less noise than a regular candy wrapper and only eat and move during off peak times. I agree with the pee bottle idea...I always use a gatorade bottle...has to be big mouth style !

[Froggy4371]

I totally agree with Gisert!! I did not shoot a deer with my bow for 8 years! That is any deer. When I finally did I got the monkey off my back and hunting has been great ever since. I found out that the smallest movement is your down fall. And being quiet is the next biggest down fall. I know my scent control works cause the one woods I hunt the deer always come in down wind of me. But my problem was I was not comfortable in the stand. I could not sit still for more then hour or hour and a half. I finally got different stands. All I had was cheep ones. Very uncomfortable. Now I have better ones that I can sit in for 4+ hours. It also takes practice to do this. But any movement is a big deal.

Good Luck and SIT STILL!!!

Froggy

[BLACKJACK]

Lots of good advice here. If you want to shoot a buck, you need many stand sites, if you overhunt a stand and they figure you out, you'll never get a buck. You also need to get out hunting as much as possible, you can't get one laying in bed, you need to spend some time in the stand. I'm not one for sitting in a stand all day or even all morning, but I go hunting often and try to hit those prime two hours at sunrise and sunset. Also, hunt the does, eventually the bucks will come looking for them. Good luck.

[tripper]

Some very good advice already given here so I'll just add somthing that hasn't been mentioned and works for me in certain places. When hunting a wood lot off a field, power line, or slash and not having any luck I will move to the edge of the opening and observe for a few days to see what trails the deer a useing the most to enter or cross the openings. If I spot a buck I realy want I will observe him for a few more days and then set up a stand on both sides of his trail/trails so that I can hunt either one of our dominating winds.

[Bassboy1645]

Thanks for the advice guys and yes ill admitt sittign still is hard for me to do. i recently moved to this area from up north a little farther were there were ALOt more deer. some nights a a guy could see one hundread diff deer in some of my stands and now im lucky to see five deer. i guess you can say im a little spoiled. ive gotten three deer so far with my bow. i dont over hunt my stands cause i got them spread all over the county so i look at the wind and time of year and go oh this looks like a good spot today. im lucky if i could put two days in one stand even if i wanted too. f#@!^%$ work these days i tell ya. sittign still is what im working on but even when i do it seems like i dont see any. grunting and yes rattling has worked for me too but then deer tend to circle downwind. the land i hunt is all pulic except one tract but none fo those public tracts get hit hard pressure wise the whole year. any other advice or encouragement? thanks!!!!!!

[kc0myy]

"The Rut" is another big factor. Because in peak rut all the buck is thinking of is getting a little nookey for the doe or does next door. because buck does not really follow a doe around unless around the rut most is the peak rut. Thats why Minnesota does not have a lot of big bucks because we have our hunting at peak rut. Minnesota has a few big buck but not many. (I am a young pub when its coming to hunting I know I am going to catch some *&$%# for say this). Thats because around the peak rut buck let there guard down and they don't get spook at easy. Just my 2 cents later