Unlearning your bad hunting habits.

[Ack]

I still keep my eyes open for the rut funnels, but am now much more focused on trying to find the buck bedding areas. Need to have options for all times of the season.

[Czabs]

It seems like I'm always in an rush. Whether its hunting or scouting i always want to be moving fast and when you move fast you overlook the little important details. I need to slow down more and really think about things when scouting and get to where I'm hunting earlier so I can take my time to my stand.

[Jay]

I think my worst habit is my entry and exit to my stands. I belive I'm undetected when I go in before daylight for some reason and thats just not the case. When you hunt hill country sometimes you just can't get to where you need to be without walking for a couple of hours, crossing the deer trails, or crossing property lines where people don't want you to be. For years I have leaned on darkness as a crutch and it has done more harm than good, this year is going to be different.

[Edcyclopedia]

I just got back from camp last night w/ Jake (his 1st time)...

My goal was to setup some stands in a flurry as it's 1 3/4 hours from home.
The typical "old stand" locations tweaked for "current sign", etc...
The difficult part is not much time prior to the season for a good attempt at a real hunt (this is something I need to change too!!!)

While I was considering a fairly new location w/ good browse due to strip cutting the last two years, good tracks / good terrain.
I decided not to waste the energy and placed a Trail Cam for recon instead of locking myself into this spot.
Hard to tell what's walking around without any sightings, so the cam should help me figure out IF I'll waste my time.

Back to camp in 3-4 weekends should yield some results...!
Good or bad I would have usually burned 2 weekends until moving my stand...

I actually spent more time in the vehicle looking for 4-fingered tracks in the usual crossing spots than ever before.
I need to locate bigger deer not "JUST DEER"...

[backstraps]

I caught myself yesterday, almost getting lazy and was going to take a short cut over a ridge, rather than staying on the direction I was going.

The direction I was going kept my scent from blowing to a potential bedding area. Crossing the ridge to take a shortcut, would have blown my scent right over the edge down into the wind tunnel.

All the little mistakes add up!

[Stanley]

Getting stuck in bow mode can hinder your success when gun hunting. I remember about 25 years ago, late season muzzle loader season after bow season. I spotted a buck in a timber about 100 yards from where I was at. My mind was stuck in bow mode, I snapped into reality and said to myself all I have to do is cut 25 yards off the distance and I can pop him. The gun was an old flint lock, not the new stuff of today. If I would have stayed in bow mentality I never would have gotten a shot at that buck.

[bucksnbows]

Folks that have used the standard deer hunting methods may find it hard to get into Beast mode.

But if you do not have alot of bedding located, just starting to hunt different spots....scouting ready to hunt while carrying your stand in/out can provide good results.

I hope everyone has a productive season.

Thats a great idea.
My bad habit I can't break is getting off of one property and hunting some others. I'm working on it but I keep heading back to the old honey hole more than I should.

[dan]

bump

[keb]

I still hunt allot of funnels, but you can't find them very easy on a map, takes some boot leather, I am almost convinced that older deer, even if hey have never been thru that spot will avoid the no brainier funnels. I have watched them, cut the funnel and cross in the open or go thru stuff that would tear your clothes off to avoid certain terrain features.

[ Post made via iPad ]

[keb]

One of my biggest bad habitats I have gotten a handle on was trying to use tactics that everybody else was using, I would get what everybody else got, not much. I make my plan of attack, where things tell me to make it, even if it ridiculous.

[ Post made via iPad ]

[JoeRE]

Patience. I grew up hunting every day of bow season. Often 40, 50 days straight before getting burned out and shooting any old deer just to get it over with. I burned out about every spot I had most seasons. When I learned to hunt a spot only when it is the very best time for it my success with mature bucks skyrocketed. I now have almost no stand sites that I allow myself to hunt more than two times a season.

[dan]

The best way to unlearn old habits is to have success with your new tactics.

[PK_]

If the spot is easy to get to and looks really good(to the average hunter), keep looking.

I look for spots that are hard to access or just plain do not look like good deer habitat.

But it's easy to settle and talk yourself into a low quality sit because a spot looks 'deery'. This happened to me last year a few times. What I did towards the end of the year to combat this, was instead of sitting in the low odds spot, I picked out a new section I was unfamiliar with and still-hunted while scouting. While this didn't pay off with any nice bucks I did discover plenty of good spots and also was able to lay down some pork.

Scout, scout, scout... My worst habit is not having enough time to scout. I thought this year would be different. Not the case...

[trdtnlbwhntr]

I guess my biggest problem is that I am a deer hunter and haven't gotten the confidence built up to pick a target buck and chase him around from bed to bed trying to get an arrow in him. My biggest hang-up is this train of thought, "If I get too aggressive and bump him off the property, my chances of killing him are effectively zero. If I can hunt him on fringes and not disrupt his routine, my chances are effectively slightly better."

I need to realize that bed hunting can move those odds in my favor dramatically, but there is still that lingering issue that getting it wrong one time alleviates all possibilities of encounters for the remainder of the year.

[Black Squirrel]

I guess my biggest problem is that I am a deer hunter and haven't gotten the confidence built up to pick a target buck and chase him around from bed to bed trying to get an arrow in him. My biggest hang-up is this train of thought, "If I get too aggressive and bump him off the property, my chances of killing him are effectively zero. If I can hunt him on fringes and not disrupt his routine, my chances are effectively slightly better."

I need to realize that bed hunting can move those odds in my favor dramatically, but there is still that lingering issue that getting it wrong one time alleviates all possibilities of encounters for the remainder of the year.

This is especially true for guys who have small properties or not a lot of areas to hunt.