Whitetail Strategies book

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JakeJD
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Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:30 am

I read this book over a few evenings last week:

http://www.amazon.com/Whitetails-Unprec ... strategies

Dr. Sheppard lives in Alabama and has assembled the most impressive amount of data and unique multivariate analysis of whitetail behavior available. He has a data base with over 35,000 hunter days logged. In addition, he is a successful hunter having taken over a thousand whitetails during his life (one buck and one doe per day in Alabama).

I have read many good books over the years and I look forward to reading nearly everything available. But, this book stands out as a great piece of hunting literature. Well worth your $15; check it out.

Here is the synopsis on Amazon:

Biological research in recent years has brought to light much concerning the nutrition, biology, and habitat of the whitetail. But there has always been a paucity of hard data involved in the actual hunting of whitetails. This book brings to bear more than twenty years of didactic research concerning the weather conditions that drive the daytime movement activities of the whitetail. Dr. Sheppard has prospectively joined together data from Bent Creek Lodge, one of the South's largest commercial hunting operations and data from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather database to study daytime whitetail movement patterns in ways never before considered. An intense statistical analysis of these unique data uncovers some of the most profound insights known to date concerning daytime whitetail activities. More than 35,000 hunter days of data have been accumulated and blended with daily weather data to provide practical information that can, and should, change the way you think about whitetails, and definitely the way you hunt them.


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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:38 am

To put it succinctly, the best days for daytime movement of whitetail deer are cold, clear, and windy (in that order). Cold is relative to the time of year and region (20-30 degree day in Nebraska in October is cold, etc.). Clear is self explanatory. Lastly, all of his data pointed to an linear increase of the odds at seeing and harvesting deer the windier the conditions; the more wind the better.

Remember this is a statistical analysis of over 35,000 hunter days logged in his data base. His solid conclusions go against the grain of some very commonly held beliefs, but his conclusions are much more than anecdotal observations that most hunters hold true.
Last edited by JakeJD on Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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xpauliber
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby xpauliber » Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:39 am

Aww shucks...another piece to add to the library :mrgreen:

Thanks for the info.
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:59 am

Interesting. I saw the cold and clear coming, but I wasn't expecting windier to be better.

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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby Maple_Ridge » Tue Mar 19, 2013 10:43 am

The clear skies tripped me up. Usually I figured overcast skies were better.

I have heard windy days are better. Supposedly the wind starts the trees a' rocking and the deer dont like it at all. Gets em moving. On the flip side......I pulled an all day sit last fall in the wind and RAIN. They did not move then.

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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Tue Mar 19, 2013 10:44 am

bowhunter15 wrote:Interesting. I saw the cold and clear coming, but I wasn't expecting windier to be better.

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Yep, it is contrary to what most hunter assume and it was contrary to Bob's own theory / assumption regarding wind velocity. Bob theorizes that it probably has to do with the fact that most hunters leave the woods after a couple hours if it is cold and windy. Thus, hunters do not see and do not kill as many deer when it is cold and windy because they are not in the woods and hunters use this anecdotal evidence to assume that the deer did not move as well because of the wind and because the wind (accompanied with cold) is a very notable feature of the hunting day.

Bob presents the data in a very understandable way. He talks about the likelihood of seeing / killing deer on any particular day. Cold matched with wind and clear skies consistently had the greatest daytime movement. No other factor (moon phase, moon rise / set times, etc.) had any noticeable, consistent affect on daytime movement.

Bob also talks about only hunting a stand one time per year. His data shows the decreasing likelihood of seeing / killing any deer with return trips. It goes something like this:

Under prime conditions, walking into the wind with a skilled hunter, the likelihood of killing any deer at a great spot are around 90-95%. The second trip to the stand that year, this likelihood drops to around 30-40% and so on. The odds of seeing / killing a mature buck are much worse and drop even more significantly with repeated trips to the stand locations. Pretty much backs up what most Beast members observe.

Keep in mind that Bob mainly hunts the South (Alabama) in vast forested areas.
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby muskieman » Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:00 pm

The craziest thing I heard from this post is that you can shoot a buck and a doe every day! That is crazy, either they have a ton of deer or no hunters.... Sorry to get of topic..
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:50 pm

Interesting stuff!

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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Tue Mar 19, 2013 3:00 pm

Alabama has both a ton of deer and a ton of hunters. But they also have a ton of habitat.

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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JoeRE » Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:30 pm

Interesting stuff, I like data :lol: I would say "yep" to all 3 although the windy bit makes where you hunt a little more important in many terrains.

It appears he only looked at weather and not moon phase & transit correlations or lack thereof? I would have loved to see a massive amount of data plotted against moon position...my results are promising but limited.
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby PK_ » Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:14 am

JoeRE wrote:Interesting stuff, I like data :lol: I would say "yep" to all 3 although the windy bit makes where you hunt a little more important in many terrains.

It appears he only looked at weather and not moon phase & transit correlations or lack thereof? I would have loved to see a massive amount of data plotted against moon position...my results are promising but limited.


It is all in there, the moon info blew me away. The deer movement analysis is all multi-variable, so you really are getting a big picture.

I will say that some of his data is very regional, the windy days and south winds info does not hold water where I hunt.

Overall this is one of my top 3 favorites, and I have read quite a few.
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:10 am

JoeRE wrote:Interesting stuff, I like data :lol: I would say "yep" to all 3 although the windy bit makes where you hunt a little more important in many terrains.

It appears he only looked at weather and not moon phase & transit correlations or lack thereof? I would have loved to see a massive amount of data plotted against moon position...my results are promising but limited.



Bob did include the moon phase and moon set / rise time in his data. He found that only the weather variables had a significant effect on daytime movement. He mentions in his book that he hunted by the moon and expected the moon to play a role in daytime movement. However, the moon did not show a significant effect on daytime movement through the 35,000 hunter days.

With so much data and with so many variables logged, Bob was able to hold multiple variables with a given range and analyze a single variable to see if that variable affected daytime movement. This is what he referred to as multivariate analysis.

In example, say the data is analyzed for the effect of wind on daytime deer movement. Bob would hold the other variables within some range (temp 45-55 degrees, bright moon [full or within three days of a full moon], etc.) and inspect that single variable. Without such a vast amount of data, multivariate anaylsis would not have been possible and some of the conclusions would have been erroneous.
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:18 am

PalmettoKid wrote:It is all in there, the moon info blew me away. The deer movement analysis is all multi-variable, so you really are getting a big picture.

I will say that some of his data is very regional, the windy days and south winds info does not hold water where I hunt.

Overall this is one of my top 3 favorites, and I have read quite a few.


I agree. With 35,000 hunter days in the database, the conclusions are pretty solid.

Bob admits that he mainly has hunted the vast forests of the South on mostly low to moderate pressure areas. Just like you mentioned, the south wind thing seems to be a regional deal. However, Bob did discuss how the direction of the wind was not important, only the fact that they almost never have cold weather matched with a southerly wind in Alabama. The important variables are the temperature relative to the average temperature for the given time of the year, the cloud conditions, and the wind velocity.

I will grant him the first two variables, but I look forward to seeing if his wind velocity conclusions hold up in the Midwest.
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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby binney59 » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:03 am

Just when a guy starts to think he's on to something another beast member has to expose him to something radically different! Sheesh!

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Re: Whitetail Strategies book

Unread postby JakeJD » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:40 am

binney59 wrote:Just when a guy starts to think he's on to something another beast member has to expose him to something radically different! Sheesh!

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In the book, Dr. Sheppard discusses the fact that all deer are naturally nocturnal animals and 90% of the herd on any given day will remain in the safety of their core bedding areas and not venture into the open before dark. His hunting strategy revolves around locating corridors, funnels, pinch points, etc. close to bedding areas that can be effectively accessed (walk into the wind) and hunted with northerly winds. He also mentions that he spends 90% of his time scouting and only 10% of his time hunting. Dr. Sheppard hunts like a Beast!

I am fairly new to precision bowhunting and "bed" hunting. And, I am still focusing my scouting efforts on locating bedding areas (mainly buck beds) and then coming up with a plan to effectively hunt the buck close to his core, safety zone. I have hunted enough to experience the futility of hunting away from bedding areas and without an effective hunting plan (hoping on luck or a random mistake during the rut). However, I will make an extra effort to hunt the days this fall that are seasonably cold with clear skies and some wind. I am trying to hunt smarter, not harder.
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