I think it would be beneficial to share some of the blunders we have made of the years, particularly those early days
i'll start:
I found a great spot to hunt, new oak shelter cut with tons of forbs and grasses, plus it was raining acorns. There was also another younger stand of oaks raining acorns.
My setup was on the back side of the recent cut, lots of sign, rubs scrapes popped up all over as the season progressed, I was determined to shoot a deer in this spot, problem was every time I sat here, the deer played cat and mouse with me, I sit on the south side, I see them on the north side vice versa The other problem was when I did have deer in front of me, it was after shooting hours expired, so I was stuck in the tree or had to climb down and spook them out.
Now this spot took me past a nice oak stand next to a bedding area, every time I walked out I kicked deer out of that oak stand.
It obvious I was making a ton of mistakes; I was in deer and spooking the crap out of them, but then again they never vacated the spot, so they had me pegged.
1st mistake …that first set of oaks with deer always in it that I always walked by walked past with a bedding area right next to it, I never hunted in that oak stand
2nd mistake I never scouted to see where those deer where coming from on the cut I was sitting on. Deer always came from the west, behind me. I later discovered there was another cut behind me and the deer were walking up a draw, my scent was going right to them and they just adjusted to avid me.
3rd mistake, I was afraid to sit in a different place because I was seeing deer, but seeing deer after shooting hrs is not seeing deer when you can hunt them, it’s like driving down a road and claiming you saw deer while hunting
What I should have done was set up closer to the bedding areas and intercepted the deer, rather I was setting up in the food and the deer were hitting that right about dark just after shooting hrs.
And oh yeah, there was a back door entrance, another road to the west of my stand locations, it was a shorter walk and I would have had another option for the wind to access the site (not that I was playing the wind, not even trying)
I had two great setups all to myself and didn't know how to hunt it
i did finally figure out how to hunt this area, couple years later....
