So you have six months?

[seazofcheeze]

Very tough question. If we only had 6 months and no prior experience, i think this would be an incredibly hard goal to accomplish.

In your example, let's assume the season is 3 to 4 months long, which is pretty typical in Midwest states. That means you'd have 2-3 months of prep. And let's say 100 days to hunt. I think I'd actually opt to skip spring scouting (even though I'm a huge advocate of it when using the traditional scout then hunt approach).

So, I'd say...

#1. Find the bucks, with the "s" on bucks being very important. If this was truly life and death, I'm going to assume we have basically unlimited time in our 2-3 month pre season time frame. I'm going to spend the last two hours of every night glassing areas I can hunt or areas immediately adjacent to where I can hunt. I NEED an inventory of target animals (4.5+) that exist in areas I can hunt. Not every property will hold this caliber of buck and if it's life or death, the more unknowns I can eliminate, the better.

If I can shine in this state, I'm going to spend an equal or greater amount of time shining. Bucks move more at night pre-season, so shining is possibly the most effective tool for locating as many target bucks as quickly as podsible. Again, my goal is to locate as many bucks as I can of stated caliber (4.5+ in this example.)

If it's legal to bait or run minerals, I'd also run as many bait/mineral sites with cams as I could manage/afford, although oir hypothetical situation is life or death, so if be less worried about the affordability issue. Again, I NEED an inventory.

2. Read maps. This is a tough one. If we are assuming I only have six months to do this and no prior experience, this could be potentially disastrous (I could make mistakes or misinterpret the maps). For the sake of argument, let's say I am a competent map reader. Once I've located buck (s) in step one. I'm going to look at a map of the area and focus on an area about a 1-mile radius from where the buck was spotted. I might look at a slightly larger area (say 2 mile radius) if there aren't any typical big buck bedding areas (swamps/low pressure/overlooked, etc). in my initial search area and I have strong reason to believe there's a more big buck friendly fall range nearby.

I'd then break the area down into a grid with each square in my map grid being approximately 40 acres. In a square mile, which is 640 acres, that'd give me (16) 40 acre parcels to look at. I would rank each parcel in order from 1-16, with the intent to hunt the best looking (i.e. highest odds) pieces first and moving on to the second best areas second and so on.

Let's assume I find (5) 4.5+ bucks pre season. I would now have 80 (16 40-acre parcels per buck located, times 5 bucks =16×5=80) potential hunting locations. It woild actually be less because some 40 acres parcels might consist of lakes, houses, off limits land, etc. This why I think #1 "find the bucks" is so important. If i found 20 bucks pre season instead of 5, i could be hunting a top 5 40 acre parcels (on our 1-16 scale) every time out (20 bucks times the 5 best 40 acre parcels in each bucks range=20×5=100). I think this is one of the biggest key ingredients to Dan's success. Hunting a high odds setup EVERY time out. Dan's accumulated these spots through thousands of hours in the field, scouting, experience, etc. In our example, we will rely on Dan's methods without the luxury of being able to validate the spots with years of prior Intel and kills.

#3 Time to hunt. Now that I've located target bucks via glassing/shining/cams and thoroughly cyber scouted the area, I'm going to break the season down by phases. I'm going to hunt each phase slightly differently. I won't beat this one to death, but basically early and late season, I'm hunting bed to food setups, during the rut I'm hunting doe bedding and funnels with good cover. Typical hunting beast methods.

I would let the weather tell me to hunt each day. I've already cyber scouted all these areas to death, so I'm going to put my stand on my back (and a trail cam) and I'm going to head to one of my top rated 40 acre parcels. I already know the immediate area (1 mile) radius holds a buck I am after. Now I am looking for FRESH sign of that buck. If I spot sign of the buck, I am going to deploy my camera and hope to kill the buck that day or gather Intel for another hunt in 2-3 weeks.

If I don't kill the buck AND don't see the buck on the first hunt in one of my highly rated areas, I will MOVE ON to another #1 area the following hunt until I had exhausted my top 5 40-acre parcels (i.e. 1 hunt on each of my 5 #1 rated parcels). Then on hunt 6 I'd move on to my first #2 rated 40 acre parcel, until I had hunted all #2 rated areas, then onto #3 rated pieces and so on. The only way I would deviate from this method is if I saw a target buck out of range or coming from an obvious bedding area. Then I would adjust immediately the following day and move in for a kill until I either killed the buck or failed to see him again. If i failed to see him again, i would definitely hunt the area again aboit 3 weeks later with the Intel gathered from the first hunt. A buck WILL know when I have been in his core area, especially if the intrusion is repeated. MOVE, MOVE, MOVE. I have to stay ahead of the bucks and maintain my biggest assets as a predator, the element of surprise and the ability to think critically.

I'm going to spend absolutely every possible hour I can in the stand from about October 25th through thanksgiving. In real life and in this example, I've read studies and they tell me this IS, unquestionably, the time of the year bucks are most active during daylight. I switch almsot exclusively to rut tactics, but they are still bed-centric.

In closing, that's how I'd do it.
1. Find the bucks
2. Learn in detail the area the bucks are likely living
3. Leverage #1 and #2 to kill the buck.

[ETNyates15]

Very tough question. If we only had 6 months and no prior experience, i think this would be an incredibly hard goal to accomplish.

In your example, let's assume the season is 3 to 4 months long, which is pretty typical in Midwest states. That means you'd have 2-3 months of prep. And let's say 100 days to hunt. I think I'd actually opt to skip spring scouting (even though I'm a huge advocate of it when using the traditional scout then hunt approach).

So, I'd say...

#1. Find the bucks, with the "s" on bucks being very important. If this was truly life and death, I'm going to assume we have basically unlimited time in our 2-3 month pre season time frame. I'm going to spend the last two hours of every night glassing areas I can hunt or areas immediately adjacent to where I can hunt. I NEED an inventory of target animals (4.5+) that exist in areas I can hunt. Not every property will hold this caliber of buck and if it's life or death, the more unknowns I can eliminate, the better.

If I can shine in this state, I'm going to spend an equal or greater amount of time shining. Bucks move more at night pre-season, so shining is possibly the most effective tool for locating as many target bucks as quickly as podsible. Again, my goal is to locate as many bucks as I can of stated caliber (4.5+ in this example.)

If it's legal to bait or run minerals, I'd also run as many bait/mineral sites with cams as I could manage/afford, although oir hypothetical situation is life or death, so if be less worried about the affordability issue. Again, I NEED an inventory.

2. Read maps. This is a tough one. If we are assuming I only have six months to do this and no prior experience, this could be potentially disastrous (I could make mistakes or misinterpret the maps). For the sake of argument, let's say I am a competent map reader. Once I've located buck (s) in step one. I'm going to look at a map of the area and focus on an area about a 1-mile radius from where the buck was spotted. I might look at a slightly larger area (say 2 mile radius) if there aren't any typical big buck bedding areas (swamps/low pressure/overlooked, etc). in my initial search area and I have strong reason to believe there's a more big buck friendly fall range nearby.

I'd then break the area down into a grid with each square in my map grid being approximately 40 acres. In a square mile, which is 640 acres, that'd give me (16) 40 acre parcels to look at. I would rank each parcel in order from 1-16, with the intent to hunt the best looking (i.e. highest odds) pieces first and moving on to the second best areas second and so on.

Let's assume I find (5) 4.5+ bucks pre season. I would now have 80 (16 40-acre parcels per buck located, times 5 bucks =16×5=80) potential hunting locations. It woild actually be less because some 40 acres parcels might consist of lakes, houses, off limits land, etc. This why I think #1 "find the bucks" is so important. If i found 20 bucks pre season instead of 5, i could be hunting a top 5 40 acre parcels (on our 1-16 scale) every time out (20 bucks times the 5 best 40 acre parcels in each bucks range=20×5=100). I think this is one of the biggest key ingredients to Dan's success. Hunting a high odds setup EVERY time out. Dan's accumulated these spots through thousands of hours in the field, scouting, experience, etc. In our example, we will rely on Dan's methods without the luxury of being able to validate the spots with years of prior Intel and kills.

#3 Time to hunt. Now that I've located target bucks via glassing/shining/cams and thoroughly cyber scouted the area, I'm going to break the season down by phases. I'm going to hunt each phase slightly differently. I won't beat this one to death, but basically early and late season, I'm hunting bed to food setups, during the rut I'm hunting doe bedding and funnels with good cover. Typical hunting beast methods.

I would let the weather tell me to hunt each day. I've already cyber scouted all these areas to death, so I'm going to put my stand on my back (and a trail cam) and I'm going to head to one of my top rated 40 acre parcels. I already know the immediate area (1 mile) radius holds a buck I am after. Now I am looking for FRESH sign of that buck. If I spot sign of the buck, I am going to deploy my camera and hope to kill the buck that day or gather Intel for another hunt in 2-3 weeks.

If I don't kill the buck AND don't see the buck on the first hunt in one of my highly rated areas, I will MOVE ON to another #1 area the following hunt until I had exhausted my top 5 40-acre parcels (i.e. 1 hunt on each of my 5 #1 rated parcels). Then on hunt 6 I'd move on to my first #2 rated 40 acre parcel, until I had hunted all #2 rated areas, then onto #3 rated pieces and so on. The only way I would deviate from this method is if I saw a target buck out of range or coming from an obvious bedding area. Then I would adjust immediately the following day and move in for a kill until I either killed the buck or failed to see him again. If i failed to see him again, i would definitely hunt the area again aboit 3 weeks later with the Intel gathered from the first hunt. A buck WILL know when I have been in his core area, especially if the intrusion is repeated. MOVE, MOVE, MOVE. I have to stay ahead of the bucks and maintain my biggest assets as a predator, the element of surprise and the ability to think critically.

I'm going to spend absolutely every possible hour I can in the stand from about October 25th through thanksgiving. In real life and in this example, I've read studies and they tell me this IS, unquestionably, the time of the year bucks are most active during daylight. I switch almsot exclusively to rut tactics, but they are still bed-centric.

In closing, that's how I'd do it.
1. Find the bucks
2. Learn in detail the area the bucks are likely living
3. Leverage #1 and #2 to kill the buck.

Now we are getting somewhere, I love this info. Thank you for the write up, tons of good nuggets in here. More like this please!

[isitseasonyet?]

:pray:

I dunno if anyone else caught this gem of a post. But if it were life and death and you had 6 months to master big buck hunting, I'd be doing a lot of this

[stash59]

If it's life or death just plan on dying.

seasofcheese laid out a good 6 month plan. But realistically finding more than 1 4.5 year old buck is gonna be tough for a greenhorn. Especially on public and pressured private. Even in the state of Iowa or the bluff country of Wis. Learning to kill mature bucks takes time.

I see where your coming from though. We all want to "get there" as fast as possible. But 6 months is unrealistic.

1 year and 6 months may be doable if all you did was eat, sleep and breath it!!!

Now don't give up. Most of the real fun is in the figuring it all out. Really it's all here already. In the all time best tactical threads and in the DVD's.

[magicman54494]

memorize everything on the beast in 5 months then go hunting. lol

I guess that ends up being the point of the question, concatenate everything in Dan's head and condense it into the top 4 or 5 things he would suggest for success. Though the situation is fictional, I feel like the simplistic approach is typically the best so I just wanted to hear what Dan or others would do in the given situation if they were novice and needed to kill an old buck regardless of circumstances.

I'm kinda teasing a bit. but if you really think about it why would you do anything different than any other season. the only exception may be to be a bit more aggressive if its a do or die situation. another thing that would probably end up hurting you would be the pressure factor. pressure will cause you to make poor decisions. its aweful tough to condense a lifetime of experience into 5 tips. there are too many variables.
if it were do or die I'd use a few of those months to relocate to Iowa.

[tgreeno]

memorize everything on the beast in 5 months then go hunting. lol

I guess that ends up being the point of the question, concatenate everything in Dan's head and condense it into the top 4 or 5 things he would suggest for success. Though the situation is fictional, I feel like the simplistic approach is typically the best so I just wanted to hear what Dan or others would do in the given situation if they were novice and needed to kill an old buck regardless of circumstances.

The truth is, if you bust your but for 12 months and are a little lucky...You may have a slight chance to shoot a 4.5 year old buck!

[Stanley]

I would find the best hunter I know and beg him to teach me.

[ETNyates15]

I would find the best hunter I know and beg him to teach me.

Seems like what a lot of us are doing on this site, haha!

[ETNyates15]

If it's life or death just plan on dying.

seasofcheese laid out a good 6 month plan. But realistically finding more than 1 4.5 year old buck is gonna be tough for a greenhorn. Especially on public and pressured private. Even in the state of Iowa or the bluff country of Wis. Learning to kill mature bucks takes time.

I see where your coming from though. We all want to "get there" as fast as possible. But 6 months is unrealistic.

1 year and 6 months may be doable if all you did was eat, sleep and breath it!!!

Now don't give up. Most of the real fun is in the figuring it all out. Really it's all here already. In the all time best tactical threads and in the DVD's.

Agree with you totally that the fun is having that lightbulb go off multiple times over a lifetime and then seeing hard work pay off. It is fun to run this scenario though and see when the pressure is on how different people react.

[ETNyates15]

memorize everything on the beast in 5 months then go hunting. lol

I guess that ends up being the point of the question, concatenate everything in Dan's head and condense it into the top 4 or 5 things he would suggest for success. Though the situation is fictional, I feel like the simplistic approach is typically the best so I just wanted to hear what Dan or others would do in the given situation if they were novice and needed to kill an old buck regardless of circumstances.

I'm kinda teasing a bit. but if you really think about it why would you do anything different than any other season. the only exception may be to be a bit more aggressive if its a do or die situation. another thing that would probably end up hurting you would be the pressure factor. pressure will cause you to make poor decisions. its aweful tough to condense a lifetime of experience into 5 tips. there are too many variables.
if it were do or die I'd use a few of those months to relocate to Iowa.

You are certainly right about the pressure thing and causing rushed descisions so it begs the question to me at least that there would be a better way to do things to prepare. Also agree on the 5 tips but to be honest I do believe there is an order of importance in how to go about this and do feel like it would be possible to do. Example to think about, Tim Ferriss knew nothing about dancing or tango but entered into a international tango competition in his younger days that he had 7 months to prepare. Keep in mind he had no dancing experience so he got two of the most accomplished tango practictioners to teach him exactly what he needed to do to succeed in the competition and also helped him in that time break a world record in tango spins. I believe like this example it is possible to get uncanny results by asking the right questions and giving yourself a timeline to succeed.

[stash59]

memorize everything on the beast in 5 months then go hunting. lol

I guess that ends up being the point of the question, concatenate everything in Dan's head and condense it into the top 4 or 5 things he would suggest for success. Though the situation is fictional, I feel like the simplistic approach is typically the best so I just wanted to hear what Dan or others would do in the given situation if they were novice and needed to kill an old buck regardless of circumstances.

I'm kinda teasing a bit. but if you really think about it why would you do anything different than any other season. the only exception may be to be a bit more aggressive if its a do or die situation. another thing that would probably end up hurting you would be the pressure factor. pressure will cause you to make poor decisions. its aweful tough to condense a lifetime of experience into 5 tips. there are too many variables.
if it were do or die I'd use a few of those months to relocate to Iowa.

You are certainly right about the pressure thing and causing rushed descisions so it begs the question to me at least that there would be a better way to do things to prepare. Also agree on the 5 tips but to be honest I do believe there is an order of importance in how to go about this and do feel like it would be possible to do. Example to think about, Tim Ferriss knew nothing about dancing or tango but entered into a international tango competition in his younger days that he had 7 months to prepare. Keep in mind he had no dancing experience so he got two of the most accomplished tango practictioners to teach him exactly what he needed to do to succeed in the competition and also helped him in that time break a world record in tango spins. I believe like this example it is possible to get uncanny results by asking the right questions and giving yourself a timeline to succeed.

Given this example you need to hire Dan for the 6 months and move in with him.

[UofLbowhunter]

I'll give this a shot, I'm no moderator or Dan or a wise member I just wanna try to see what I've learned!
1 -start with scouting boots on ground , look for tracks around crop or open fields, creek crossing , and dirt roads or any other places like trails or watering hole's you could locate tracks to find an area of hunting choice. Tracks that are typically the size of your four figures are usually older more mature bucks. Note direction of tracks, follow tracks note if there going to or come from possible beds or staging areas or other food sources like oaks or browse! Once this is done go to the topo or aireal maps, mark noted spots, mark any areas of interest trails, funnels, pinch points for cyber scouting, then scout some more as much as possible always looking but not being to over intrusive during season but keeping tabs on hot fresh sign! Paying attention to other people hunting making pressure areas as well could play role when mapping.
2- locate sign- ,scat, rubs (rub direction is good to know) trails that lead to and from this sign will help. Walking transition line will help locate these as well!! Any doe beds in these areas will be good to know to take note. probably all these signs together including doe beds will be key in buck travel through out the year movement patterns.
3- locate beds- find as many as possible, this is most important of all. Then Try to determine if bedding is close to staging or browsing areas generally away from crops or open area food source, depending on hunting pressure. Looking around the 1\3 elevation line in hill country or points of ridges will work good in thickest cover. For swamp or marsh look for islands or isolated trees or point transition lines out in to swamp or marsh can prove to be good as well. When you find these beds take good notes of entrance trail and exit(important for your ambush) exit trails are more wore out generally. Noting bedding imprints will help you determine wind direction, think wind to back, thick to back to get the set up for direction of stand location, best wind would be quartering away or just off the bed slightly but you need to keep in mind deer are almost likely looking down wind.
4-stand site's- Then locate trees for stand sites,or ground ambush sites roughly within 200 yards or closer. You could even back off more and have a observation sit further away to get more info on bedding or picking better attack site. Then pick your entrance to the area that may be has least impact to alarm deer as you approach. Always try to figure out how the wind and or thermals will come into play at your stand, you can best see how these wind currents are moving with milk weed silk, witch works best. Sit once or twice with evening being best but try anytime, then move on! Being mobile will be a benefit to you from bedding area to bedding area,as well as making sudden adjustments afield. A clean, quiet, slow approach and set up will be needed to optimize you success on each hunt!


Hope this is what you looking for ENTyates! Kinda hoping for some other good post as well to compare my notes as well!!

[JoeRE]

A lot of very good points made already, even the ones made in jest. Tim Ferriss is a bit of a controversial figure, I think he has a lot of good points about what we can make our bodies do, but its worth remembering his #1 goal through all of it is to sell/promote his books, speeches, business ideas, etc. What there is no doubt he has mastered is self promotion. So I look at all of it with a healthy dose of caution...

If it isn't a life or death situation there's no sense in getting worked up over a middle aged 4 legged herbivore. If it is life or death, as the hypothetical situation is proposed, then I would copper my bets. That means I am using the most lethal weapon I can find and killing it in any manner that I can. I sure am not using a bow. The idea of mastering hunting mature bucks in 6 months just isn't going to happen. If it was, man that would become boring fast. But its certainly possible to kill a buck. As Magic said first step might be move to Iowa I laugh but frankly its a good first step. Then soak up ideas on this site and Dan's DVDs and put them to work in the field.

[IndianOutlaw]

Life or Death huh? Id locate the buck(s) first then rig up trip wires with IED's and place one on every game trail in the area, when one is tripped go check it, no 4 year old buck? reset it. Dont care about collateral damage, its my life or theirs and imma take mine over theirs anyday. Problem solved.

[ETNyates15]

A lot of very good points made already, even the ones made in jest. Tim Ferriss is a bit of a controversial figure, I think he has a lot of good points about what we can make our bodies do, but its worth remembering his #1 goal through all of it is to sell/promote his books, speeches, business ideas, etc. What there is no doubt he has mastered is self promotion. So I look at all of it with a healthy dose of caution...

If it isn't a life or death situation there's no sense in getting worked up over a middle aged 4 legged herbivore. If it is life or death, as the hypothetical situation is proposed, then I would copper my bets. That means I am using the most lethal weapon I can find and killing it in any manner that I can. I sure am not using a bow. The idea of mastering hunting mature bucks in 6 months just isn't going to happen. If it was, man that would become boring fast. But its certainly possible to kill a buck. As Magic said first step might be move to Iowa I laugh but frankly its a good first step. Then soak up ideas on this site and Dan's DVDs and put them to work in the field.

Agree with you on his self promotion, but you can't deny that he has been able to self promote because he has gotten very good at many things in a very short amount of time and people want to learn how he has done it. In no way do I mean on this thread to actually do this scenario or that I look at hunting from as a quick success thing but it is worth thinking about it in this context to me. The perspective I really want is: "Hey [insert any much better hunter on this site], knowing what you know now and have learned over the years if you were to start all over at the beginning what are the steps old you would tell young you to be more successful.