Every time a hunter sets foot in the woods there are a whole slew of dangers lurking. An unseen twig that crunches underfoot, an errant move that catches a deer’s eye, an escaping gaseous plume that takes to the air and lingers in a whitetail’s nostrils. But of the million little things that could go wrong, some errors are much worse than others. They are big and dumb, and worse yet, get made over and over again. These egregious hunt- destroyers need to be avoided at all costs, and the good news is that if you can avoid them, your odds of taking an exceptional whitetail skyrocket. Yes, I’m guilty of many of these myself. I share from experience and observation – with the goal of maybe helping us all get a bit better at this thing we love, called hunting. So, with that in mind, here are 6 totally dumb things I’ve noticed hunters do, in no particular order, that hopefully you can eliminate as an “I wish I wouldn’t have..”
1. Morning Entries Through Food
As a public land hunter it amazes me how many hunters are guilty of this one. Just this year I slipped into a transition area deep in a swamp attempting to catch deer coming to bed from nearby crop fields at daylight. I entered from the side and in a way that was not near the fields, which I planned well ahead of time. About half an hour before first light, a handful of deer came crashing through from the direction of the field and hightailed it into the swamp. I shook my head because I knew what spooked them, and as I peered through the dark toward the field, a hunter’s headlight pierced the gray and bobbed into the woods. Apparently pushing the deer off their nighttime feeding area to get to his stand seemed like a good idea.
When this egregious hunting act is done, it spooks the deer you are trying to hunt, literally driving them off and ensuring you will not have any chance at them. It also educates them and causes deer to head to bedding earlier and earlier, making your chances less and less as the season progresses.
This also happens often in other food sources like food plots and stands of oaks dropping acorns. Whatever the food source, you simply must not walk through it or near it for your morning entry. The fix is simple: think through your entry routes and enter from another direction well ahead of when deer will be approaching. Such an easy solution, but one many overlook.
2. Bedding Area Scent-Bombing
For evening sits, most hunters are trying to catch deer coming from bedding and heading toward food. Therefore the set up is somewhere between the two or even at the food source. Many times though, I see well intentioned hunters eagerly walking toward their secret evening hotspot full of wonder and anticipation, but with one major oversight – the wind is at their backs. Most of these hunters don’t practice adequate scent control (which is very difficult while walking due to perspiration and skin exposure to the wind), and thus let their stench blow throughout the bedding area holding the deer they wish to hunt. They then proceed to set up with high expectations, which quickly fades to disillusionment when they don’t see much.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m one-hundred percent for a good scent control regimen (see mine HERE), but on entries you really have to mind where the wind is blowing even still, as this is your greatest opportunity to be scented due to the physical nature of walking and odors your body creates doing this. Think through your entries and be smart about where the deer are, and where your wind is blowing on all parts of your route. Be willing to reroute how you approach and walk well out of your way if that’s what is necessary.
3. Poor Evening Extractions
Some locations, like food sources, are easy to get to for an evening hunt. Deer are usually hundreds of yards away bedded with no clue of your entry. Great! The problem is when dark sneaks in and deer are still right in front of you chowing down, can you get out undetected? Just busting them off as you leave completely compromises the stand location, and possibly for the rest of the year. But many people get caught in this predicament without good pre thought as to their extraction. I call these kamikaze hunts, because they are essential one and done death missions.
A better approach is to plan a stealthy extraction. If you’re sitting on a field let’s say, this could be a person in a vehicle coming at dark to bump deer off and pick you up. Another solution is waiting until very dark and escaping a backdoor route through a bedding area that has been vacated, slipping down the backside of a hill, or via a ditch or ravine away from where the deer are. Planning ahead is the key to a stealthy extraction.
4. Blowing Out Scrapes
I recently saw a video by a fairly well known hunting group where they were demonstrating making mock scrapes. The hunter in frame was doing this with his everyday tennis shoes on. He proceeded to dance around, kick out the dirt, and put some sort of scent with his bare hands on the licking branch – an attempt at humor I suppose. I’m not sure if he was totally serious, but the message sent was “deer don’t mind human scent all over their primary communication hub.” This is the worst advice, verbal or not, anyone could give.
Does and bucks both visit scrapes, leaving and receiving vital communication to and from all other deer in the area. Why then would you want to directly communicate to all deer “beware, a human has invaded your home might try to kill you!”? You would only do this if you were trying to warn deer, not shoot one. If you are making a mock scrape, make sure to use scent-free rubber boots (consider hip boots to keep scent off all ground cover), rubber gloves, and do not touch any branch with your clothing. You need to fool ALL deer, so take extreme caution with your scent footprint in the entire area.
5. Trail Camera Reverse Surveillance
A couple years ago I ran across a trail camera set on public land and I remember thinking, “that’s the worst possible placement I’ve ever seen!” No offense fellow hunter, but I see this a lot – a trail camera set directly on a main trail and at head height to a deer. This puts the foreign object front and center to any deer traveling that trail, so it almost has to be seen and smelled by every deer using it. I’m sure it seemed like a great spot to capture deer pictures at the time it was placed, however, a trail camera is supposed to surveil deer movement, not the reverse – let them surveil and detect us (which is exactly what this setup did).
Trail cameras can also hold a lot of scent, on the surface as well as on the strap. Again, this is tipping your hand to deer, which can immediately alter deer movement. Practice the same scent regimen as above when setting and checking trail cams for this reason. Also, cameras should be placed at least head high so they cannot be directly sniffed by deer and are less visible, at a 45 degree angle to a main trail so they are directly in line of sigh, and a good 5-10 yards away. If you know the camera’s nighttime capabilities (usually its worst), try to set the camera at its maximum capture distance so the deer has a much harder time detecting it. Placing leaves and branches around it for better camouflage can help, but beware as many times these fall in front of the sensor causing false triggers and thousands of leaf pictures you have to sort through. This can even make you have to return to fix the problem, leaving extra pressure or scent in the area.
6. Over-Hunting “Hot Spots”
Sometimes you just need to know when to let go. Hunting tends to lead to emotional attachments, just like that old worn pair of jeans you keep wearing and can’t turn into rags. In hunting this translates to fixating on a certain stand location and hunting it over and over thinking this approach will produce results. I call this the “hunt harder myth,” and it destroys more hunts than almost any blunder.
Maybe you just like the spot because it looks like a buck killer, or maybe because you shot a good one there years ago and “just know” you will again. Either way, hunting a “hot spot” too much and adds pressure, causing it to cool off and fizzle quicker than a 4th of July sparkler. The solution here is easy – have more spots. Keeping a good variety of locations you can hunt for various times of year always gives you options, and keeps you from wearing a spot thinner than that pair of jeans.
BONUS: Fence Sittin
Unless you have an understanding with your neighbor, it makes little sense to hunt very close to property lines. First it can come across as rude, and unless a very good reason exists (for example, maybe it’s a thick small pocket where you have intel telling you that’s the exact spot to surgically remove a buck), you are decreasing your shot opportunities by about 50% (180 degrees of your horizon being on the neighboring property). So, think about that if you find yourself straddling the fence, and be honest about if it’s just “the grass is greener” mentality driving you to do so.
High IQ Takeaways & Challenges:
- Which 1 of the 6 struck a nerve with you? What immediate steps can you take to fix this big mistake?
- Is there a buddy you thought of when you read one of these? Send this article to him now!
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