Sometimes Lessons Need To Be Relearned

Robert WellerFriends of ELO, Hunting Ethics & Safety, Hunting Tips & Techniques

Well folks I don’t know about you but we had a decent deer season for 2024. A total of 6 deer were taken off the property we hunt this year and every one of them by yours truly. Not for lack of effort by my son or the landowner (Steve) and his daughter, but I just seemed to be the one blessed with the most opportunities. The old saying goes, I’d rather be lucky than good any day. Not to discount the skill and knowledge that are needed to successfully hunt a mature whitetail, but the truth is sometimes you just get lucky. We watched several nice bucks during the early archery season passing on a few while hoping to see a bigger one. For me, it seemed whenever I saw the big ones, they were out of bow range, on the wrong side of a branch, tree or just not presenting the right angle for a shot. But that’s hunting right? Eventually I did get lucky, and I put a liver shot on a nice eight point from a ground blind one evening with my new Ten Point Stealth 450 crossbow. Wanting so badly to get back on the board with my compound I hunted very hard from November 5th through November 11th. Eventually I ended up putting myself in contention for a real bruiser but when the moment of truth came, I messed up the shot and hit the forbidden shoulder blade. After a long track and kicking him from his bed, I watched him disappear never to be seen again. I passed on every buck I saw during firearm and muzzleloader seasons to ensure I had a tag just in case I was lucky enough to see him again and finish what I started. That day never came and so far, I have not heard of any of the neighbors harvesting him either. I did however get to break in the new 450 barrel on my Thompson Center Encore, shooting a total of 4 does. Two of those this past weekend about 10 minutes apart and both being neck shots, landing them a mere 5 yards apart. No tracking required, just how I like it. It sure was nice to carry the single shot back to the field this season as I had not hunted with my Encore since Michigan started allowing the use of all legal firearms during muzzleloader season several years ago. This year, I let my 18-year-old son carry my AR platform 450 while I opted to carry the more traditional set up. There is just something about manually cocking the hammer that makes harvesting a deer more fulfilling. Additionally, it seemed fitting to switch back to the Encore this year as a celebration of the rebirth of Thompson Center Arms. Of course, I learned of that after I had ordered my custom barrel from MGM, but I look forward to adding other barrels from America’s Master Gunmaker to my arsenal in the future. 

For some reason, the 2024 deer season seemed to be more about learning lessons. Lessons that I really should not be learning at this time in my hunting career. Yet I am humble enough to let the season show me what I need to relearn. I think back to my early years of archery hunting and the success I had. The number of deer I harvested with my bow as a new archery hunter averaged four per season, quite often leaving me without a buck tag for the adjacent firearm season. Back then it was about killing deer pure and simple. I didn’t have fancy scent control clothes or the newest and best equipment. But I practiced shooting my bow and did so very frequently. I studied deer anatomy and aimed for a specific spot in the vital area on every shot.

I quite literally could not miss. In recent years, I’ve gotten sloppy, and have taken to aiming at a general area of the deer. I’ve been so focused on getting the shot off that I’ve forgotten some of the fundamentals. Most of the time I’ve been lucky and made good ethical kill shots. But on occasion there were those long tracks, inevitably leading to lost deer. Buck fever has certainly been a contending factor too as I have let myself become too excited and allowed it to cloud my judgement. All in all, I’ve been lucky to have not lost more than a couple deer over the past ten years because of it. In my early years of archer hunting, I almost always took a doe or two with my bow, however it seems the past several years I have become so focused on chasing trophies that I have gotten away from that. I’ve told myself that bullets are cheaper than arrows and broadheads to justify waiting to harvest a doe until I can do so with a firearm. But I’ve drastically reduced the average number of deer I harvest with a bow each year. Shooting those does was good for my confidence and good practice in general. It helped me focus on making better shots as well as keeping my nerves under control. It also helps build patience because if a doe doesn’t cooperate and give you the shot you need, it’s no big deal, just let down and wait for another doe to come in and give you the angle you want. 

I also spent a great deal of time watching and studying how the deer on the property reacted to the hunting pressure that was being applied. Not only by me and Steve, but also the neighbors. We started the season by hanging only 4 stands this year and it was very easy to tell which stands were hunted the most as the mature bucks and even the older does very quickly learned to avoid them. You would quite often still see the caliber of deer you might be after, but they were just out of range or behind enough cover that a shot was not possible. I’ve always been pretty good at adapting my hunting strategies to be successful. But I guess I just took it for granted until a few weeks ago when Steve told me that I was a more adaptable hunter than he is. That comment has stuck with me since and I have been thinking back on my entire season and asking myself where I might have increased my success if I had been even more adaptable. I ended up shooting my Eight point from a ground blind with a crossbow. Now there are those who cringe just hearing the word crossbow, but if it’s the right tool for the job, you can bet I’ll use it if needed. The second buck I shot, I did so from another box blind albeit an elevated blind, but I shot him with my compound. Now, I ended up losing that deer but that had nothing to do with my hunting strategy, where I was sitting or the equipment I was using. I had seen that buck a few times from a couple of different tree stands and I had a choice to make. The options were to keep hunting tree stands and pray the old boy came within range or sit somewhere I thought I had the best chance to harvest him. The choice to me was obvious and I did the latter but, the comment Steve made got me to thinking and it made me realize that there are probably plenty of times when I have sat in a stand because that’s where I wanted to sit rather than because it was where I thought my best chance of harvesting a buck was. Given I am probably guilty of this, and I know Steve is by his comment, I can’t help but wonder how many of you might be making the same mistake. We all have that favorite stand or blind that we love to sit in and there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone hunts differently and for different reasons. If you’re a trophy hunter and are very serious at all, you know that a good stand should only be hunted when the wind is right and when conditions are in your favor to tip the scales towards success rather than just sitting there to see what’s moving. Opposite of that is the hunter that just wants to be in the woods and is ok with seeing what they see and harvesting a deer is just icing on the cake should they be fortunate enough to have an opportunity. But, if you’re looking to learn something new or figure out what went wrong, you must examine your actions of the previous season. Did you over hunt a stand? Did you keep a perfect scent control regiment, or did you overlook that detail and hunt a stand that had potential on the wrong wind. A lot of people dismiss scent control, entries and exits as well as a variety of other common mistakes because they still saw deer when they were on the stand regardless of their mistakes. Often you won’t know what deer winded you as they will just avoid you and the entire area you are in. Sure, you may still see a deer or several deer but, did you just see deer, or did you have an opportunity to harvest “The deer”? That is a question that each hunter must answer for themselves. But it’s a question you must ask yourself and if you want to learn anything, you must be honest with yourself when you answer. I’m not the perfect hunter, but I do ok and have been a very successful archery hunter for many years. However, as I look back on this season, I realize that maybe it’s time to forget what I think I know and see if I can relearn a few things. That might mean I don’t spend as much time in the woods or a particular woods anyways. It might mean that I look for different ways in and out of a location or that I commit to sitting from sunup to sundown. I purchased some new equipment this fall and will be adding to it over the next several months. My plan is to add saddle hunting to my toolbox and to become proficient with it by next fall so I can both hunt new trees on the current property as well as explore some additional pieces of property to give me other places to go if the conditions, including hunting pressure, do not warrant me spending time somewhere I shouldn’t. 

I feel it’s important to have an open mind when it comes to hunting if you are hunting for a trophy. It’s easy to get stuck doing what you’ve always done, especially if it has worked for you in the past. But just because a stand was good last year or yesterday doesn’t mean it will be tomorrow or next year. Deer movements change and we must change with them. Along with that I will revisit the previously mentioned comment about crossbows. Sure, I know that there are some people that will never use one and that’s fine. To those individuals it’s more about the method they take the game with than it is about the game they take. That’s ok too if those folks don’t try and shame someone else for doing what they themselves don’t want to do. At the end of the day a legal hunting method is a legal hunting method. If you don’t like that crossbows are legal, unfortunately, you’ll need to take that up with the DNR. If they are legal in your area, they can be a very valuable tool and, in some cases, can enable you to kill a deer from somewhere you can’t do it with a compound. I personally think they are the perfect way to get youth involved in hunting as the kids can hunt in warmer weather and there is no recoil to be concerned with. But, in addition to the weapon you chose there are several other things to consider. A tree saddle may allow you to hunt in a location that you can’t use or are afraid to use a conventional hang on stand or ladder stand. Let’s face it some trees just don’t allow you to do that unless you’re ok with every deer that walks in seeing you and running off. How many times do you think that will happen before the location is no good anymore. It only takes getting busted by the right deer one time and that spot is toast. You may need to resort to a pop-up blind, a brush blind or sometimes just standing behind a bush. Whatever it takes to get you in the position you need to be in to tip those scales in your favor.

I look forward to seeing what else I can learn as I embark on some new and different adventures this next season. I also feel that I need to get back to the basics and practice the fundamentals more frequently so that when the opportunity comes, I will be ready to take full advantage of it. 

As always, Happy hunting, good luck in the woods and God Bless.

Robert Weller
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