Deer Hunting Tips To Make You A Successful Hunter

As a deer hunter, you’ll only succeed as far as your dedication and knowledge will take you. Any hunter can bag a small buck once every year or two and might occasionally get lucky, but bringing home that majestic trophy buck with regularity takes commitment and knowledge.

The advanced deer hunting tips I’m sharing with you here are for the true hunting masters.

1. Scout Your Area Ahead of Time – I don’t mean analyze where you are going to sit when the truck drops you off, I mean really get to know the area you are hunting. Some of my most successful hunting seasons were started months before opening day. I would ask permission to go to the lease I was going to hunt on and scout all the areas. You can investigate all the potential hunting areas by “dry hunting.” This is similar to actual hunting, only you bring a camera instead of a gun. You will focus your attention on determining which areas have the most deer movement, the largest bucks, and the highest buck to doe ratio. You can walk around the lease in the middle of the day, looking for big buck signs that I could see.

2. Learn to Recognize Big Buck Signs – In order to find out where the trophy bucks reside, learn what to search for. Keep your eyes open for tracks. You want to look at how big the tracks are, how many tracks there are, and in which direction the tracks are going. This will allow you to understand how big the deer are in a given area, how many there are, and what their movement patterns are. Scrapes – look for any areas that look like scratches from the bucks antlers and urine; this is what they do to mark their territory and attract mates, and you’ll often find them under branches. Another thing you want to look for are rubs. As a buck attempts to get the velvet off their new antlers thy need to rub on trees and posts. They also do this to mark their territory during rutting season. If you find a “rub line,” you will be able to find six or more rubs in a matter of about 100 yards. Most often, rubs are on the side of the tree that the buck came from, so knowing which sides of the trees have rub lines will tell you which way the bucks are going. You will also want to look for bedding areas, noting the size of the beds. No signs of bucks means no bucks!

3. Know How Your Firearm Shoots – Know the ballistics of the caliber and cartridge you are using. Know the distance you will need to shoot and be able to make adjustments for geography; for example, the rise on short shoots and the fall for long shots. You should practice judging how far your shots are and maybe even walk off the distances to possible sighting areas. This will allow you to know if you are making a 400 yard shot and also know how much your bullet is likely to drop making this shot. Doing this will enable you to be able to adjust your aim to make a quality shot.

4. Shot Placement – You’ll be much better at your shot placement when you know how best to aim your deer hunting rifle. A lot of other hunters don’t agree with me on my preference, but I am a “neck shooter.” A shot properly placed anywhere on the neck brings down your deer, right then, every time. No matter where you hit the neck, you’ll get him very effectively; you’ll either sever the carotid artery or breach the spinal column, or some variation thereof, depending on how high or low the bullet lands. From a broadside, front or rear quarter angle, or head-on angle the neck target is as large as the traditional “behind the lower shoulder” target and much more effective. Taking a full rear shot is not advisable unless you have a trophy buck standing there and you just can’t leave it. If you have to clean a deer that has been shot up the rectum in not at all pleasant. Be sure to place your shot very carefully – the best deer hunters try to bring down their quarry in one shot.

5. Attactants, Calls, and Rattling – While we do not have time to go into a lot of detail, some important deer hunting tips are to use attractants (like natural food plots, salt licks/mineral blocks, feeders, and flavored blocks), deer calls, and rattling methods. You have to do some prep work beforehand with food attractants. You’ll have to put in enough time and effort into a food plot as you would a garden. Continuous feeding of an area should start weeks or even months ahead of the hunting season so the deer get used to the location and timing of their free meals. Calling or rattling up bucks is a hit and miss technique that normally only works during a rut. Occasionally I have been able to bring a buck in slowly and cautiously by rattling outside of the rutting season, but during the rut, they tend to rush right in. You could run the risk of getting run over by bucks if you rattle, so make sure you are prepared to act quickly if you want to do this. It’ll take a lot of time to get good at this. There’s a learning curve involved in knowing how to effectively mimic the calls or recreate the fighting sounds of deer. But once you learn how to do this, it’s a very useful skill.

Every deer hunter wants to display a trophy buck at some point, and some of us can’t rest unless we bag at least one grand creature every season. If you are going to join the ranks of the elite hunters, then you need to know the advanced deer hunting tips the elite hunters know.

If you want to learn more about deer hunting and tips that can help you land the large bucks that get you trophy racks, go to http://www.deer-huntingtips.com and have a better hunting season than you’ve had in years.

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