You love to hunt. Many do, but not everyone is top of their game as it requires a lot of patience and skill. With time, you can acquire both those qualities. Still, people fail. Why that? It is because to be a real big game you need to have just more than skills and patience.
One need to know more things like when to take shots and where to look for the prey to name a few. Probably, you’re struggling because of lacking that basic knowledge. To help you and others like you out, I’ve prepared a deer hunting tips and tricks list. Just give it a read and try to follow these when you’re out there hunting. You won’t have to come back empty handed ever again.
Contents
Deer Hunting Tips And Tricks
The deer hunting tips and tricks are divided into 3 crucial parts. You need to try to wrap your mind around them. Then try to follow these tips to create the most productive hunting environment for yourself. Let’s start then.
1. Strategy For Deer Hunting
The success mostly depends on your hunting strategy. Without a proper plan, you can’t expect to get results. But not everyone has a strategy. And you can’t expect everyone to have one. Especially, that works. Wherelse some people are just too lazy to plan. They believe they can wing it and get the job done. It’s not that easy. Therefore, follow the below hunting tactics, and you will do fine.
- The essential thing that every new hunter forgets is to be quiet. Animals like deer have great hearing. Even the slightest noise of a twig snapping gets their attention. They get tipped off. It really hurts your chances of getting your prey. So, you need to be still if you can make such noises. Deer’s usually looking toward the place where the noise comes from for some time. If it doesn’t see you, you’re still in business. As the deer won’t run away and probably get back doing whatever it was doing. So, the lesson is, you need to slow down. Take a knee and be silent for some time being, to make the prey feel it’s safe.
- Obviously while hunting, you need to on the move. Now, this creates a disadvantage for hunters. As deer can easily identify human cadence from hearing the steps on leaves and twigs. So, how can you best the prey? It might sound amusing but disguising your footsteps can help your chances big time. Walk fast with shorter steps. To deer, it would sound like small creatures moving through the forest. It’s amazing how animals can distinguish footsteps to understand whether a predator is moving towards them or not. We humans have longer steps that are different than any other creature. They can quickly identify that noise. But taking lighter and shorter steps, you can make them believe some small friendly animal is coming towards them. And that opens the gate of opportunity for hunters.
- Hunting requires patience. You just don’t jump on your target at your first glimpse. Instead, you stalk it for some time being. And this is the time, where you win or lose the quest. While stalking the deer, you need to observant of your surroundings to make sure you don’t lose yourself in the wild. Meantime, you need to predict the next movement of your prey. You need to see beyond the present and realize whether it’s the best time to take the shot, or you still have the opportunity to follow it around ensuring you will get a clear chance of getting the kill in the next place. This strategic planning is quintessential to get the best possible outcome. In this case, attaining a big piece of meat for dinner and a souvenir.
2. Tracking
A big part of hunting is tracking down your prey. It’s something that most hunters need to do. And to do that well, you just need to remember the following.
- You had a clear shot. You took it and hit it. The prey just went to ground and going nowhere. That is the perfect scenario for a hunter. But often, you will take those clear shots and hit the target. Still, the prey will run away with the last of its breath. Now, at that time you need to show patience. You need to follow the blood trail and move quietly. You get behind it and catch your prize before other predators get to it. If you’re hunting in a pack, communicate with other members in hand signals so that the target doesn’t feel your presence. Sometimes wounded animals can move for a long time. At that moment, you shouldn’t just give up the blood trail because sooner it will lose its strength. Just keep the patience and track it down.
- Another important deer hunting tips and tricks that hunters should know about is the instant drop. This term is well known among hunters. It’s used when you hit a target, and it instantly goes down. So, what’s so important about it? If you’re new, you probably won’t know that most times the prey that go down getting hit is due to shock. These type of targets soon get out of it and try to make a run. And this is where some hunters make a rookie mistake. They see their target go down and they leave their post to collect the falling victim. And that very moment, if the target gets up and runs away, there is no chance to make another shot for the hunter. Then you’ve to track the blood trail, and that’s some time-consuming business. To avoid those situations, after taking down the animal, stay ready to take another shot if it tries to get up and run. Be in your spot for a couple of minutes and if it doesn’t move. Then you’re clear to get your kill.
- While tracking for the prey you’ve shot, don’t just look for the trails on the ground. Keep your eyes open looking for the blood on bushes and trees too. You need to gather clues from everywhere and not just the floor. If you do so, you will probably be misled and lose track of it.
3. Preparation For Hunting
You’ve your strategy in place. Plus, you’re ready to do the hard labor and mind-numbing tracking work too. But all these won’t matter if you’re preparation leading to hunting is left behind. Don’t worry, follow my deer hunting tips and tricks for preparation before going to hunting and you’ll be all set.
- Before going out to hunt you probably do the research on knowing your prey. Like its anatomy, its food tastes and the surrounding it likes to be. And obviously, that is an important part. But doing so, you can’t forget about your ammunition to kill your victim. Because at the end of the day, the last purpose of the hunt is to hunt down the deer without making it suffer. Choose rifles that are powerful enough to kill. However, ensure that it won’t affect the flesh of the prey badly. Also, making certain it won’t bother you like taking shots. You won’t want to use something which recoils so hard that would cost the effectiveness and precision of your shots.
- Check your equipment before going on a hunt. You don’t want to come across unexpected delays at the most inconvenient time. Bring your gun to your dealer for periodic checks. You can also keep proper maintenance of it by yourself to ensure the highest quality. So, when it is time to make the shot count, you get it right instead of trying to figure out what is wrong with your gun.
- Besides the guns, you need some other stuff for hunting. Like proper knifes to skin the beast. Sleeping bags, if you plan to hunt for some days. Compass, to know your direction and basic camping like gears. Even a tripod comes handy when you try to stable the rifle before making the shot from a distance. However, you don’t want to go overboard hoarding stuff that you rarely would use. Just pack stuff that you think might help you while hunting or being in the forest. That’s it.
Warp Up
There are so many deer hunting tips and tricks that it would take pages after pages to share that knowledge. Therefore, I just wanted to focus on the basics that if done properly can help you as a hunter. Needless to say, there might be some valuable lessons missing from this. That is intentional because everyone follows the important bits. But forget about the essential pillars of hunting that ensure productivity and at the end of the day the big prize of eating fresh deer meat.