Pennsylvania Game News - November 2024 - 16

And that impacts hunters, but only
those who aren't paying attention.
Decades afield hunting whitetails has
proven to me that most gadgets aren't
worth what you pay for them. I'd sooner
hunt the way the best hunters of generations
before me did: working with what
nature provides.
Being afield as much as possible enables
deer hunters to read the woods, to
witness whitetail and hunter behavior,
and to set up accordingly. Sure, there's
trial-and-error, maybe even embarrassment.
But
experience is earned, not bought.
A PLAN
Every hunting season should start
with a plan, followed by consequential
adjustment, predicated upon what scouting
before and during season turns up,
and what previous hunts have taught
you. Scouting helps position your stands;
experience ensures you don't repeat previous
mistakes.
It's also a good idea to avoid becoming
too repetitious with stand use, especially
those you'll count on during the
rut. For the couple weeks of October
when leaf cover is prevalent, I prefer to
hunt feeding areas and routes used to access
them. The rut generally has me setting
up elsewhere in heavier cover and
along routes to and from bedding areas.
I'm not a fan of ladder stands and
blinds on public lands, because they telegraph
to every hunter scouting the woods
where you plan to hunt, often even before
you do. When used too frequently,
hunting there could go stale.
Hunters might place ladder/hang-on
stands and pop-up blinds afield before the
rut or firearms season, giving whitetails a
chance to get used to these setups. But
it won't work if deer feel compelled to
16
change their travels, either because they
don't like the looks of setups or because
other curious hunters are being drawn in
to investigate, perhaps in exploring options
in how they might intercept deer on
the way to your stand.
I shot an early-morning 6-pointer
moving east to west, just before Halloween
on the first day I hunted one of
my better rut stands within heavy cover.
I was saving the location for a northwesterly
breeze during the rut, and when that
time came, my sacrifice paid off.
It reminded me why planning and
strategies matter. Deer always are somewhere
for a reason, and it's your job to
figure out where and why.
Every annual hunting campaign must
sort out or confirm why deer are where
they are. Cover? Fall-food availability?
The rut? Hunter behavior? These details
are products of scouting, woodsmanship
and experience, the building blocks of
consistently successful hunters.
Let me explain.
I waited to hunt that rut stand because
scouting revealed I had the luxury of
time. Another hunter, who posted about
250 yards east of me regularly for several
years on a ladder stand, had pulled
out prior to the start of the new season.
He didn't hide well on stand and often
spooked the woods while walking in
with his headlamp shining the way.
I figured the absence of that hunter
and his stand would lead to increased
deer movement in the cover corridor
where the tree I use for my portable tree
stand is located. And as the season progressed,
scouting indicated I was right.
So, my first day on that stand ended
with a slam dunk.
REACTION
After taking the buck, I was tagged
Pennsylvania Game News - November 2024

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