Deer Hunters Should Keep Good Records

Reporters always carry a notebook and pen in the event of an interview. Don't they?

I always had one, but my problem was finding the silly thing when I needed it. Most of the time a near-photographic memory allowed me to keep track of important facts, even oddly spelled last names.

It helped to write notes thought. I'll pass along a good tip that many people have told me they do. For whatever reason, I no longer follow this sage advice. So, it you feel as if I'm lecturing as your parents probably did at one time or another, it's certainly up to you to follow my advice or forget it. It makes no difference to me but it will to you if you follow this tip religiously

The advice is really pretty simple. Carry a small notebook, and write down your daily observations while deer hunting. A buddy I know that river fishes for steelhead in the spring and fall, keeps a daily diary what he sees and what happens on the river.

Keep solid data on where and when deer are seen.

The reason for doing so is very simple. The trick is to do so on a daily basis, and sooner or later, you'll find many of the same situations repeating themselves.

That means an observant person can put two and two together to make a logical connection to four. A diary can tell you what will probably happen if you do this or that when all conditions are the same, and keep doing it on every trip.

Obviously, the date and time of day is important. This other material should be noted: wind direction, wind speed, where the hunt took place (both geographical and with detailed data about ground blind or treestand location). Hunters can add details about type of stand, the terrain around it, and where the deer traveled.

Other information to enter in your diary.

Extra data should include if you are bow hunting or hunting with a firearm. List the number of deer seen, and break this down into the number of adult does, adult antlered bucks (number of points and approximate size), and how many fawns were seen. Add to this the distance these deer were from your hunting position.

Add informative details about whether the hunt was along deer trails or near scrapes or a rub line. Add information about any grunting bucks heard (seen), if they approached your area or not, and note the time of day of such activity. If it is raining or snowing, cloudy or bright, add this data as well.

Note the approximate height the treestand was above the ground, and what kind of a tree the stand hung from. Were the deer calm or spooky in your hunting area?

If a shot is taken, explain the circumstances and the approximate distance to the animal. Give an overall view of the animal, what it was doing, etc., when a shot was taken.

A friend of mine is pretty cryptic about what he writes down. It would read something like this.

An example of the data needed.

"Farmer Jones' back 40 in the crooked oak near  the creek on northeast side in Roscommon County. Sunny, 40 degrees, 10 Nov., with a five mph wind from southwest at 5 p.m. Saw two baldies (does), twin button-buck and doe fawns. They approached from NE to within 25 yards. Hunting trail, & deer passed by heading cross-wind on different runways after passing treestand. Up 15 feet in pine. 8-point came walking from west heading east. First saw it at 5:20 p.m., and deer walked within 15 yards, stopped to look at other deer and I shot. Deer ran 75 yards & died on creekbank edge. Hit low behind front shoulder."

Now, imagine doing this every day you hunt or twice daily if you hunt morning and evening. Do this for several years, and if a hunter goes back and reads these diaries every year, sooner or later some patterns will form and hunters will find the same events and conditions happening again. It is then simple to recall what worked three years ago in Farmer Jones' pine tree, and it might work once again.

I'm trained after more than 50 years to remember this stuff.

I just never write things like this down anymore. It just gets stored somewhere in a remote corner of my brain, and when all things are working well, I will recall similar circumstances in the same stand. It gives me a pretty good reference to what I might see again whenever similar situations apply.

Of course, whitetails don't read these diaries. They react out of instinct, and rely on outside stimuli that frightens them. If this stimuli (smelling or hearing a hunter or seeing one move) occurs, the deer's reaction will be to run off. No stimuli, and the animals will probably act as they did on other similar occasions.

Is this work? Of course, but it's difficult, consumers only a few minutes and it can help. It has become a part of patterning deer for me, and if it is done properly, every day and year after year, shooting a nice buck can be pretty easy. Make one mistake, though, and all bets are off. This can be an ace in the hole once the deer season is underway.

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Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors