All puzzle pieces must mesh properly

Don’t shoot just yet! Wait for a quartering-away shot.

After hunting whitetail deer for more than 50 years, this time in the field has given me many thoughts about hunting these critters. Those experiences can be confidence builders.

Whenever I encounter a specific wind or weather situation, my mind slips back through the years to when a similar situation occurred. The next step is to analyze that experience, and if it worked once, we try it again.

Fortunately, we tend to remember those times when things work and forget those times when they didn't. Usually that allows us to make the proper decision based on important  previous experiences.

Wise decision are needed when choosing where to hunt.

I always have, and probably always will, play hunches. A person's gut instincts are normally correct, and over many years of studying deer and why they do the things they do, it gives me an insight on choosing the proper stands to hunt on a particular day.

Deer move around a good bit, and sometimes move more than many hunters believe. This is especially true now, during the rut. Deer also move from one food source to another. We all grow tired of eating corn, sugar beets or whatever.

There are few oaks on my land but there are many food sources. Over the years I've planted Imperial Whitetail Clover, countless other types of clover, alfalfa, brassica, purple-top turnips and many other truck crops. Some of these food sources are planted near ground blinds and tree stands.

Corn and soy beans are wonderful truck crops, and everything I plant is left for the deer, turkeys and other birds and animals. That means that I know when deer switch from one food source to another. Turnips often produce well once we've gone through one or two hard frosts, and they become more sugary.

Know all natural and planted food sources, and how deer travel to them.

Choosing which stand to sit in is a matter of knowing where the deer happen to be traveling, and which food source is present in that area. Obviously, wind direction plays one of the most important roles in choosing a hunting stand.

I haven't counted the number of stands on my land, but there is probably at leas would guess there is probably at least a dozen although some are seldom used anymore. Certain stands remain good year after year while other locations go flat, and I'm inclined to think that hunting pressure is the main reason why deer change their travel patterns.

Each year I look at my stands, whether they are tree stands, elevated coops,, pit blinds, tent blinds or whatever, and determine their relattionship to the closest food sources. I seldom place stands extremely close to food plots but prefer them to be near trails that lead from one food plot to another or from my land to a neighbor’s food plot.

Know why some deer stands suddenly go dead.

Study and learn why deer come to one area, and why that location suddently goes dead. In most cases, it is hunted too often and deer may spot the hunting moving to or from the stand. Once a deer patterns a hunter, they seldom return to that spot except long after dark

Food plots, bedding areas and travel trails are an important part of the whitetail equation. Each part of the puzzle must fall into place. If it doesn’t, whitetail wind up going somewhere else and your hunting spots dry up.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors