Hunches Don’t Always Pay Off

My hunch was wrong when I missed a chance at this buck.

I've hunted my land for so many years that I know where the travel routes of big bucks are found, and sometimes I play a hunch and it doesn't pay off. Here's just one example from last year.

I had a couple of buddies visiting one day last season, and knew the bucks should be moving during the firearm and rutting season. I put each hunter in a great spot for  a rifle hunting in one of my nearby hunting areas, and we had moved a new coop onto a high piece of rolling ground in the middle of one of my big open fields.

I drove to it with several stops along the way. I had a Bushnell range-finder, and stopped at a dozen places where I knew bucks would cross the field. One location was 301 yards, another was 311, one was 266 yards, and all the others averaged 200 to 275 yards.

Someone asked if I would write down the yardage at each location, and I told them they are stored in my head. If I spot a buck at a certain location, I know it is 311 yards. My rifle is sighted in to be dead-on at 300 yards, and it wears a quality Swarovski variable power scope and I've had a bunch of practice shooting at long distances with it.

If they had their rifles sighted in for long-range shots (mine is usually three inches high at 100 yards, which puts me dead-on at 275 yards), they would be in business. If they hadn’t spent the time sighting in, they would be having problems.

The new coop had two major problems, and both needed fixing. One was that it was a hunting coop with windows on three sides, and those windows had screens on them. A hunting coop doesn't need window screens for any kind of hunting. It’s not a house; it’s a hunting blind. The guy that built the blind for me had not paid attention to my directions.

We quickly removed the screens. I tried to call a buddy to come and cut a door window in the coop for me. I couldn't raise him so we went looking, and found him finishing up a repair on another coop.

"I'm going to sit in my new blind tonight and see if I can spot that big buck," I told him. "I need a hurry-up window cut in the door, and a piece of Plexiglas installed."

He drilled four holes, connected the dots with a battery-operated saw, and the window was cut. He'll install the Plexiglas tomorrow, and the coop would be ready for me whenever it was needed.

After sitting there that night with my binoculars I thought that perhaps I'd need a hunting partner. There are so many areas from that coop where a 300-yard shot would be possible, but the major problem is being able to keep watch in all four directions at the same time.

That was last year, and a couple of those bucks seen at long range are still prowling around in that portion of Leelanau County. I seen several bucks bucks in a couple of places where I hunt but not the one I’ve been looking for, and quite a number of does were seen. The animals are freely feeding throughout the field, and were seen to all points on the compass.

I’ve learned that it’s unwise to try to cover too much real estate with just one person. One may be sitting in an enclosed coop, but if their head is on a constant swivels trying to cover 360 degrees, it’s easy to be spotted by deer. It’s also easy to miss seeing that one big buck you’re looking for.

We'll get the Plexiglas installed tomorrow for the door window, and I'll probably set there again to see what is moving through the area. While I was playing my hunch, and hoping to see the big buck move across the field, three nice young bucks were shot by hunters at places I'd picked for them to try.

One was a massive 11-pointer, another was a nice 8-point, and one hunter shot a thin but wide-beamed 6-pointer on that hunt last year. From the looks of things, this season’s hunting should be pretty good.

I put in two green fields for this year, and I sat out last night and watched for deer as part of my pre-season scouting regimen. It was one of those nights when the bucks seem to take the night off but the does and fawns were out in abundance. I’m trying to determine just how many antler-less are on my property, and I’ll probably play another hunch this year.

Over many years of playing hunches, listening to my gut feelings, and taking an occasional flier on a guess, I’ve learned some valuable lessons. Some of those gut feeling turn out to be wrong, but at other times, they can pay off..

One just has to take their chances, and try not to get too upset when they don’t pay off.