Lessons learned from the deer

Whitetails can keep a hunter honest. They also can make you a better hunter.

This doesn’t mean that my valued readers are dishonest nor does it mean they are bad hunters. It simply means that deer have the ability to make hunters think.

They also can make hunters pretty humble when sportsmen think they know everything about deer hunting. Hunters who feel superior often get humble pie to eat.

Learn from deer. Study their actions, and become a good hunter.

One thing I’ve learned over many years is to watch hunters. It doesn’t take long to determine who are the great sportsmen, and who are braggarts. I’ve hunted in many camps over the last 50+ years, and the loudest and most aggressive hunters are usually the ones who make the dumbest mistakes.

An old saying goes like this: it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. The best rule is to keep the mouth closed. listen and pay attention.

Picking people’s brains, and learning what they know, is fun and can provide valuable information. Savvy hunters never venture an opinion unless they know what they are talking about. That is especially true when talking about hunting whitetail deer.

Southern folk have some great sayings. They’ve been distilled from years of hard work and minding their manners. One saying that has a whole bunch of learning in it is “My momma didn’t raise no fools.”

Listen to older hunters, and cogitate on what they say.

Folks who gather around savvy hunters should keep that thought in mind. That means do less talking and much more listening.

Last year a man brought his son around for a hunt. The boy would come up to the house, make a dumb remark about deer hunting while several of us planned our evening hunts. We were tossing around ideas, and discussing where everyone would sit, and discussing the present wind condition.
The boy kept nattering on and on. He was taking up precious planning time by constantly interrupting.

A friend eventually spoke up rather bluntly and loudly, and said: “Boy, you better learn more about deer hunting before speaking your mind. You want to learn about hunting, sit down, shut up and listen. You’ll learn more than you will talking nonsense about a topic you know nothing about.”
The boy sat and listened for a minute, spoke up, and my friend looked hard at him, and the kid went running out the door. His daddy had money, and it’s almost certain that no one had every talked that way to the kid before.

I’ve been around whitetails all my life, and spent over 55 years hunting and studying the critters, but there are many others who know many things that I don’t know. I listen intently to them and learn.

One can read and learn, but actual hunting is the best teacher.

There are countless ways to learn things but in-the-field experience is the best when it comes to learning about whitetails. Hunting the animals, and studying them as you hunt and during the off-season, is the best way to accumulate knowledge. Reading about it, and absorbing that knowledge and putting it to good use, is another. What is most important is the hunter must learn to convert that knowledge into an action plan that works in the woods.

Experience will put a fine point on your acquired knowledge. Some of my early deer-hunting knowledge came from talking to old-time hunters and guides, and using some of that information on my hunts.

The more days spent afield will continue to add to a solid footing, and one day after learning a great deal about deer hunting, you’ll know you’ve come a long ways in your gathering of deer-hunting knowledge.

That will be the day when you can honestly look yourself in the morning mirror, and confess: “I don’t know as much about deer hunting as I thought I did.” And then you go out and learn some more.