Sunday, October 02, 2005
Playing A Hunch Or Guessing Right?
I’m a great believer in playing hunches. It’s like taking a test when you are in high school.
Most of the time a person’s initial thought is correct. People seem to instinctively know the right answer, and sometimes it’s based on common sense.
Whatever the case is, it’s long been my habit of judging which ground blind or tree stand will be most productive. About 60 years of hunting whitetail deer has given me a different perspective on determining where people who hunt my land should hunt.
Obviously, wind direction and weather conditions play an important role. Part of it is knowing which food source is the one most utilized by deer at any given time.
Some of it is nothing more than remembering something that happened to work under similar circumstances several years ago. Hunting deer is one gigantic learning experience, and every day or evening in a ground blind or tree stand should be a learning experience.
My skills at playing hunches or guessing right was in full swing back in the early 1980s when noted outdoor writer Dave Richey wrote a story about me and my hunting land for Outdoor Life magazine. The magazine changed the title to The Whitetail Wizard, and that moniker has stuck.
I’m not big on bragging about myself, but 60 years of hunting deer for 90 days each year and studying them 12 months a year has to make an impact on a person. It’s my belief that hunters should try to learn something new every day they are afield.
Store these little things that deer do away, but remember what circumstances surrounded that each incident. Note which direction the wind was blowing, where the deer was traveling, was it alone or with other animals, and what it was feeding on.
These and other items of interest can be stored in some mental compartment, and when a similar situation occurs, think back to what happened. In many cases a hunter will recall some detail that made their hunt a success or failure.
Perhaps the same thing will work again, and with whitetail deer, it doesn’t always work and it doesn’t always fail. The more of these little details that are stored away can often lead to success.
I don’t always guess right, but three people killed deer on my farm tonight. Two were wide-framed 8-pointers and one was a doe.
So it proves that nothing is perfect or infallible, and no amount of hunting experience results in shooting a deer every night out. If that were to happen on every hunt, we would soon lose our interest in hunting take up playing squash or pinocle.
Playing a hunch or guessing right could be one and the same although once a person hunts often enough to be successful on a regular basis, we learn to listen to ourselves when that inner though tells us to do this or that thing or hunt this or that stand.
Guessing works as well, but I’m convinced that I’d rather have a gut instinct for a hunch than just guess correctly. There is more skill in the form and more luck in the latter.