Whitetail Wizard

Monday, October 27, 2008

Never Let A Lie Get In The Way Of A Good Story

Deer tales are cut from the same fabric as fishing lies. You know: the trout was this long or the buck’s rack was this wide, all told with a straight face and widely spread arms.

The strange thing about some of these deer tales is that some of them may be true. Some are so wild they must be true because no one could dream up something so far-fetched.

Some are told to get a rise out of any listener. Some are told as outright lies, and as earlier stated, some could be true.

A man I know tells of watching a doe lead a buck past his stand during the rut. The doe walked in front of the hunter who patiently waited at full draw from the comfort of a wooden ground coop. The doe walked past the shooting window as he waited patiently for the buck.

The nose and antlers of the nice 8-point came into view, and the buck crossed from left to right. The hunter waited for a broadside shot, and when it came, he aimed and shot.

The arrow shaft, he said, hit the edge of the window frame and kicked sideways. The buck turned, looked the hunter in the eye, and bounded off, unhurt. He hears some thrashing in the nearby marsh grass and tag alders, and steps out to recover his arrow.

There near the coop door lay a dead doe. The animal, according to the story, caught the deflected arrow in the spine. When the arrow shaft hit the window frame edge, it kicked to the side, and hit the doe. He swears it is true, and who am I to argue the point.

Years ago, a hunter told me he had talked to a hunter who insisted his tale was true. He’d spotted a buck jump a dry drainage ditch at the same spot several days in a row.

He set out to ambush the jumping buck. As the story goes, he peeked through tall marsh grass and watched the buck come toward him. He came to full draw, while laying on his back on the ground, and waited.

The buck could be heard at the edge of the ditch, and as the animal sailed over his head, he released the arrow. The arrow entered, he said, just behind the brisket, hit the spine and exited the animals back.

He said a motorist almost hit the animal as it crumpled on the road side. Again, a sworn true story. Could it happen? I guess so, but shooting while laying on your back seems a bit of a stretch.

There once was a passel of guys that used to go to Tennessee each year to hunt wild boar with spears. They would confront a big boar, plant the butt end of the spear shaft into the ground, and when the boar charged, they would meet it with a big spear point.

So the story goes, they killed a number of boar in this manner and wanted to try it on deer. They knew they couldn’t entice a deer into a charge, so they decided to try spearing from a tree stand, even if it wasn’t legal.

One gent said a fat little year-and-a-half 6-point came walking past his stand, and he drew back his arm, and threw the spear. The point sliced in behind the front shoulder, knocked the deer off its feet, but it ran off and the spear fell out.

The violator climbed down, gathered up his spear, and took up the copious blood trail. He trailed the deer for 150 yards, saw it ahead and started walking up to the animal, his spear ready for another thrust in the unlikely event the animal got up.

He squatted down, the spear held with the point upright like a Masai warrior, to admire his handiwork, when the spear was ripped out of his hand. He jumped up, spun around to see a smiling conservation officer. He was ticketed, and lost his deer and spear, or so the story goes.

Some of these stories are almost too tall to be a true tale. They do show a great deal of imagination if they aren’t true, and like I said earlier, some of them are so far off-center they may even be true.

The countdown to the opener has begun. Be safe over the weekend.—The Whitetail Wizard

Monday, October 20, 2008

Answering Tough Questions

A hunter stopped in my Buck Pole Archery Shop in Marion today, and had us replace a worn string. Two other hunters were taking some practice shots, and the question was appropriate as we watched a young man shooting a bow set at 90 pounds.

The hunter who had his string replaced wondered if drawing that much weight wasn’t harmful.

“It’s harmful if you have to struggle to pull that much weigh, and most people can’t do it,” I told him. “The major problem with drawing that much weight is it becomes very easy to tear back and shoulder muscles. A bum shoulder isn’t easy to deal with, and it takes a very long time to heal.”

I’ve had many people in my shop that were capable of drawing 90 pounds, and one muscle-bound guy that could draw 100 pounds. Almost every one of them ended up tearing up their shoulder and back muscles, and the next thing they knew, a 55-pound bow is about their limit.

“Well, why try to pull that much weight?” he asked. “What benefits are there to drawing 90 pounds and shooting an arrow that travels over 300 feet per second?”

The obvious answer is a flatter trajectory over a greater distance. It means the difference between shooting 20 yards and 60 yards with very little change in their sight picture.

It means being able to shoot accurately at longer distances, and this can be of great benefit when hunting the desert southwest for Coues deer, the Rockies for mule deer and elk, and the sagebrush flats where antelope roam. In each case, shooting at longer distance can spell the different between success and failure.

“Of course, there are some people who wish to appear a macho man,” I told him. “Those people think that the more weight you draw, and the faster the arrow flies, the better hunter they will be.

“And, in some ways high poundage and very fast, very flat-shooting arrows can improve accuracy at longer distances and help accurate shooters achieve kills at longer range. However, one must weigh the benefits against the possible risk of personal injury.”

This hunter was pulling 60 pounds and was comfortable at that draw weight. He said he can pull 65 and 70 pounds, but is uncomfortable with the lower range and finds it a struggle to draw the heavier weight.

I put one of our Extreme bows in his hands, and it was set at 65 pounds. He pulled it back with little apparent effort, commented on how smooth the draw curve was, and asked if the poundage was set at 55 pounds.

I told him it was set at 65 pounds, and he couldn’t believe he could pull that much weight without greater effort. I put it on the scales, and the needle settled at 65 pounds when it rolled over.

“Sixty-five pounds it is,” he said. “Let me shoot that bow again.”

He shot it again and again, and 12 times in all. Each shot was side-by-side with the other arrows, and he moved back to 25 yards. He chose the same aiming point he’d used at 20 yards, and all arrows plunked into the target bulls-eye.

Now this guy was a good shot with excellent form and a consistent anchor point. He looked at his old bow with a new string and set at 55 pounds, looked at the new C.P. Oneida Extreme, and hit the hip.

“I’m going to buy that bow,” he said. “It’s not that I want to shoot faster or flatter, but in the back of my mind I’ve been hankering for a Colorado elk hunt. The extra speed, the flatter trajectory and smoothness of drawing this bow makes it a perfect choice.

“I’ll have to practice more and would like to be capable of shooting a tight group at 50 yards. With this new bow, I think that is a distinct possibility.”

He could handle 65 pounds with all the new designs in the Extreme bow.  He won’t be working his shoulder muscle any harder with this bow than he was with his old bow at 55 pounds.

He wrote out the check, said he’d give the older bow to his son, and left the shop a happy man. Granted, I made a sale but there is more to an archery shop than good service and good sales.

Making a customer happy is important to me. He will show his new bow to his friends, they will draw it at 65 pounds, and he will become one of my strongest supporters.

And that is why I make, sell and service bows. I delight in making hunters happy.—The Whitetail Wizard

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Shoot Once, Shoot Straight & Donâ??t Miss

Many years ago several of us adopted a basic bow-shooting philosophy, and it is every bit as important to us today as it was back then. We called it the Shoot Once, Shoot Straight And Don’t Miss philosophy.

It is a philosophy to aspire to, and we’ve taught it to thousands of bow hunters over the years. The philosophy is easily understood, simply stated, and if archers follow it beginning Sunday when the bow-deer season opens, there would be fewer wounded deer.

Here is the whole philosophy pulled together as concisely as possible.

*Shoot Once—How can there be any misunderstanding about this one? Bow hunting is vastly different than hunting with a firearm where one or more shots can be easily taken.

A bow hunter, 99 percent of the time, will have only one shot at a deer. A miss or a wounded animal will send the deer in hasty retreat. About the only time a second shot might be taken is to finish off a mortally wounded animal.

*Shoot Straight—This and the next basic tenet of this philosophy are most important. Shooting with accuracy only comes from consistent and perfect practice. If the practice is faulty, the shot will be faulty as well.

This means controlling your breathing and nerves, drawing when the buck is unaware of your presence, hold your head up with both eyes fixed on the proper spot for a killing shot, aiming properly once you’ve achieved a firm and consistent anchor point, making a smooth release, and holding your bow steady without moving it (follow through) until the arrow hits your aiming point.

There is little excuse for error unless the arrow hits an unseen twig, but it’s up to the hunter to know that twig is there and to take a clean broadside or quartering-away shot. All other shots are low-percentage opportunities, and should never be taken. If you don’t have a high-percentage shot, wait for another opportunity. Don’t trust to luck.

Develop a mental checklist, and run through it in order before releasing the arrow. If you plan to hunt from a tree, practice shooting from an elevated position.

Know your limitations. If you can’t consistently hit the kill zone on a deer at 25 yards, but can hit it at 20 yards, a 20-yard shot is your maximum effective shooting distance. Know what you can and cannot do, and never exceed your limitations. A miss, or even worse a wounded deer, can be the only two plausible results of exceeding your effective shooting range.

*Don’t Miss—This is the culmination of all of these facets of this philosophy. If the above two facets are followed to the letter, and you never exceed your limitations, and always achieve a firm anchor point and aim properly (and don’t drop your bow arm at the shot), you will hit and kill that deer.

This philosophy is easy to write about but a bit more difficult to put into practice. It requires total hunter concentration, complete focus on all of the minute details, and it means knowing your bow and at what distance is your limit of accurate shooting.

Follow these simple rules—Shoot Once, Shoot Straight & Don’t Miss—and you’ll be eating venison this fall and admiring the antlers of a nice buck. You can bet on it.—The Whitetail Wizard

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Hunting Unstable Weather

It’s impossible for hockey players to play a game unless they are on the ice, and it’s impossible for bow hunters to shoot a buck or doe if they are sitting indoors watching television.

That’s settled, so what do we do when faced with inclement weather? You know: like some of what we’ve had so far this season?

East winds, northeast and southeast winds, and rain. Copious amount of rain two or three times. Strong blustery winds. Weather that even deer dislike.

If we were to set out every evening when inclement weather rears its ugly head, we may have been able to hunt only a few nights so far this season. The abundance of combined weather conditions has been noticeable to most hunters.

So, what can we do about it? The answer is to go hunting anyway. Some deer move even in bad weather although they may not move much.

It only makes sense that if deer move for only 15 or 20 minutes, the closer one hunts to the bedding area should provide them with greater opportunity to be nearby when the animals do move.

Mild rain doesn’t bother whitetails at all. They are out in it on a daily basis, and can’t come inside out of the weather. If it is a soft rain, the deer often move well. They move less in a hard downpouring rain.

Deer will move on an east wind, but most hunters have few locations set up where an east wind offers an advantage. A strong wind is much worse than a soft breeze.

Heavy winds put everything into motion. Trees, weeds, cattails and tall grasses move. Leaves (those that still remain on trees) shake violently on the trees, go blowing off the branches, and leaves are constantly in the wind at ground level and above. Deer detest such windy conditions because it removes their ability to see motion because everything within sight is moving.

Stands located closest to heavy cover offer hunters the best opportunity to see deer on these miserable days. The important thing is to get into a stand without being seen, smelled or heard.

Crow hunters say that these black birds can’t count. I contend that deer can’t count either, and that opens up one possibility to get into a stand even if the bedding area is downwind of the stand. Your friend can drive you in by truck, park with the motor running while the hunter crawls into the stand, and then drive off.

A friend of mine and his wife leased land for many years, and each of them hunted a different parcel. My buddy would drive his wife 3/4 miles back off the road to her stand, walk with her to her ground blind while the four-wheeler idled nearby, and once she was in her blind, he would jump back on the machine and drive away.

She often saw deer while the sounds of the four-wheeler were still audible in the distance. The noise of the four-wheeler didn’t bother the deer, and if anything, it gave them advance warning that people were coming. Two people get off, two walk to the blind, one walks back and drives away. Deer can’t count, and this method works well.

The one thing to bear in mind is that deer are accustomed to seeing cars and trucks, tractors and other farm equipment in most areas. Deer will run from all motorized equipment heading in their direction, but they don’t run far unless the hunters talk to each another. Human voices add another dimension to this equation.

Talking while dropping someone off at a blind or when picking them up should not be done. Deer also are accustomed to hearing people talk, but whether talking near a hunting stand is a good idea, I think it’s best to drive up, drop off the hunter, and drive away without speaking.

Weather plays an important role in deer movements and travel. Rather than sitting indoors and not hunting, try to incorporate some other tactics into your hunting bag of tricks, and hunters may be pleasantly surprised at how well some of these tricks work.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

My Choice of Hunting Clothing

There have been countless hunters who seem to study my old hunting clothing. I don’t wear any of the modern camo stuff that is on the market.

My idea of hunting clothing is different than that of many hunters. I’m still wearing the same camo coveralls that I wore 10 years ago. They are a bit frazzled around the ankles and threadbare at the elbows, knees and seat.

It’s what I wear. It’s comfortable on me, and what many hunters don’t seem to realize is that I don’t dress to suit them. I dress to suit me.

Some of my friends have tried to conspire with my wife to get me into a new hand-made outfit. They soon learned that isn’t a good idea. I’m happy with what I wear.

A pair of knee-high rubber boats complete the outfit. I don’t bother with a face mask or painting my face. Sit still with your head down and the cap pulled low over your eyes, and it doesn’t make much difference. Don’t move or make noise, and the deer won’t know you are there.

I’ve had people come to hunt, and some are tricked out in the latest fashions. Their clothing is stiff while mine is soft and comfortable. Theirs still has the new smell that clothing has while mine smells like a fall day with a bit of a cedar odor. A garden hose will rinse off my rubber boots, and it doesn’t affect the boots or the deer.

My clothing has no odor, and is seldom washed. There is a problem with how most people wash camo clothing.

Most detergents contain whitening agents. They live up to their advertisements by producing whiter whites. Hunters don’t need brighter looking camouflage.

Those whiteners will make your camo clothes clean but the patterns are much brighter. Use a product like SportWash that contains no whiteners. Wash the clothing in clean water, hang it out to dry, and the dirt will be gone without any odor or brighter patterns.

There is a bunch of clothing companies that manufacture camo clothes. Savvy sportsmen know that if a person is hunting in the hardwoods, they should wear a hardwoods pattern.

Those who hunt out west and in desert country know that a pattern with tan and gray is ideal. Learn to match your camo with the season and terrain being hunted.

A friend hunts in wool clothing in cold or warm weather. He’s also convinced that wool doesn’t make a bad noise. He’s convinced it sounds like the fur on a squirrel or raccoon rubbing against the bark.

It is warm when the weather is cool, breathes well, and is not overly warm in warm temperatures. He swears by it, and he shoots a good buck every year.

For him, it means the clothes makes a natural woodsy sound. Wool doesn’t rasp when rubbed against tree bark. Many of the fleece patterns work equally well, but I warn people about fleece backed with a hard finished cloth. It can be very noisy in the woods.

Most hunters want comfort and quiet clothing with their hunting attire. It is difficult to find both qualities in new garments. Another friend, when he buys new hunting jackets and pants, washes them a dozen times before wearing them in the woods. Frequent washing will help break down and soften the fibers of the fabric, and means a quieter hunting garment.

Me, I’m entirely happy with what I wear. It is quiet, comfortable and the deer never pay any attention to me ... and that’s why it works for me.—The Whitetail Wizard

Thursday, October 02, 2008

A Good Reason Not To Shoot An Opening-Day Buck

There is a fairly large number of people who could, if they chose, shoot a buck the first day of the archery season, and spend the rest of the fall bowling or doing something far less exciting than hunting.

Many of my friends, and I must include myself in this group, could easily dump a buck the first day. But we don’t, and for good reason.

The majority of really good buck hunters are not interested in a short archery season. If anything, we want to prolong our hunting time, and that is difficult to do if a person shoots the first buck he sees.

All of us subscribe to a basic philosophy: it’s as much or more fun fooling a buck, drawing on him if we wish, and then backing off and not taking the shot, than shooting it. Fooling the buck by being in his backyard without him knowing it, and knowing as much about him as we do, makes this a greater test of skill than arrowing a small buck.

There is a certain sense of being in tune with nature when you’ve got one or more decent bucks lined up, and know that they could be shot if you so desired. My buddy Dave Richey < http://www.daverichey.com > shot a buck on Oct. 2 last year, and it was a fine 8-pointer.

He couldn’t resist the shot at close range as it sparred with a larger buck, but although he seldom shoots a buck before the rut starts, he made an exception. He prized that buck, and is having it mounted, but kicked himself for taking one so early in the season.

The trouble, as he so well knows, is a buck shot very early in the season means the hunter is down to only being able to shoot a doe if they have a tag.

Preseason scouting tells us where to hunt, and I always have a number of locations where I can hunt at will on anything but an east wind. We love to sample a spot, and prove to ourselves that life is indeed good when we can narrow down a buck’s travels to the point where shooting that animal is more about knowing when to hunt the spot than almost anything else.

Granted, during the rut, bucks can cruise far and wide in search of estrus does, but they still travel known routes. If they bump into another hunter, it may cause them to change their travel plans for a day or two, but soon they will be following the same travel corridors.

It’s watching the buck approach early in the season, during the rut or the post-rut period, that lights me up. Shooting a buck is the least difficult part of the hunt. What is most difficult is studying their behavior, knowing how they move, and being in place before they move through, that provides me with the biggest kick of all.

It’s not necessary to always shoot a large buck. I’m content to shoot does as part of my herd management program, and in many cases, shooting an old doe is much more challenging than a big buck.

The long and the short of it is that we can, by not shooting bucks early in the season, prolong our hunting season. It gives us a reason to be out in the woods tomorrow, the day after, and every day next week.

Of course, many hunters don’t take their bow hunting as serious as some of us do, and that is fine. But if someone tells you he passed up a nice 8-point on opening day, don’t ask him “Why didn’t you shoot?”

Chances are he would tell you that the time just wasn’t right. The time he speaks of is too early in the season. If he shoots that buck, and a bigger one during the rut, what would he have to do during the firearm deer season, the December muzzleloader season or the December bow season?

He would miss a good bit of the season, and feel bad because he had robbed himself of so many deer hunting days.—The Whitetail Wizard