Spotting is just the start: Plenty of prep is needed before successful hunts
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From the time I began archery hunting for deer in the 1960's, the advice from writers and hunting pros and assorted experts has always been the same -- do a lot of preseason scouting and start in late August.
Defining preseason scouting is a varied exercise, to be sure. To some, it means riding around after dark spotlighting. To others, preseason scouting means looking for a convenient tree in which to put a stand. Then we spend a lot of time in that stand, hoping a deer will happen along within range.
To those who guide professionally or are prostaffers with archery companies, preseason scouting means one thing -- find out where the deer are living, bedding and feeding. Once that information is gained, selection of a tree stand site comes last. Now, when deer are undisturbed, is the time to find out where they are hanging out.
Deer spend their lifetimes in a one or two square mile home range; they stay there except for when the rut is in full swing. Even when pushed, deer will make their way back to their home territories, choosing thick, impenetrable tangles in which to hide.
I have done a lot of driving around looking in fields for bucks this summer. And I agree with those "pros" that seeing a good buck in a field by spotlight is good, but it's only the start of one's scouting. The best scouting for archery hunting is just starting. When you spot the buck of your dreams, the next step is to be at the field before daylight, determine the direction from which he comes to the field and which trails he uses to leave it. It will take many mornings of such surveillance to establish his patterns.
Once a preferred trail or two are found, you can follow them and see where they go. Generally, they will lead to bedding areas, which are the thickets where he holes up during the day. Most good archery hunters recommend that the best stand during the early archery season, pre-rut, is closer to the bed area rather than the feeding area.
For one thing, any other hunters who have spotted the deer will most likely select a stand near the feeding ground. But if you know where he starts out, you can see him while there is still enough light left to have a good look and a good shot and before competing hunters see him. Good stand placement means you know where the deer travels, not just someplace where you like the view.
Get right on the edges of bedding grounds, after you find them, and stay alert and scentless. On paper it sounds like a simple formula. In practice, it takes time and persistence and the modern-day hunters seem to have little of either.
Rod Hillegas of Johnstown, a recognized expert archery deer hunter, told me he started rattling antlers back about 1975, before it became a viable technique in the north. In the days when there were 20 does for every buck, the bucks didn't have to fight with each other much over breeding rights.
They generally had more than they could handle. Also, the bucks were spikes and forked-horns that weren't excited much about the sounds of rattling antlers. That sound usually meant to them that if they went too close, they'd get a thrashing from Big Daddy. It was difficult to get a decent buck to respond to antler rattling.
How things have changed! Even now, I'm hearing many reports of large-antlered bucks being spotted in fields and long roads. It's what Gary Alt once predicted, that we'd see fewer deer but those bucks we did see would have larger antlers. Seems to be coming true about now. Which means that antler rattling could really come into its own now.
"When I first started antler-rattling in the 70s, I felt foolish doing it," Hillegas told me. "I felt conspicuous and hoped no one would see me doing it. Then I started having a lot of success rattling in bucks, and my attitude changed."
"You have to understand that antler-rattling does not work every time you do it. But rattling does not frighten nor spook deer," Hillegas said. "Even if they don't come in, it doesn't scare them off. If they do come in and are spooked it won't be the rattling that does the spooking. Either they saw the hunter move or more likely, smelled him. So you don't lose anything by rattling in your area, you just might gain something.
"You don't want to go out there and create a huge fight scene. It's not a battle to the death. Too many hunters take their rattle-bags out there and beat them and crack them but deer don't respond much to that. Usually, it's just a clicking sound," Hillegas said. "So don't go out and create a big commotion, especially before the rut. Pre-rut, the bucks will come in out of curiosity more than a desire to duel."
Hillegas advises that if you are serious about bowhunting, now is the time to start practicing, to start purchasing the equipment you need and want and especially watch several times the videos that are instructional about when and how to rattle. Hillegas also urges hunters to learn intimately any area they plan to hunt. While deer may change their feeding areas several times during the course of any season, their favored bedding areas will remain the same. It's vital to learn exactly where the deer come from at dusk and head back into at dawn and for you to be stationed there at those times.