Here's how to establish a plan that will put you in the right spot this hunting season — right from the start.
In
construction, a blueprint is a drawing of what you plan to accomplish.
By using it, you can determine the number of square feet of concrete you
need, the size of the windows you wish to use and much more. How well
you follow your blueprint largely determines how much the end result
looks like the pre-construction goal. You can also make a blueprint of
your hunting play. The more precise your hunting plan and its subsequent
follow-through are, the greater the likelihood that you will achieve the
goal you seek.Your whitetail bowhunting blueprint should encompass several elements. First is the finished product, which could be a "one-bedroom" doe for the freezer, a "three-bedroom" 8-point buck, or a "5,000-square-foot, two-story country manor" record-book-class buck. Each result requires its own blueprint, and knowing what you seek makes good sense.
Scouting
Scouting is the foundation to consistent hunting success. White-tailed deer are creatures of habit. They have preferred travel routes to the spots where they feed most often and the places where they like to bed and hang out during the day. They often water at the same locations time after time. These movements follow a predictable schedule. Knowing where whitetail feed, bed and loaf is the first goal of a hunter's scouting efforts.
I like to use a large map of an area that shows the terrain in great detail, such as a U.S.G.S. 2.5-minute topographic map. A county plate map is also very helpful. To get an accurate overview of which areas are forested, cut over, pasture fields and croplands often requires an aerial photograph of an area, something that may or may not be available. Combining the maps with aerial photography enables you to do a lot of effective armchair scouting. You can pinpoint likely travel route merely by observing the distance between wooded areas. If you simply went into the woods at these locations, finding what you are looking would truly be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Having preliminary knowledge of likely places saves you a lot of time and effort.
When in the woods and fields scouting, follow deer trails to see where they lead. Preseason scouting reveals what whitetails are eating at that time. If agricultural crops are the primary source of food in the preseason, that is where your trailing will lead you. If that corn or soybean field remains a key feeding area later in the hunting season, the chances are good it will also be a good place to ambush a buck.
In areas where food sources change after the preseason — such as wooded areas where hardwood mast such as acorns are key food sources — what worked last year, or even the week before, may not hold true the day you get to the woods. Hardwood mast is fickle, a feast or famine situation for hunters. Anyone who hunts this type of territory knows all too well how frustrating it can be to pinpoint where these animals will feed when acorns are plentiful or when they are scarce. It can be a real roll of the dice and requires a lot more scouting to find current food sources.
Several years ago, while hunting in Alabama one January, I hunted over my first food plot. A largely Texas and Deep South invention, food plots were developed to accomplish two goals. By planting nutrient- and mineral-rich plants that remain green in cold weather, when most other forage has died, landowners can increase the vigor, quality and quantity of the whitetails on their property. Also, because these alluring food plots are often the best buffets in a given area, they attract and concentrate both does and bucks.
The latter aspect is especially attractive when you’re formulating a blueprint for your whitetail season. If you lease or own the land hunted, you can make a small investment of money and effort and put in a _- to 3-acre food plot that will bring the hungry whitetail to you. Even when hunting public land, such as national forest tracts, you can carry in 10 pounds of seeds after the leaves fall and plant your own secret, small food plot in an area you know holds whitetail. While smaller food plots are not the outstanding, season-long management tools that larger ones are, they can be remarkably effective when hardwood mast is scarce and the deer find a bellyful of lush clover desirable.
Location
You need to know only three things about real estate -- location, location, location. Treestand placement is no different. After scouting, determine how you will use your knowledge of how these animals travel to their feeding and bedding areas. Choose your treestand location carefully, as this is where the moment of truth will occur.
I use a checklist to evaluate potential treestand sites. First, is it a safe tree? If it is, then I evaluate its concealment potential. I do not like to stick out on a tree like an unexpected growth. One of my favorite setups is when I find a well-located hardwood that is girdled in lower growing dogwoods or cedars. This little understory of cover provides excellent concealment for me and my stand.
Next I consider prevailing wind directions relative to the location of my treestand and to the trail I would be hunting. I also like to take into consideration the direction of the sun at the time of day when I will hunt. I don’t like to be completely in the sun or backlighted: I prefer light coming toward me at an angle. It may sound funny, but I know that having deer see my shadow projected on the ground has cost me bucks on more than one occasion in seasons past.
Once I determine where I am going to locate my treestands, I prepare these locations by inserting my climbing steps and clearing shooting lanes. I am not averse to doctoring up an area, either; by erecting brush pile barriers to move a deer trail this way or that to provide me an advantage. If your scouting turns up a hotly traveled deer trail, you will be surprised at how you can use such strategies to manipulate its use by funneling traffic your way.
Preparation
An overlooked key to any project is preparation. Roofers can’t finish a roof if someone has to go and get those last three bundles of shingles needed to finish the job. Similarly, you don’t need to be working on quieting your bow the night before Opening Day.
Preparation is where I come the closest to exhibiting compulsive behavior; I am a preparation fanatic. My garage, which these days is really more than a garage, has one entire room devoted to storing hunting gear. A long table makes it possible for me to lay out, examine and double-check each item I plan to take on a trip or put in my daypack.
Leave nothing to chance. Wash your hunting clothes in Hunter Specialties scent-free detergent, then pack and seal them in that company’s scent-proof plastic bags. I also check everything from my compass to my lighter to make sure it is working perfectly.
Experience has revealed many overlooked problems in my gear to me that you probably have not noticed in your own equipment. You wash your clothes carefully to remove scent, right? Tell me then, have you smelled the inside of that favorite hunting hat of yours lately? It sure stinks, doesn't it? After making that discovery a few seasons back, I now carry a hat that is worn only when bowhunting. It is either washed or discarded regularly. The same is true of my pull rope. I accidentally sniffed it one day --wow, did it have an odor! Now I wash my pull ropes as often as my hunting clothes, and treat them the same way.
Treestands receive special treatment prior to the season. After having the squeak of a treestand cost me a trophy buck many years ago, I vowed never to let that happen again. Every treestand is field tested for sturdiness and quietness. Years ago I had to disassemble my treestands in order to put homemade washers cut from old gallon milk jugs between the many metal-to-metal fittings. The resulting quietness was worth the effort.
Preparation also includes making sure your bow is ready, shooting at its highest potential. Of course, this also means you have to be physically ready. Two personal goals for every hunter prior to the season must be shooting well and being in good enough physical condition to enjoy the hunting season. This is the part that doesn’t appear readily visible on your blueprint, any more than if a helper on a construction crew can use a hammer well enough to drive nails without destroying his thumbs. But it’s just as essential.
Practice shoot as often as you need to in order to be confident with your skills within your established killing range. I like to shoot a few arrows a day, shooting only enough to get the feel. Walking is one of the best ways to condition your overall body for the hunting season. It gets your leg muscles toned as well as running, but without running’s associated joint impact problems. Walking also conditions your heart and lungs. This is where many middle-aged bowhunters get into the most trouble. Begin walking at a brisk pace for an hour a day five to six weeks prior to the season and you will be ready for almost any physical challenge you could encounter during hunting season.
Now that your blueprint is complete, follow it closely and your hunting "house" will be all you could hope for.