Key attributes of a successful “trophy” hunter

[DoubleRidge]

It doesn't even have to be leadership, just arrogant hunters. When another hunter looks at your buck and says, "I would have given that buck another year," they are telling you - not so subtly - two things: 1) I'm a MUCH better hunter than you are; and 2) You just took away a future trophy from ME!

Gotcha.... Yeah that wouldn't work out too well on our place....we're not bashing on each other like that ....but again it's family and friends that have the same goals....I guess it's easier when it's a smaller group and everyone is on the same page..... thankful to not have to deal with that type drama.

 

[infoman jr.]

I have a heavy influence of Irish blood, most of which influences my desire for dark beer and good whiskey!

Says the guy who celebrated his coues hunt with Jim Beam.

I think having a flexible job schedule has a lot to do with it. It seems like the guys who are consistently on big deer spend a lot of time at it.

 

[AT Hiker]

Says the guy who celebrated his coues hunt with Jim Beam.

If you think I would leave a bottle of Weller, alone in my truck- in the middle of a desert, you've lost your mind!
Besides, I enjoy the sweetness of Beam straight from the plastic liter. It's made for backpacking.
*Besides, I like good whiskey....doesn't mean I like to share it

 

[JCDEERMAN]

I still end up killing a fair number of mature bucks. Why? Because I'm always using mature buck hunting tactics. I hunt the whole season like I'm after a mature buck

I feel like once you get in that mindset (the style and methods of going after older deer), you have a one-tracked mind. That's hard to explain.

 

[jag1]

When another hunter looks at your buck and says, "I would have given that buck another year," they are telling you -

Back in 99 I shot to that point my best buck with a bow on opening day. I had stumbled across this sight and couldn't wait to post my picture and share my story with people of like mind. My wife gets tired of listening to my hunting stories... I had hatched a plan to ambush the deer on opening day and it worked to perfection and I was able to harvest the 8 point, 2.5 yr old buck. Most folks were congratulatory. BSK wanted to know the lay of the land/timber or agriculture as he was trying to put an age to the deer cause he had so much mass. He was only about 14" inside. Mass said one thing but body said another. Anyway there were enough comments like what BSK listed that put a real bad taste in my mouth. I bought into what some were saying and ended up passing some really nice deer as I was waiting on that really special one. I enjoy myself far more now than I did for about a 4-5 year period.

 

[tnanh]

It doesn't even have to be leadership, just arrogant hunters. When another hunter looks at your buck and says, "I would have given that buck another year," they are telling you - not so subtly - two things: 1) I'm a MUCH better hunter than you are; and 2) You just took away a future trophy from ME!

This is exactly what I am talking about. It is very common. I have even had several send me trail cam photos saying dont shoot this buck. I freakin hunt on my own land. Only 4 of us hunt it and we are picky about what makes us happy.

 

[BSK]

I feel like once you get in that mindset (the style and methods of going after older deer), you have a one-tracked mind. That's hard to explain.

Not to me it's not! I completely get you.

 

[DoubleRidge]

This is exactly what I am talking about. It is very common. I have even had several send me trail cam photos saying dont shoot this buck. I freakin hunt on my own land. Only 4 of us hunt it and we are picky about what makes us happy.

WOW....yeah that wouldn't sit well with me either....we do try to communicate and work with our neighbors....and thankfully we have a good relationship with them.....can't imagine someone attempting to tell me what deer to shoot or not to shoot on my own land?....when our neighbors send me a picture of any deer they kill I'll be the first to congratulate them!!

 

[tnanh]

WOW....yeah that wouldn't sit well with me either....we do try to communicate and work with our neighbors....and thankfully we have a good relationship with them.....can't imagine someone attempting to tell me what deer to shoot or not to shoot on my own land?....when our neighbors send me a picture of any deer they kill I'll be the first to congratulate them!!

I congratulate them too and have a good relationship with them but I have to bite my tongue when they do that. I keep a good relationship because if they need to come on my place to look for a wounded deer or vice versa I want to keep it that way. We also keep an eye out for poachers on each others land. One large part of it is a lease.

 

[megalomaniac]

I seem to have just the opposite problem from you guys. For example, new neighbors to the north of one farm are all about only shooting mature bucks. They brag about it, how many deer they pass up, yet they are all talk. The 3 bucks they shot last year were all bucks we passed up... that is fine... one of the bucks was 4.5 I passed up twice... Noone in their right mind would have passed him, yet I did because I was hunting a single 6.5yo giant, and I only get 1 buck of choice tag. For me last year, it was that 1 buck or nothing. But the other 2 were 3.5yos they posted all over FB as being 'mature' deer. This year 1 tagged out on a 2.5yo and 3.5yo. Again, I have no problem with whatever you want to shoot.... heck, thats my rule on my farms... you can literally shoot any buck of choice, I dont care.... but you only get 1. But don't try to run with the big boys who actually do kill old deer saying you only shoot mature deer when you arent practicing what you preach. Luckily, they've been kicked off that property. It will be nice to have their blinds off my property lines so I dont have to worry about accidentally shooting them.

Unfortunately, I think the 'mature deer' or 'trophy deer' mentality has infected so many hunters that just aren't capable of actually doing so it has become a disease to them. They just need to accept the fact that they don't have it in them, and just be happy shooting whatever floats their boat, instead of trying to seek approval from other hunters about what they choose to kill.

Killing mature deer is NOT easy... which is why it is so fun and so special when it finally comes together resulting in an old deer on the ground.

 

[Roost 1]

Profiling Big Buck Serial Killers

By Don Higgins: I recently had an opportunity to work with and get to know a dozen highly successful whitetail trophy hunters on an up-close-and-personal level. You see my latest book, Real World W…

wiredtohunt.com

 

[DoubleRidge]

Profiling Big Buck Serial Killers

By Don Higgins: I recently had an opportunity to work with and get to know a dozen highly successful whitetail trophy hunters on an up-close-and-personal level. You see my latest book, Real World W…

wiredtohunt.com

Good read.... interesting.....thanks for sharing.

 

[Ski]

Interesting thread topic, and Interesting responses.

I think hunters give bucks too much respect. It's like that blue eyed blonde every boy in school had a crush on. You had no chance because you were too scared to talk to her, let alone ask her out. The guy who did married her, and your buddies & you sat around wondering wth she was with that dork for. Simple. He wasn't the smartest or best looking guy in school, but he wasn't too chicken to ask her out. You were.

Same thing with bucks. Don't sit on the periphery hoping he'll offer himself up to you. Go take him. Sure you'll get rejected and look like a fool sometimes. But sometimes you won't. I'll take that sometimes any day over never.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

Don't sit on the periphery hoping he'll offer himself up to you. Go take him. Sure you'll get rejected and look like a fool sometimes. But sometimes you won't. I'll take that sometimes any day over never.

Agreed. Got to get aggressive and slip in when the times are right. I like your analogy - don't over-think things. Keep it simple

 

[Specializedjon]

MAN...I'm glad I found this post. I thought I was just a crappy hunter because I haven't shot a buck in the last two seasons. I must be a TROPHY HUNTER!!

Or maybe more appropriate...a crappy trophy hunter. haha

 

[Ski]

MAN...I'm glad I found this post. I thought I was just a crappy hunter because I haven't shot a buck in the last two seasons. I must be a TROPHY HUNTER!!

Or maybe more appropriate...a crappy trophy hunter. haha

Hahaha I promise you're not a worse hunter than me. I'm a horrible hunter. Loud, stinky, & fidgety. I won't go in the woods until it's daylight enough to see, and often climb down before 9am. Then I don't go back out until 3-4pm. Lots of days I don't even go at all. True story.

Used to be I would be in stand an hour before daylight and would stay til dark, day after day, and pray i'd see a deer. I used to be careful about killing my scent, used cover scents & attractants, sneaking all stealthy through the woods, etc. I worked hard & spared no expense.

One day I realized that what I normally do doesn't work. I wasn't killing the bucks I wanted. I wasn't even seeing them. So I thought about what the other extreme would be like. What would happen if I invade bedding areas, walk in after daylight, make noise, not worry about my scent, only sit the gray light hours, and stay at home most days? At the very worst it would mean not killing big bucks, which is exactly where I was already at, so why not try it? I did and oddly enough I started getting on good bucks. I spooked a whole bunch of them, too, which was still better than not ever seeing any at all. From there I was able to start incrementally dialing back my brazen approach until I found a happy medium between being so cautious that I never see a buck, and charging through the woods like a drunken sailor spooking everything for miles. Pretty soon I was killing the bucks I wanted to kill. I'm not the guy you want to be sharing public ground with, but I fill my tags.

 

[redblood]

Profiling Big Buck Serial Killers

By Don Higgins: I recently had an opportunity to work with and get to know a dozen highly successful whitetail trophy hunters on an up-close-and-personal level. You see my latest book, Real World W…

wiredtohunt.com

Very good article snd so very true. Lots of imposters out there.

 

[Mule deer]

Working on large hunting clubs, what I often see is a small percentage of the hunters/members killing the large majority of the big/old bucks. Basically, somewhere in the rule of 20% of the hunters killing 80% of the big bucks taken each year. Why is this? I see it over and over. What makes those minority of hunters so much better at connecting on what bucks are available?

From what I have witnessed, it is not the hunters who hunt the most. It is the hunters who spend the most effort studying deer behavior all year-round. They run trail-cameras and experiment with camera placement. They pour over maps and create maps of the sign they have found. They spend a huge amount of time and thought into figuring out how deer move across the landscape, and how older bucks often use terrain and habitat differently than does and younger bucks.

At it's core, this minority of highly successful hunters are the most observant and the best able to make the connections between what they see and what it means. They innately see the patterns. I firmly believe it is far more a "mental attitude" thing versus an "effort in the stand" thing.

Spot on Bryan! Spend more time in the woods, year around, observing your deer herd and walking around looking for trails, pinch points and bedding areas. Then using that knowledge, hunt the right places during the right time, with correct wind.

 

[7mm08]

I'd be interested in knowing a percentage of trophy bucks killed on private land vs public.......

What I wouldn't give to be born into a family that owned a large farm in deer country, and the flexibility of time/job to hunt

 

[TheLBLman]

I'd be interested in knowing a percentage of trophy bucks killed on private land vs public.......

What I wouldn't give to be born into a family that owned a large farm in deer country, and the flexibility of time/job to hunt

The answer to your question largely depends on how you define a "trophy" buck.

For many, many years, kinda as "an aside", I've been very fortunate to be a hunter/manager of some large properties, and had the flexibility of time/job to hunt both those intensely managed "private" and numerous "public" lands.

I can tell you, I have a better chance at a top-end mature buck on public lands in TN & KY than I do on some very intensely managed private lands in TN. That's why I hunt both, near equally splitting my hunting time.

Believe it or not, some of the best opportunities in TN for a top-end mature buck may actually be on public WMA's that do absolutely nothing in terms of "managing" for top-end mature bucks. This is because so much of TN's private lands (and public WMA's) "better" deer management tends to produce more antler high-grading of younger bucks, than no "trophy" management at all.

Before I get too old to physically do it, I'm seriously thinking about spending much of my next couple years deer hunting the Cherokee National Forest. Sure, I probably have better odds on many other WMA's for a higher-scoring mature buck, but, maybe, maybe not. Although the deer density there is very low, so is the number of hunters, and there appears to be much less antler high-grading of any bucks there.

It's all about the totality of the experience, and "urban" shooting called "hunting" is not for me. I have similar sentiments regarding hunting many farmland areas, even though most farmland areas do offer greater odds than most largely forested and/or wilderness areas.