One in 21 chance!

[fairchaser]

I can usually on stay on stand 3-4 hours. I can go longer if I see deer. But sightings have been down this year.

Based on my camera survey, my target buck comes through in daylight once a week during the first week of December. If I divide the day into 3 periods, that's 21 periods in a week.

If I hunt once a week, that's 1 in 21 chance of seeing my target buck. On average it could take 7 years to kill my buck! If I hunt 3 mornings a week, that's 3 in 21 chance or I could hunt all day one day a week. Which method gives me the best chance? What would you do?

 

[backyardtndeer]

When I know my target buck is around, I try to hunt as much as I can without blowing the area.

 

[bowtechgump]

I have to admit that my hunting abilities fell when I started using cameras. I began to think that I knew what deer were doing and when deer they were doing it. It took out all of the excitement and played out like a failure. I let a buck stand in front of me for 30+ minutes because he was no longer on my "hit list".....he was 2 years previous.

 

[74MOPAR]

 

[bowtechgump]

I have to admit that my hunting abilities fell when I started using cameras. I began to think that I knew what deer were doing and when deer they were doing it. It took out all of the excitement and played out like a failure. I let a buck stand in front of me for 30+ minutes because he was no longer on my "hit list".....he was 2 years previous.

My point is that sometimes you have go back to the beginning.....like that "Sound of Music" BS......start with the beginning and find the original love of being in the "game". I have to say that I am preaching to myself as well. Some it seems that we all put the struggle of "keeping up with the Jones's"to getting back to the McCoys.

 

[megalomaniac]

Too bad deer hunting statistics don't work that way. If they did, I'll kill a giant most years.

When it comes to actual hunting, the FIRST time you hunt the buck you may have a 1/21 chance. But the percentages decline each time you hunt him, so after 6 or 7 sits, you are down to a 1/100 chance.

Hunt smarter, not harder if you want to kill a certain buck.

I hunted my local lease for the first time this year this eve with my son. Rut is still 2.5 weeks away, yet members have already had over 100 hunts so far this season... and not a single deer killed.

I knew we wouldn't see a shooter buck this early and with this much pressure, just wanted to sit together and visit.

I won't really start buck hunting down here until after Jan 1st. And I certainly won't be on the plots with feeders that have had 15 sits on each one of them this season.

 

[BSK]

Too bad deer hunting statistics don't work that way. If they did, I'll kill a giant most years.

When it comes to actual hunting, the FIRST time you hunt the buck you may have a 1/21 chance. But the percentages decline each time you hunt him, so after 6 or 7 sits, you are down to a 1/100 chance.

Hunt smarter, not harder if you want to kill a certain buck.

I hunted my local lease for the first time this year this eve with my son. Rut is still 2.5 weeks away, yet members have already had over 100 hunts so far this season... and not a single deer killed.

I knew we wouldn't see a shooter buck this early and with this much pressure, just wanted to sit together and visit.

I won't really start buck hunting down here until after Jan 1st. And I certainly won't be on the plots with feeders that have had 15 sits on each one of them this season.

I once did a statistical analysis of how many hunting hours on stand it took before buck sightings began to decline from that stand. On average, only 12.5 cumulative hours. Of course, 1) most of our yearly hunting occurs over only 3 weeks [very concentrated], and 2) our hunting is all set up for bow-range shots, so bucks that have to be in close are going to smell the human presence much quicker than stands set up for 150-yard shots.

 

[fairchaser]

I once did a statistical analysis of how many hunting hours on stand it took before buck sightings began to decline from that stand. On average, only 12.5 cumulative hours. Of course, 1) most of our yearly hunting occurs over only 3 weeks [very concentrated], and 2) our hunting is all set up for bow-range shots, so bucks that have to be in close are going to smell the human presence much quicker than stands set up for 150-yard shots.

I purposely select my stand sites for easy access and longer range shots. This keeps me out of the primary deer movement and bedding area. I can hunt the same stand for many hunts with little impact. There is some! When the deer do smell where I've climbed, they recognize it as normal farming and ranching activities near farming roads. I try to pick spots where when bucks move through doe bedding areas they are forced to cross these farming roads where I'm set up.

 

[BSK]

I purposely select my stand sites for easy access and longer range shots. This keeps me out of the primary deer movement and bedding area. I can hunt the same stand for many hunts with little impact. There is some! When the deer do smell where I've climbed, they recognize it as normal farming and ranching activities near farming roads. I try to pick spots where when bucks move through doe bedding areas they are forced to cross these farming roads where I'm set up.

Smart tactics.

 

[megalomaniac]

I once did a statistical analysis of how many hunting hours on stand it took before buck sightings began to decline from that stand. On average, only 12.5 cumulative hours. Of course, 1) most of our yearly hunting occurs over only 3 weeks [very concentrated], and 2) our hunting is all set up for bow-range shots, so bucks that have to be in close are going to smell the human presence much quicker than stands set up for 150-yard shots.

Did you break it down by age class of bucks?

I don't think hunting pressure affects yearling bucks much. But for mature bucks, it's a game changer (I learned this from you 15 years ago, and it's made a WORLD of difference in my hunting success).

 

[BSK]

Did you break it down by age class of bucks?

Only to the point of ignoring yearling bucks. My analysis was only for sightings of older (2 1/2+) bucks.

I don't think hunting pressure affects yearling bucks much. But for mature bucks, it's a game changer (I learned this from you 15 years ago, and it's made a WORLD of difference in my hunting success).

 

[JJ3]

I can usually on stay on stand 3-4 hours. I can go longer if I see deer. But sightings have been down this year.

Based on my camera survey, my target buck comes through in daylight once a week during the first week of December. If I divide the day into 3 periods, that's 21 periods in a week.

If I hunt once a week, that's 1 in 21 chance of seeing my target buck. On average it could take 7 years to kill my buck! If I hunt 3 mornings a week, that's 3 in 21 chance or I could hunt all day one day a week. Which method gives me the best chance? What would you do?

Hunt the whole week!

 

[backyardtndeer]

I purposely select my stand sites for easy access and longer range shots. This keeps me out of the primary deer movement and bedding area. I can hunt the same stand for many hunts with little impact. There is some! When the deer do smell where I've climbed, they recognize it as normal farming and ranching activities near farming roads. I try to pick spots where when bucks move through doe bedding areas they are forced to cross these farming roads where I'm set up.

This year was a good example for me. Knew a mature buck was around, it all worked out to be a matter of putting myself in the right stand at the right time, and I killed the deer about 5 minutes after getting in the stand on November 1st. My cell cam had him where I wasn't for my first few sits of the season. Ironically, the day before I killed the deer he was on the scrapeline at my camera in the middle of the day, 1:45 pm, while I was sitting in line to pick my son up from school.

I was hoping to catch up with him, and did that next afternoon about 4:20, that was before falling back for dst. What I didn't expect was for him to be walking across my little field at that time of the day. That stand was the same stand my wife killed her deer from a couple weeks later, and I have seen and passed on a couple of 3.5+ bucks from the same stand since those two were killed.

Other than bumping deer off the acorns under that tree, it's a pretty easy access stand at the top of a gully looking down the other side of a rolling hill field. At the opposite end of that field I get a scrapeline going with active scrape and a dripper just before I expect for their scraping activity to take off. That had my target buck working scrapes on that line during daylight leading up to the opener for us in cwd zone. Some say mature bucks won't work scrapes during daylight, I have plenty of pics and time in the field watching to say otherwise.

 

[DMD]

Too bad deer hunting statistics don't work that way. If they did, I'll kill a giant most years.

When it comes to actual hunting, the FIRST time you hunt the buck you may have a 1/21 chance. But the percentages decline each time you hunt him, so after 6 or 7 sits, you are down to a 1/100 chance.

I know this is very prominent thinking among deer hunters, and i am sure it's true in some places. Maybe lots of places. But, the places I've hunted, I've experienced just the opposite. A lot of the mature bucks I've killed have been after several sits in the same tree, some times several consecutive days. The reason probably is because I mostly hunt travel corridors in big tracts of timber.

 

[TheLBLman]

Perhaps the main reason most hunters don't see & kill deer during mid-day is because most hunters only hunt early mornings & late afternoons.

 

[DMD]

Perhaps the main reason most hunters don't see & kill deer during mid-day is because most hunters only hunt early mornings & late afternoons.

I think there is a lot of truth to this. I hunted one time in Illinois on a semi-guided hunt. Guide told me to hunt till 9 am, come back to cabin and get in ladder stand on edge of corn field one hour before dark. I politely asked if I could take my climber in the woods below cornfield and hunt all day. He laughed at me and said "deer don't move around here in the middle of the day". I would come in every evening telling him about deer I saw mid-morning through mid-afternoon. He didn't believe me. I saw one of the biggest bucks at 2:30 pm. The absolute biggest i saw at 9:30 am.

 

[Ski]

When I've got a target buck I suspect will show, I hunt hard until he's dead or else disappeared. If he comes and I'm not there, then I don't get him. So if I suspect he's going to be there inside a window of time, I'm on stand as much of that window as possible.

 

[fairchaser]

Hunt the whole week!

I talked to my buddy about hunting all day every day that week of the rut when things are crazy. When you go on a pay hunt, that's exactly what you do until you kill your buck.

 

[bowtechgump]

At some point, however, there is a return on investment. You have to admit that the farmer on the tractor became a non-threatening entity to the deer. It's the reason why you should stay close to the fence line. They are just barnyard animals left to their own personal life.

 

[FLTENNHUNTER1]

I would hunt all day depending on the wind direction.