Letting the Gun Hunter Drive the Bucks to You

Editor's Note: Many bowhunters think of themselves as two-season hunters who hunt with bows and arrows during bow season and then become gun hunters as soon as gun season arrives. However, in the states that have bow season and gun season occurring simultaneously, a sportsman may have a greater chance of taking a trophy buck with a bow during gun season than he does with a gun.

To take a trophy buck with a bow during gun season, you must learn to use hunting pressure to your advantage as well as understand how and where a gun hunter hunts. Generally a gun hunter will arrive in the woods 30 minutes before daylight and wait for the first rays of light to show him the paths he needs to take through the woods in search of deer.

However, bowhunters should enter the woods 1 1/2-hours to two hours before daylight and head for their tree stand sites in the dark long before anyone gun hunting ever arrives in the woods. By allowing plenty of time to not only get to your stand site but also to put your stand up and let the woods settle before gun hunters start to move, you may have the opportunity to take a shot at a sneaky buck.

Gun hunters often enter the woods after slamming car doors and trunks, which signals to the deer that the time has arrived for them to begin to migrate to the thick cover. The further you have your tree stand away from a major road, the better your odds for seeing a buck moving into the thick cover at dawn. As the gun hunters start to travel further into the woods, the bucks will go to thick cover. If you've scouted carefully and properly, you should arrow your buck before the gun hunter ever reaches the place he plans to stalk or stand.