Features







 

Books

 

Fun & Games

Trivia Games

 

Contact Us


 

 

 

John's Journal... Entry 128, Day 5

SECRETS OF DEER-HUNTING GUIDES

Pitman Consistently Takes Bucks

EDITOR'S NOTE: For some, deer hunting isn't just an annual event, it's their livelihood. When they talk, you'd do well to pay attention. A professional deer-hunting guide earns his living by finding bucks for his clients every season. These avid woodsmen have spent their lifetimes studying the habits and haunts of deer. They experience consistent success because they know more and hunt more than the average outdoorsman. True masters of the sport of deer hunting, deer-hunting guides have developed common-sense tactics that will produce bucks for you anywhere you live.

BO PITMAN - Co-owner of White Oak Plantation near Tuskegee,
Alabama, also in the Black Belt, Pitman grew up hunting deer in Florida. He studies deer all year long and has developed strategies for consistently taking bucks.

STRATEGY ONE - "I always have designated safety zones," Pitman explained. "I set aside certain areas on my property that I don't hunt. These regions often will be out-of-the-way, hard-to-get dense cover spots where older-age-class bucks can find sanctuary. If you hunt every piece of ground regularly, you will drive the older, bigger bucks off your property. By providing sanctuary for trophy bucks, you always will have those bucks to hunt. For instance, if a five-acre clearcut is on your property, hunt around the edge of that clearcut. Don't penetrate that thick cover. If you can't take the big bucks on the edges, don't go into that dense-cover area and run him off the property."

STRATEGY TWO - "Don't waste a good buck on a bad day," Pitman emphasized. "If you find a big buck on the property, only hunt that buck when all the conditions are in your favor. Don't hunt that buck every day of the season. When I locate a nice buck, I usually won't hunt him until the second day after a cold front has passed through my area. From keeping records on deer movement, I know that the second day after a cold front has passed through a region the bucks tend to be the most active. On those cold, still days, I believe my odds are the greatest for taking a trophy buck. The less hunting pressure older-age-class bucks feel, the more likely they are to move during daylight hours and remain in the area where you find them. Pick the days you hunt trophy bucks very carefully. Don't hunt them on days when you are least likely to get a shot."

STRATEGY THREE - "On days with variable winds, surround thick cover," Pitman suggests. "When the wind constantly changes direction, I like to take standers in to a thick-cover area I plan to hunt. I have the standers approach that thick cover from all points of the compass. By using this tactic, which ever way the wind blows, the deer will smell human odor. When he smells that human odor, more than likely he'll try to slip out the backside of the dense cover. I'll have a stander in a place to get a shot off at that buck. Instead of sending drivers through these thickets, we use our human odor we produce on the outside of the thicket to drive the deer out. Then the bucks come out walking and looking back, which makes them easy targets for standers."

STRATEGY FOUR - "When you hunt over a green field, don't come out of your stand at dark and spook the deer off the green field," Pitman says. "Instead, remain in your stand until a vehicle comes to pick you up. Most deer hunters approach a stand over a green field very cautiously and quietly. But at night when hunters leave their stands, they may just walk away from their stands and spook every deer on the field. Hunters bag bucks over green fields from shooting houses and tree stands because the deer don't realize the hunters are there. But when a hunter comes out of a stand and a deer sees him, then the buck knows exactly where to look for the hunter the next time he comes to that field. Older age bucks may stay away from that green field, because they realize a hunter may be there. A better method is to get someone to pick you up in a vehicle at your stand. When deer hear car doors slamming and vehicles moving, they won't spook out of a green field. At our place, the deer won't leave the field until they see the car lights shining in the trees above them or coming down the road to the field. By letting the vehicle spook the deer, that field can be hunted much more frequently, the deer won't know a hunter is in the area, and the animals won't see the stands where the hunters are."

STRATEGY FIVE - "One of the most critical keys for taking a big buck is to rotate the stands you hunt from," Pitman emphasized. "To get a shot at a trophy buck, you have to surprise him. If you hunt from one particular stand too often, the buck will smell your scent and know you're location. I try never to hunt from the same stand site more than once in seven days. By rotating your stand sites and having plenty of stands to hunt from, you drastically increase your odds for taking older, bigger bucks. Once I find an older age-class buck, I begin to immediately search for as many stand sites as possible in the area where I've seen that buck. The deer will be caught by surprise, because he won't expect to see a hunter in that spot at that time of day."

The same thread that runs through all the strategies presented by these deer-hunting guides is common sense. These men have developed the ability to think like bucks. They not only know where the deer should be but why and when the animals should be in certain areas. Utilizing these types of reasoning strategies vastly will improve your odds for taking an older-age-class buck each year.

For information on hunting with Bo Pitman at White Oak Plantation, call (334) 727-9258, or visit the website at www.whiteoakplantation.com.

 


 





 

 

Check back each day this week for more about Canadian Black Bears ...

Day 1 - Locating Big Bucks
Day 2 - More Strategies for Finding and Taking Bucks
Day 3 - Walker's Tips For Taking Monster Bucks
Day 4 - Bad-Weather Deer-Hunting Tactics
Day 5 - Pitman Consistently Takes Bucks


John's Journal