DeerFever.com

Author: James L. Bruner

Nearly every whitetail deer hunter can give you a single answer to the question when asked which buck has been their most memorable. The majority will respond in resounding fashion that their very first buck was their most memorable. Although there have been plenty of monster racked whitetails and a bevy of does along the way that very first buck stands as clear as a Monday night football game on that high resolution television that you so proudly hooked-up all on your very own. Complete with surround sound the event begins to come to life.

Sunrise had come slowly as everything in this big dark patch of woods had taken on a life of it’s own. Minutes earlier trees began to move and sway at the trunk and that patch of tall grass appeared to have a pair of tall strong cougar tails waving like a pair of cobras about to strike. The stench of an old bear getting closer hung thick in the air and I knew for certain that at any moment the silence would be broken with a horrendous growl and a fight for life.

So much for the indestructible teen persona which was errantly left back in he city. Fortunately my active imagination once again proved wrong. The images I had created in my brain faded fast and brought the sight of lesser animals like chickadees, bluejays, a couple of squirrels, and a field mouse who had sought refuge at the base of my feet. A welcome sight I thought to myself and the hunt can now begin. My first hunt on my own for whitetail deer.
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Author: James L. Bruner

Sometimes you need to go to a dark dreary place that kind of plays with your senses and chills your skin enough to make you shiver. It’s that type of place where it feels like something is going to happen any moment and you’re going to be right in the thick of the event when it all comes down. A place so silent it’s difficult to grasp the concept that movement can easily be made without creating an associated sound lending to the thought that anything can creep up behind you without detection. That’s when you realize the deer standing in front of you seems to have appeared magically out of this thick wet swamp without a sound or clue but, just as you predicted, it used the heavily worn deer trail you scouted months earlier. Advantage now goes to the hunter.

There’s a lot to be said, and, a lot has already been said about deer trails and which are the best for deer hunting. You can dive into the world of primary and secondary deer trails, and even find them regularly, but what most hunters fail to associate is that trails are nothing more than an area where deer have traveled unless you understand how to hunt them. More to the point are some of the mistakes that can be corrected when hunting a heavily traveled or even a lightly traveled deer trail. It’s worth less than a grain of sand to find an active hunting trail if you’re going to stumble your way through the season wondering why all of the deer seem to have suddenly disappeared. So listen up. There are some basic benchmarks to follow throughout the hunting season and put you on the trail to success.
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Author: James L. Bruner

For many this may sound like a no-brainer simply because of the sheer numbers of deer that abound on your average farm that plants nearly any crops. And that statement rings fairly true especially when the crop is corn, pumpkins, cabbages, and gourds. Not to mention numerous grains that deer devour like candy. But we’re not talking about just knowing deer are there or for that matter seeing deer. I’m talking about the hunting of these animals that already have an abundance of food, ideal cover, and a plethora of trails that lead to and from the immediate woodlots.

I’ll jump back in time here to a day when I met a country girl that lived in the middle of farm country and her grandparents owned 160 acres of property that more or less had never been seriously hunted. We’re talking deer central here and the deer seemed as though they were oblivious to human presence. Maybe it’s because they had gone so many years without any encroachment into their core areas except for the occasional stroll from a family member. In any event it was a daily occurrence to see whitetail in the field, walking the edges of the woods, browsing in the center of the fields, or walking in and out of the corn. New to hunting farm country, but not new to hunting deer, I thought this would be a cake walk. Think again. I got schooled the entire early archery season by a bunch of deer that I thought weren’t even paying attention. But that’s alright because now I can come back and be the teacher with the lessons I’ve learned.
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Author: James L. Bruner

I hear it quite often that a hunter doesn’t rattle for deer because it simply doesn’t work in their region. That’s completely false and personally I would like to see their research that they based this statement on. Rattling antlers for deer is nothing more than calling for deer and I doubt any hunter would challenge traditional forms of calling as a viable technique used in hunting. In fact if you are to bring this into technical terms rattling is a form of communication. It may not be an intended action of calling by the deer itself but it serves as communication to other deer that something is taking place that they may want to investigate or, perhaps, avoid.

I will give the benefit of the doubt to those who say that rattling doesn’t work in their area simply for the fact that this is not a tactic that provides a high percentage of results. In this respect it is like calling with a grunt tube or a doe bleat. You just don’t expect that a deer will come running although you have the expectations that a nice buck or a big doe is going to appear at any moment. You need to be diligent and persistent to achieve the reaction you are seeking from the buck.
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Author: James L. Bruner

Typically I write about techniques and tactics for the deer hunter who is already acclimated into the sport and in several cases these articles pertain to advanced deer hunting techniques for a more advanced hunter. Imagine the knee-jerk reaction I got when I recently got my eyeballs on some statistics that documented the terms people were using to find some of these articles which were very obscure. In fact it was very easy to identify that a large number of these people were brand new deer hunters or hunters who had just been introduced to the sport. It became apparent that my language regarding certain aspects of hunting was probably above comprehension not because of their IQ level but because of their lack of experience in both hunting and talking to other hunters. Quite honestly it brought me back to my childhood recalling some of the deer stories as we sat around the table at camp and the adults would weave a tale of deer hunting like a painter splashing colors on a canvas. I didn’t know half of what they were talking about so I nodded my head in agreement. So that’s where this article comes in. Strictly right down to the basic bare bones of some common deer terms and techniques for those who care to know.
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