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I think Dirty Harry said it best when he said…”a man’s got to know his limitations”. And so it goes when hunting deer with stick and string. Yeah I know we put many arrows down range at 20, 30, 40 and some have pins way beyond that. I even met a man this year that had a 100 yard pin; now that’s crazy! Don’t get me wrong, practice is good, but what kind of practice do you get? Perfect temperature, perfect clothes, perfect form, still target, level ground, and no time limit on the shot.
I have been bow hunting for 23 years and have harvested deer every one of those 23 years with bow or crossbow; many of them bucks, including 2 Pope & Young 10 pointers. Yet every year at the moment of truth I still have to talk myself through the shot…deer too small?…too close?…too far?…too many obstructions?, and on and on with the mental checklist. My shot preference is 20 – 25 yards. I have only shot 3 deer beyond 25 yards in all those years and I have let a lot of deer walk by.
The big problem comes in when you have been sitting there for quite awhile without seeing anything and then, there they are. Adrenaline starts to rush through a cold stiff body making it twitch in ways you just know the deer is going to see you shaking. Since we haven’t seen or harvested one yet, we start to rationalize…I shot 2 inch groups at that range, I can slip it passed that branch OR 40 yards is nothing…I do it all the time and you convince yourself that you can get a perfect double lung shot, so you let her rip!
I kind of had one of those moments this year. I was on stand way before light and saw my first deer at 9:25am at 30 yards…a doe with a fawn. She was working my way so I just watched and waited for my 20 yard shot. At 25 yards she got spooky and stopped and stared in my direction, but not up. I had not moved and the wind was in my favor…how do they do that? She turned her head to look at her fawn and I made my move and put my sights on her center chest as she took 2 more steps and stopped again. I wanted her at 20 yards real bad, but at this moment she started back stepping and turned to leave…pausing at 27 yards as if she was deciding which way to run. Yep, I did it! I said you can make that wide open, 27 yard quartering (facing to my right) away shot with absolutely no problem; what’s 2 more yards. I let it go at the very instant she decided to roll to her left, turning a quartering away shot into a near Texas heart shot. I heard the hit but could not tell where I hit her, so I just watched her as she ran out of sight. I gave it 30 minutes and got down to check out the point of impact. No arrow, no hair, no blood…ugh! I quietly and slowly slipped through the woods following her exit route and 40 yards into it I found massive amounts of blood and tracked her another 60 yards finding her piled up.
I was lucky! The arrow had slipped just forward of the right rear leg bone, cut the artery, hit the liver and both lungs. It could have been a disaster and a waste of good venison. I have now convinced myself more than ever that my 25 yard rule is a good one and one that I must follow. Not because I can’t shoot that far, but because I have no idea what the deer is thinking…you your limitations change with a thinking/moving target. Common Sense and the ability to have it under pressure will go along way!
And here’s another story…Tinks 69 and Code Blue are just 2 of the many Walmart and local sporting goods off the shelf scents you can buy for less than 10 bucks. Now here’s a question…how do they get those deer to pee so much while in heat that they can fill so many bottles every year? When you get the correct answer to that, you may change your thinking. I believe in using scents, and I am certainly not saying Tinks 69 & Code Blue are bad, but I personally don’t use what you can buy within a thousand miles of here. There are a very select few people that know what I use and they are sworn to secrecy. I in the several years of using it, I have never had a bad reaction to the scent (bucks, does, or fawns) and have had many deer lick it up as they walk right to where I want them.
Deer are curious by nature and will follow a new smell not associated with danger for quite a way. Deer are also driven by 3 things…Survival, Food, and Procreation; depending on their mood the order of those will change. The scent you choose has to key on their curiosity, stomach, or libido
The first big key if using estrus scents is buying the “real deal” and following instructions to the T. Don’t over do it! How many times have you walked through the woods and smelled a doe in estrus? Never! Yet a buck can follow her every hoof print.
The second big thing is to use what no one else is using.
The very next day after harvesting that doe I just told you about I had a buck skirt my downwind side at 30 yards and the moment he got a whiff of my scent he turned and came straight at me. He came slowly only because he felt the urge to wear out a couple trees along the way. The 2 or 3 minutes it took for him to come in gave me plenty of time to run the mental checklist several times. But here comes that thinking/moving target…straight at me. No broadside shot. He was so intense on that smell that he wouldn’t divert left or right enough for me to shoot. After rubbing each tree, he would lift his head, lick his nose, smell the air and move straight toward the scent. I shot that deer in self defense at 6 steps. He went 30 yards, stopped and fell over.
Now that is the kind of reaction you want from your scent product. If you aren’t getting it…stop doing what you’re doing. You are better off with no scent than scents that get you bad reactions.
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