Thoughts & tips as we lead up to opening day.
What’s on your mind as you count down the last 30 days to opening season? We interviewed a core group of Kentucky hunters who have consistently hunted mature whitetail, year-after-year. Let’s get into their heads and see what they have to say.
100 Yard Rule
Follow the water sources, follow the food sources, and follow Todd Carter’s 100-yard rule. Moving a camera 100 yards in a field will pick up different deer, year after year. Moving a camera 100 years each year and you’ll pick up different deer movement and help you better identify how groups of deer interact and where they are entering and exiting a field to find out exactly where they are coming from.
Manage for all deer.
That fawn over there might be your next Boone and Crocket.
Bow tuning and training.
You work all year for deer season and using your bow needs to be in the mix. Shoot year-round but make sure you and your bow are fine tuned so you enter the woods with confidence.
Glass.
Find a nice vantage point and glass your fields to see what is entering and existing your fields to help identify key early season stand locations.
Less is more.
Although you can’t kill them on the couch, you can overwork things. We have learned that less is more to keep from getting pattered by your herd. One thing we have grown to learn is early season hunts spooks early season deer, and sometimes less is more when targeting a mature deer.
Early Season Fields:
Deer move bedding, to water, to food. We like to hunt fields early season and save the woods for the rut and late season.
Tobacco Stakes.
Most old barns and farms have them. They make great make-shift camera mounts when trees are not around.
