How Does the Dominant Buck Deer Demonstrate His Dominance?
Have you ever noticed a bully on the beach? He’ll flirt with the bikini-clad girl at his side, even if he knows he’s in trouble. The bully has a certain posture and air that tells all the other men on the beach to beware. This same posturing is often how a dominant buck exerts his superiority over other bucks in his territory. According to Dr. Harry Jacobson, a retired deer researcher and wildlife professor, “Although a buck exerts dominance in a number of ways, he primarily uses body language. When he approaches a subordinate animal, he will give that buck a hard stare. If that buck doesn’t display the appropriate submissive behavior or posture, then the situation intensifies to a whole series of displays, which can end-up in conflict.”
If Two Dominant Bucks Exist in One Area, Will One Cause the Other to Leave His Range?
No clear-cut answer seems to be known to this question, although avid blackpowder hunters want to know. However, Dr. Larry Marchinton, a renowned deer researcher, introduces a new term for most of us: Superdominance. “I believe superdominance is present sometimes among deer,” Marchinton states. “A buck may be dominant anywhere he goes, if he’s head and shoulders above any other buck in any area. At the same time, some dominant bucks are not clearly superior over others. So, a situation may arise where two dominant bucks both find the same doe in heat. In this case, these bucks may fight to decide at that particular moment and then have the right to breed the doe.”
Dr. Jacobson hasn’t found that a dominant buck normally runs a challenger out of his area. “I think what biologists observe instead is that, following a confrontation with a dominant buck, a subordinate buck from then on no longer contests the status of dominance, but instead gives way to the dominant buck. Deer have a lingering hierarchy of dominance. Just because one buck is subordinate to another and may be the number-two buck, he still may dominate over the other bucks in the pecking order. There’s not always a clear-cut idea that, ‘This is the dominant buck.’ A constant shifting of rank happens between individual bucks that are close-to-evenly matched. While these bucks may not contest the next individual up the pecking order, they constantly contest each other and challenge other bucks in the region.”
Learn from Other CVA Muzzleloader Hunters’ Mistakes
Bo Pitman, the lodge manager of White Oak Plantation near Tuskegee, Alabama, each deer season has hunted with numerous deer hunters for more than 20 years. From his experiences, he’s evaluated why some hunters take deer, and others don’t. He’s learned what the most-common mistakes are that sportsmen make that they can eliminate to make their chances of success skyrocket.
Shooting Too Quickly and Using a Rest:
Unsuccessful hunters shoot too quickly, and the worst shot a hunter can make is an off-hand shot. Find a rest to lean your CVA muzzleloader rifle on, so you can steady it for the shot. Even if the hunter has to back-up to locate a tree to prop against, his chances are better for taking a deer from a rest than they are free-handed. Actually, as soon as a sportsman sees a deer, the next thing he must look for is a place he can lean his rifle up-against to brace for the shot. Generally a hunter will have time to find a rest from which to shoot. Unsuccessful hunters think about shooting first.
Not Knowing Your Trigger:
The best hunter should understand exactly how much pressure he has to apply to the trigger for his muzzleloader rifle to fire. If the rifle requires a hard trigger pull before it fires, and the hunter knows that, then many times he will jerk the trigger to make the rifle fire quicker. And, usually that jerk will cause him to miss the deer. Many Muzzleloading hunters prefer to have a light but firm trigger. Then you’ll know exactly when that rifle will fire when you touch that trigger. The hunters who haven’t learned the amount of pressure they will need to apply to fire their rifles are the ones who rarely bag bucks. Knowing the amount of trigger pressure you need to take a deer is just as important as knowing where to place the crosshairs on the animal when the rifle fires.
Not Having a Positive Mental Attitude:
The Muzzleloading hunters who don’t think they will kill deer don’t. Some unsuccessful hunters should have stayed in the lodge and watched TV, instead of going out to hunt the deer, because they’ll say before they leave the lodge that, “I haven’t ever killed a deer and don’t really believe I will. But I’m going out here and look for one anyhow.” Most of the time these hunters do exactly as they have pre-programmed themselves to do – they move into the woods, knowing they’ve never observed a buck and don’t expect to see one this time, so they don’t spot a buck. And, they shouldn’t be disappointed, since they’ve met their own expectations for the hunt. The most-successful woodsmen anticipate seeing deer around every bush. Everywhere they look they assume that each white branch they see off the ground is a deer’s antler – unless proven otherwise. They expect to spot bucks and are convinced that they can bag the deer they see, because their rifles are sighted-in correctly. They take the time required for good, clean shots and have no doubt that if they see deer through their scopes, within a matter of seconds the deer will be on the ground. The hunter’s attitude is one of the most-critical ingredients for successful deer hunting.
When, Where and How to Stalk Hunt with Your CVA Muzzleloader Rifle
Stalk-hunting deer with your muzzleloader rifle means you can’t walk too fast to stalk successfully. Instead, you must mentally give-up any possibility of having the opportunity to take a shot. Many muzzleloader deer hunters have found that by giving-up the possibility of a shot, they don’t feel the pressure of having to hurry to the deer. The stalk, not the shot, becomes the game. Too, the slower they move through the woods, the more likely that they will take shots at bucks.
According to one muzzleloader deer stalker, “When I’m stalking and moving through the woods, I locate much-more deer sign and learn more about the deer’s movement patterns on the property I’m hunting than if I spend that same amount of time in a tree stand. Also, I enjoy pitting my skills at close quarters with a white-tailed deer. Personally, I feel that stalk-hunting a deer is a far-greater challenge than taking a deer from a tree stand with my CVA rifle.”
Because the woods are generally most quiet immediately after a rain, many muzzleloading hunters prefer to stalk deer then. You have to move quietly through the leaves to get close to a buck. Clear cuts, briar thickets and other types of dense cover provide the backdrop for this tactic. Move along the edges of the cover as close to the thick places as you can get without actually being in the thickets. You want to be able to see out into a hardwood area, so you can spot a deer. But you also want to use that thicket as back cover to keep the deer from spotting you. When scouting, if you spook a deer, return to the site where you’ve seen the animal to determine what the deer has been feeding on and to try to learn why the deer has come to that area at that time of day. Deer are creatures of habit.
A longtime CVA hunter recommends that, “When you step into hardwoods, look the area over for about 3 to 5 minutes, searching for movement. Move 20 yards, stop, and do the same thing again.”
Foot position and balance are the keys to successful muzzleloader deer stalking. Although most bowhunters stalk on two feet, try stalking on one at a time. Every step is calculated, and when and how you transfer your weight from one foot to the other is critical to your stalk-hunting success. When you take the first step, lightly put the heel of your front foot down first. Gently and carefully rock your front foot forward with no pressure on the sole of your foot. All your weight remains on your back foot. Your front foot is just touching the ground like a limp rag. Wear rubber bottom boots to feel any sticks or twigs under your front foot. If you feel a stick under your foot, either move the stick slightly with your foot, or reposition your foot to be sure you don’t snap the twig.
Once your front foot is on the ground, you still have all your weight on your back foot. Then slowly transfer your weight from your back foot to your front foot to ensure steadiness and prevent noise. Lift your foot in the back slightly off the ground, carrying all the weight of your body on your foot in front. Slowly and carefully bring-up your back foot, keeping it close to the ground and moving it slightly in front of your front foot. If a deer spots you as you’re taking a step, freeze, and stand on one foot for as long as possible to keep from spooking the deer you’re stalking.
CVA’s Mark Hendricks Recommends You Always Take Your Unloaded Muzzleloader Rifle Inside
Question: Mark, one nagging problem that all muzzleloader hunters have to deal with is what to do with their rifles on a multi-day hunt after rain or high humidity. If they want to leave their guns loaded to hunt the next day, do they take-off the caps and the nipples and bring the loaded guns into camp? Or, do they leave their guns with the nipples off outside the camp or in the truck?
Hendricks: I always take my gun inside. I realize a number of people recommend leaving a gun in a rack outside the camp house. In extremely-cold weather, there may be some merit to this line of thinking. But personally I prefer to take my gun inside at camp. In old times, when scope technology wasn’t what it is today, if you were using a scope on your muzzleloader rifle and you took the rifle inside the warm camp house and then took the rifle outside to hunt, the scope would fog-up on the inside. However, with the modern scopes of today, scope manufacturers are filling those scopes with nitrogen, so they don’t fog-up on the inside like they once did in the past.
Question: Okay, I’ve hunted the first day, and the gun’s still loaded. Do you suggest that I take the cap off the end of the nipple, so the gun won’t fire, and then take the loaded gun inside the camp house?
Hendricks: No, not at all. You should always unload your blackpowder rifle before you take it inside the camp house. Unloading now, with the break-open rifles on the market, is easier than ever in the past. So, today all you have to do is to break-open your rifle, take-out the breech plug from the back of the barrel, and, use your ramrod or field rod, to push the load out of the back of the barrel. If you’re careful, you can reuse the pellets or the powder and the bullet, once you’ve pushed it out of the barrel. But always remember: YOU NEVER TAKE A LOADED GUN INSIDE YOUR CAMP HOUSE OR YOUR HOME, AND YOU NEVER LEAVE A LOADED GUN OUTSIDE THE CAMP HOUSE OR YOUR HOME. A loaded gun has no place in a camp house or a home. To push the load out of the back of the gun, you’re only talking about less than a minute to unload the gun before you reach camp and reload the gun, once you get back into the woods and are ready to hunt. Loading and unloading muzzleloader rifles is far-more simple and easy today than it ever has been. The loading and unloading process takes far-less time than it’s ever taken. As with every-other form of hunting, safety should be the primary concern of all of us who go into the woods to hunt.
Why Shoot 100 Grains of Powder Instead of 150 Grains, and Why BPI Built Bergara Barrels for the T/C Encore with CVA’s Mark HendricksGrains
Question: Mark, what percentage of CVA rifles is sold to deer hunters?
Hendricks: The vast majority of our CVA rifles are sold to deer hunters.
Question: Why should deer hunters load with 100 grains of powder instead of a magnum charge of 150 grains?
Hendricks: Most hunters always have believed that the more powder they use, and the bigger bullets they shoot, the better their odds for bagging bucks.
Question: Why isn’t that true?
Hendricks: For an animal the size of a deer, even the bigger deer in the Midwest and Canada, you don’t need the high velocities that 150 grains of powder produces when you’re shooting a 270- or a 300-grain bullet. As a matter of fact, too-much velocity can over-penetrate the deer. With 100 grains of powder, recoil is very manageable for the average shooter, the bullet performance is what you expect, there’s much-less smoke to deal-with after the shot, and your gun will generate about the same bullet weight and velocities as a .45-70 cartridge. That 100 grains of powder easily will take deer out to 200 yards with your muzzleloader, depending on your shooting-skill level.
Question: Why did BPI start developing Bergara Barrels to fit the Thompson/Center Encore rifle frame?
Hendricks: BPI-has a very-modern, state-of-the-art barrel factory with the capacity to produce more barrels than we can use just for our CVA guns. So, we began exploring options on what we could do in the interchangeable barrel market that we already knew how to do well. Because the Thompson/Center Encore barrel was tapered and had lugs that attached to the pin through the receiver, we realized that making Bergara Barrels for the Thompson/Center Encore frame would be a simple process. Also, many of the hunters who shot Thompson/Center rifles weren’t satisfied with the delivery and the accuracy they got with their Thompson/Center barrels. These shooters switched to Bergara Barrels, because not only did we have better barrels, but the barrels were substantially less expensive than the Thompson/Center barrels. Due to the honing process we use, the Bergara Barrel is a very consistent one with better accuracy that’s easier to clean.
Question: How much-more accurate is the Bergara Barrel compared with the Thompson/Center barrel?
Hendricks: We guarantee that the Bergara Barrel in the same caliber and format as a Thompson/Center barrel will be more accurate, or we’ll refund your purchase price.
Question: How successful have Bergara Barrels been with hunters who use Thompson/Center barrels?
Hendricks: Sales have exceeded our expectations. It’s been a very-good project for us.
What Shed Antlers Can Tell Muzzleloader Hunters About Their Deer Herds with Bob Zaiglin
Editor’s Note: Searching for shed antlers and hunting bucks without a gun when the season is over will help you compile the most-complete information about the whereabouts of deer, according to well-known deer manager and writer, Bob Zaiglin of Houston, Texas, a certified wildlife biologist.
Determining the Condition of the Deer Herd by Studying Sheds:
The best time a muzzleloader hunter can lease land or to look for place to hunt is after the rut. If a muzzleloader hunter is considering leasing a particular piece of property and wants to know the condition of the deer on the land, he should be able to walk over the lease and find sheds. If he doesn't discover any sheds, then he must question how-many deer are on the lease. The same is true of public lands. If public lands are available where you plan to hunt this season, but you aren't sure what the condition of the deer herd is on those lands, then walk the land after the season, and search for sheds. Too, sheds will tell sportsmen how well they're doing with their deer-management programs. For instance, if your hunting club is attempting to produce numbers of bucks, and your members don't find very-many sheds, then realize something is wrong in your deer-management program. Also sheds will tell you the size of bucks you have on the property and the general condition of those bucks.
On some of the ranches I’ve managed, we collect all the sheds we can discover every year. Then we measure every shed. Although the data doesn't give us any age criteria, it does give us a bio mass of antlers. We can tell by the sheer volume of antlers we pick-up, whether we have a number of bucks or a few bucks, and whether we have little or big bucks. I've personally been collecting and weighing sheds for years. I'm attempting to evaluate from the sheds whether we've had a good year, a great year or an average year for antler development on the properties we manage. Something else we're able to determine from sheds is that we can better predict for the hunter what size bucks he'll have to hunt the upcoming year. If we find numbers of small, scrappy antlers, then we can project that hunters may not bag very-many large trophies the coming year. But if we locate some quality racks, we'll know our hunters the following year can expect to harvest some trophy bucks. So, collecting sheds helps the muzzleloader hunter keep his expectations of the upcoming buck harvest within more-reasonable bounds. Bass fishermen have learned that bass usually are in only 10-percent of a lake's area. Deer follow much the same pattern in the woods. Shed hunters quickly will learn where their chances are best on any piece of property to find deer and take them with their CVA guns.
The Significance of Locked Deer Antlers:
Shed hunters also may find one of the most-discouraging sights in all of nature – two bucks with antlers locked in combat, and both deer dead. When a muzzleloader hunter discovers two locked racks, the first thing he knows is that the sex ratio of the deer herd is probably approximately one buck for each doe, because bucks fight more and therefore lock horns more often when there are fewer does. Finding two bucks locked in combat was thought to be very uncommon in past years. However, one time, the ranch I managed had 15 bucks radio-collared. Out of those 15 bucks on the 100,000-acre ranch, one of those radio-collared bucks locked-up with another deer. One year we found two sets or four bucks that locked antlers – one pair in December and the other in February. These bucks were a tremendous size. Two of these deer had racks that scored close to 170 points on Boone and Crockett. When you're out hunting sheds, you may discover bucks with locked antlers.
Becoming a Year-Round Deer Hunter Can Help You Take Trophy Bucks:
The outdoorsman who wants to become a trophy hunter and consistently take big deer must learn to hunt all year long and carry his gun into the woods only during hunting season. Not-enough time is available during hunting season in most states for a trophy hunter to unravel the mysteries of the big bucks. Even if the sportsman does determine what the deer in his area are doing, the season may be over before he has a chance to intercept a buck in the woods. Although deer are not that smart, they have learned to avoid hunters. Most always on any given piece of land, a few bucks continually will escape hunters. These deer seem to have a sixth sense about how to avoid hunters. Unless a muzzleloader hunter is willing to hunt trophy bucks all year long, he not only never may find a trophy buck to hunt, but also he'll never develop a strategy for taking that deer. If you truly want to hunt a trophy, the odds of bagging that trophy buck are best for the hunter who makes the commitment to hunt deer all year long. Shed hunting is an integral part of trophy buck hunting for CVA outdoorsmen who understand what sheds mean, where to look for the sheds, and what to do after they find them.
Roger Raglin Explains Why He Always Carries the CVA Accura on Hunts
Editor’s Note: Roger Raglin of “Roger Raglin Outdoors” on the Outdoor Channel has been in the outdoor industry for 24 years. Roger describes a bear hunt with his son Josh and explains why he always carries the CVA Accura muzzleloader on hunts.
I was hunting in northeastern Maine with my 21-year-old son Josh, and we’d put-out trail cameras on baits to see which bears were hitting what baits at what times. Most of the bears our trail cameras photographed came to the bait after dark. We hoped to take these bears with our bows, but we couldn’t seem to find a bait the bears would come-to during daylight hours. However, across the lake from where we stayed, about a 15-minute boat ride from camp, a bear was coming-in to a bait site at about 5:00 pm every day. But this bait site was set-up for a rifle hunter, not a bowhunter. So, on the last day of the hunt, Josh decided to take his CVA Accura to that bait site to try to take the bear. The bear came-in at about 5:00 pm, and when the bear was 50-yards away, Josh smoked him. This was Josh’s first bear with a gun, but he’s taken several with a bow. The bear only went about 40 yards and then piled-up. The bear was across a cove, so we used a boat to load-up the bear and take him back to camp.
Even if you’re a bowhunter, carry a CVA Accura with you on an extended hunt. It’s a shame to pay all the expenses for the hunt and know there’s an animal out there you may can take, but that won’t come to within bow range. If you’ve got a CVA Accura with you, then on the last day of the hunt, you still can fill your tag, have a successful hunt and go home with the trophy you went to take. When we’re taping a TV episode and have cameramen, travel time, expenses and an outfitter we’re working with, being successful is important. So, we’ve always got the CVA Accura with us, regardless if we’re bowhunting or not.
Tim Williams Tells How His Grandson Bagged a Monster Buck with CVA Accura
Editor’s Note: Most of the time when you tell the same story from two-different perspectives, the reason is there’s a difference of opinion as to what actually happened. However, in this tale told twice in our blogs, you’ll read a completed story of a grandfather and a grandson who have created the memory of a lifetime that neither one was expecting on a day afield with the CVA Accura at the end of September. Fifty-five-year-old Tim Williams of Holy Cross, Iowa, owns a 220-acre farm that he and his family and friends hunt for deer. On this day, he hunted with his 10-year-old grandson, Brady Hartgrave.
I had put out trail cameras on my farm, and we’d seen quite a few nice bucks on these cameras before hunting season. But the buck we’ll be talking about that my grandson bagged never showed-up on any of my trail cameras. Brady and I were hunting during the youth deer season, so Brady could take his first deer, which I was planning on being a doe. We were in an elevated hunting shack about 20-feet off the ground. As we spotted a doe that was walking right toward the hunting shack, I said, “Brady, get ready, here comes a doe you can take.” He was bringing-up the gun and putting it on the edge of the hunting shack, and I was sliding a pad under the gun to make a better rest. Then Brady told me, “Grandpa, there’s a big buck down there.” I told Brady, when I saw the buck, “No, Brady, he’s not very big. He’s got some velvet and some grass hanging in his antlers.” I actually did know how big the buck was, but I didn’t want Brady to get too excited, which he would have if he realized that the buck in front of him was the biggest buck I’d ever seen in my life.
After the hunt, I ranged the distance from the shooting house to the place where the buck stepped-out with my Bushnell range finder three different times, and the distance was exactly
100 yards. I’d loaded the gun with two 50-grain Pyrodex pellets with a 250-grain Shockwave bullet on top of the powder. Brady was looking through a 3x9 Simmons scope when he spotted the buck. I only had set the scope at 4x for Brady, because I wasn’t planning on him shooting more than 50 yards. So, I thought having the scope at 4x would be just right for the shot Brady would make.
When I saw the buck, I was scared to death that Brady was going to miss him, since this magnificent buck was the biggest I’d ever seen. Although Brady had shot tin cans in the back of the house with a Savage .17, he’d never had to shoot at this distance with this size gun. However, I felt confident that Brady could do it, because I’d been teaching Brady to shoot for quite some time. Before Brady took the shot, I told him over and over, “Brady, aim for the shoulder. Try to shoot the buck in the shoulder.” I thought of the number of times that Brady had shot a soup can hanging on a string 50-yards away with my .17 rifle. I felt like if Brady was calm and would shoot like he’d been shooting, he really had a chance to take this monster-sized buck. Brady would hit the can every time he shot the .17. When Brady pulled the trigger, I couldn’t see anything because of the smoke from the powder, but I heard that “whack” sound a bullet makes when it hits a deer.
Once the smoke cleared, I could see the doe that had been coming toward our hunting shack looking back over her shoulder in the direction to where the buck had been standing. When we came out of the shooting house, I wasn’t sure whether Brady had shot the deer or not, because I couldn’t see the buck. But before we left the shooting house, Brady told me he could see the buck kicking the grass and that he was sure he’d gotten the buck. After we came out of the shooting shack, I reloaded the CVA Accura and handed it to Brady, just in case the buck got up and he needed to get off another shot. As I encouraged Brady to walk slowly to the spot where he thought the buck had gone down, he kept saying, “Grandpa, I know got him. Grandpa, I know I got him.” The buck had been standing in high grass in a field that had been set aside for 10 years. When Brady shot, the deer had his antlers in the trees on the edge of the field and was making a scrape. When Brady and I got close enough that I could see the buck, I grabbed hold of him, wrapped my arms around him, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Boy, you just shot a monster. This is the buck of a lifetime.” Brady kept saying, “Grandpa, Grandpa, I just shot a big deer!”
Field dressed and skinned, the buck weighed more than 200 pounds. The taxidermist we took the buck’s head to said that this particular buck was about 6-1/2-years old. The buck had two dropped tines and was a non-typical. I bet I’ll never shoot a buck as big as Brady’s first buck. My wife Susie is so proud of Brady, she put the buck’s antlers on the kitchen table, and that’s very uncharacteristic of her. The antlers have to dry for 60 days, and my wife’s like a pit bull, protecting those antlers until they’re dry and can be officially measured. We’re going to have the antlers scored by an official Boone and Crockett scorer.
Later, as I began to remember the day, the buck and how excited Brady was, I think back to when my brother and I went to Cabela’s to buy two muzzleloading rifles. We’d intended to buy Thompson/Center rifles, but when we saw the CVA Accuras with the thumbholes in them and brought them to our shoulders, we both agreed we were going to buy those rifles. Boy, I’m so glad we did. After the hunt, Brady said, “One day Grandpa, I’m going to buy my own CVA rifle.” And I told Brady that if he kept working, mowing the grass and saving his money, he could get a CVA rifle. But until then, he can use mine.
I told the man that I worked for that I had to take off this day, because it was youth season, and I wanted to take my 10-year-old grandson Brady deer hunting. I’m really glad I took the day off to spend it with Brady. Brady’s buck green-scored 196-1/8-gross and the net score green was 183-5/8.
Don’t Overuse Your Stand Site When Hunting Deer with Your CVA Muzzleloader Rifle and Always Stay Alert in Your Stand
Editor’s Note: Become an effective Muzzleloader deer hunter by not overusing your stand site and staying alert.
Often tree stands are overhunted. If you hunt a stand in the morning as well as in the afternoon with your blackpowder rifle, then don’t go to that stand the next day. If you hunt from the same stand over and over again, the deer will wise-up to what you’re doing. You’re leaving scent going to and from the stand and on and around the tree as you climb up and down. Particularly when hunting trophy whitetails you’ll learn that the less exposure they have to human odor, the better your odds are of taking them. The more exposure the deer have to human odor, the less chance that the hunter will have to bag a specific buck. Deer wise-up to a hunter’s movement patterns quickly. The only advantage the hunter really has for taking a smart deer is to be in a spot where the deer doesn’t expect him to be. Therefore the more times a deer smells human odor, the more likely the animal will be to avoid that area. Consequently, the more times you hunt from the same stand, the less effective that stand will be in producing a deer.
Also, many outdoorsmen brag about how long they sit in their tree stands waiting on deer to show-up. But if the hunter is in his stand asleep, daydreaming or not hunting (actively trying to see and take a deer), then the length of time he spends suspended between heaven and earth has no direct bearing on his success as a hunter. Many good blackpowder hunters make the mistake of staying in a tree stand when they’re not hunting. When you catch yourself falling asleep or not actively looking for deer, the best thing you can do is leave the tree stand and come out of the woods. When a sportsman’s hunting, he should be hunting. When he’s resting, he should be resting somewhere other than the woods. Often during those rest times is when a deer is most likely to appear. If the hunter is not alert and anticipating seeing a deer, he’s more likely to shoot too quickly or inaccurately or make noise and spook the deer.
For Deer-Hunting Success, CVA Muzzleloader Hunters Should Give Away Stand Sites
Editor’s Note: As the morning broke clean and clear, and slivers of daylight began to shaft through the remaining leaves, I picked-up my binoculars to confirm what my eyes saw. The woods looked like someone had announced a woodpecker convention. I spotted at least six to eight red or orange vests hunters were wearing while sitting high up in the trees along several deer trails that ran through the area I was planning to hunt on opening day of muzzleloader deer season. I knew my morning hunt was ruined, because more than likely those hunters had spooked the deer I’d hoped to take. So, I gave away what I thought was the best place to take a deer to the other hunters who had arrived there before me.
Oftentimes when we locate an area with fresh deer sign and several productive places to set-up a tree stand, we’ll plan to hunt there on opening day, without thinking that any one else has read the same deer sign and/or located this same great hunting spot. If you make this same mistake, like I did that day, you, too, may have the opportunity to see a woodpecker convention but no deer. As you begin to scout for deer to now prepare for Muzzleloader season, consider several factors when you find deer sign.
* Determine how easily other hunters will see the same sign you have on opening day. If the spot you’ve chosen is within 1/2-mile of a road, chances are very high that someone else has identified this same site as a potential hunting hot spot.
* Learn the location of the deer’s bedding area. If you follow the trail or the sign back to a thick-cover region that’s inaccessible to most hunters, more than likely you’ll see the bedding site. Circle the bedding area to see if you can pinpoint escape routes the deer will use, if and when hunters approach. Once you identify this area, follow a trail 300- to 400-yards away from the bedding site to a location where you can hang a tree stand that’s difficult for other hunters to reach.
* Go to places where many hunters won’t move to on opening morning to hunt. Most deer hunters won’t: carry backpacks with waders in them to their hunting sites on opening morning to reach hunting spots across water; ascend steep terrain and/or climb high mountains or hills in the dark to reach their stand sites before daylight; or, walk through thick cover during daylight hours to reach a location to set-up a tree stand. Once you‘ve pinpointed places like this, start looking for deer sign, because more than likely the sign you’ll see in sites like these won’t be deer sign most other hunters have spotted.
* Read both deer sign and hunter sign to be successful with your CVA Muzzleloader gun. Hunters often will leave behind cigarette butts, candy wrappers, paper sacks, soft-drink cans and other materials they’ve brought with them to their hunting sites. When you find hunters’ sign in an area you plan to hunt, give that site back to the hunter who’s found it before you. Deer hunters, especially on public grounds, have a tendency to hunt the same places they’ve always hunted. So, assume the hunter who’s left the hunter sign will be at that same stand site on opening morning. Let him have that location, and search for another area where most hunters won’t hunt.
* Search for an older-age-class buck before and during the rut – generally within 300 yards of a green field. Try to identify a very-thin deer trail that most hunters won’t see. Most hunters who hunt a green field will look for the most well-worn trail they can find that enters or leaves the green fields, because the sign will tell them that that’s where the most deer are entering and leaving the field. However, these hunters don’t know, unless they’ve set-up trail cameras whether or not that trail is only being used after dark. The thin trail that’s often found 50- to 300-yards away from the green field actually is the primary buck trail. Often the bucks will use it to circle the green field, while staying out of sight, and use their noses to determine if there’s an estrous doe in the green field.
By giving-up stand sites that are obvious to most hunters and searching for stand sites hunters can’t find and deer sign most hunters can’t read, you’ll increase your odds for taking an opening-day blackpowder-season buck.