Secrets Of Deer Hunting Guides - Bad-Weather Deer Hunting Tactics

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Secrets Of Deer Hunting Guides

Bad-Weather Deer Hunting Tactics

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.

BOB WALKER - Like Norton, Bob Walker hails from the Black
Belt area around Livingston, Alabama, and has hunted deer all his life. Walker guides at Bent Creek Lodge near Jachin, Alabama, but employs tactics completely different from Norton's to find and take trophy bucks.

STRATEGY THREE - "Watch the weather radar on television,"
Bob Walker says. "If you know a rainstorm is coming through your area by watching the TV weather radar map, you usually can see how intense the storm is, how fast it is moving and when it should pass out of the region you're hunting. Go to the woods in the rain about an hour before the storm should leave your area. Since deer understand about when the rain will stop, they will slip out of thick-cover sections the very instant the rain slacks off or stops. By stalking down edges of thick cover sites, you often will see and be able to take a trophy buck that you may not see any other time of the year."

STRATEGY FOUR - "On dry days I wear either hip waders or lightweight chest waders and stalk creeks, ditches, beaver ponds and flooded timber," Walker said. "By moving through water on dry days, you can look for deer instead of watching your feet to keep from making any sounds. If I can find a shallow creek running through a thick-cover region, I may can slip up on the deer in the bed. The banks of creeks and ditches hide me from the deer I am trying to see. If I spot a buck well out in front of me, I can get low in a creek or a ditch and move quickly to a spot where I can take a shot at the buck. When I move through water, I watch behind myself as well as out in front. Often, I'll see just as many deer behind me as I do in front of me. I've found that wading water during dry weather conditions is the best way to spot the most bucks and get a shot at the ones I see."

STRATEGY FIVE - "I use rattling antlers all year long," Walker explains. "As soon as bucks have hard antlers, they begin to spar. Some of this sparring is nothing more than pushing and shoving each other. Later in the year, bucks clash antlers to establish dominance. During the rut, a buck
often will fight the intruders in his territory and the challengers for his right to breed a particular doe. On any given day on the 20,000 acres I hunt, two bucks on that property somewhere will clash antlers. I believe the primary reason bucks come to rattling antlers is because of curiosity. I've learned I can rattle bucks in all year long."