*When you are eating lunch in your stand.....remember that the deer are still in the woods......and might be directly beneath you. Nice 6 point walked out from beneath me in bow season about 7 years ago as I was shaking smashed banana off my hand. Not sure if it was the rattle bag I was using or the doe sent I had spread wen I set up....doesn't matter I was set up right next to a buch of blackberry bushes and he magicly stepped right into them. By the time he stepped out he was out of bow range.
*No matter how much you have practiced shooting that fancy bow, don't try to shoot thru a hole in a tree that is only the size of a grapefruit.
*A cheap scope is not a bargain. Cheap scopes, cheap chainsaws and cheap ladders. They can all get you killed. Fortunately the deer I missed have only run away.
*The moss covered log you walked across in dry daylight will be slippery as snot in the dark after a rain.
*Even with a cellphone and gps waypoints, you are alone. ....completly alone. Don't drink your last bottle of water till you get back to the truck and are back on the highway. Don't go out in the woods without a space blanket, magnesium block, matches, cord.
*When you realize you are lost, STOP. Make a plan, and execute that plan. Backtracking till you reach a recognized landmark usually works.
* Think about how you will survive that night in the woods before you have to.
* Cotton Kills......quite possibly the best lesson I have ever learned. Even in "the south" cotton will kill you if you are in freeze conditions and are even remotely damp.