Who knows someone that seems to do everything wrong but still scores on a nice deer year after year. The guy I know is a good hunter don't get me wrong. But he smokes while hunting & wears the same jacket that he goes to bars in. He never cares about scent or getting to the stand early. He tells me I worry to much thats why I never Kill any big animals. Yet he kills nice deer (120class) year after year. I on the other hand hunt hard & watch my scent & never even see deer comparible to what he kills. We do not hunt same property. Is there such thing as a hunters jinx. Well if so I own stock.

HUNT HARD

I confess that I do smoke while hunting. Not as much as I do in the house but I do have 1 or 2. I DO pay attention to my scent by always showering with no-scent soap and washing my hunting clothes in no-scent detergent before I go hunting. But I also use a cover scent QUITE heavily on my clothes after I do breakdown and smoke and I ALWAYS keep the wind in my face, no matter what. The first thing I do when I decide to go hunting is check the weather forcast online and see where the wind is coming from and plan my whole hunt from that point. I don't use treestands so I don't have to worry about if the wind is in the right direction for my stand. I check the wind and if it's from the north, then I approach the travel routes from the south and find a good clump of cedars and make myself a quick ground blind under one of them. And by clipping a few branches from the trees with my garden shears, I also mask my scent with the smell of fresh cedar. By no means is this foolproof, and if someone asks me if it's alright to smoke during the hunt, I would say HECK no, but that's how I overcome the 'urge' and still manage to get close enough to deer to have a shot with a bow.

KEEP IT LEGAL. KEEP IT SAFE. OR WE MAY NOT GET TO KEEP IT AT ALL.

My stepfather knows squat about archery, he had his bow tuned at the shop, he shoots it maybe once a year to make sure it's still sighted in. Since he got the bow about 10 years ago he hasn't had to buy new arrows or broaheads for it because he's shot it probably around 20 times, not 20 occations but like 20 shots in 10 years. He can't hit much with it, paper plate accuracy at 20 yards. He only takes 20 yard or closer shots (he is an ethical hunter) and he always gets a deer if he sets his mind to it. Every deer I've ever lost I hit better than the last deer he got (texas heart shot, the only one he ever missed the vitals on). He gun hunts the same way, got a browning a-bolt 270 w/ winchester 130g partitions. He got this gun about 5 years ago and has shot it about 2-3 times to sight it in at 25 yards. Never had to buy more than one box of bullets! He got two monster bucks a few years back, both from the same stand at the same time, one day apart. Both dropped in thier tracks. He's the luckiest hunter I know.

"Hey ya'll, watch this"

It's amazing how some people are lucky year after year after decade.<img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle> I have one hunting buddy that hunts the same woods I do. Well, he did until this year. I bow hunted with the guy for about 10 or 12 years. He's never killed a deer with the bow. In that 10 or 12 years I've probably taken something like 40-45. He calls me &quot;Mr Lucky&quot;. He swears I'm the luckiest guy going. I put up stands for him, let him hunt mine, put him in the right spots.... and he's drawn blanks. The boy can't sit still. Folks, he's the unluckiest guy I know. <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> I tell him I'm not lucky... it stopped being luck when I started taking deer every year. At that point you should figure the guy knows SOMETHING. Luck does NOT happen year after year after year. All this scent stuff is a marketing gimmick. If you place yourself in the right position, pick the right spot, and hunt the wind... it really doesn't matter WHAT you smell like. You can use all the marketing gimmicks to cover, eliminate and all that stuff to your scent. If you have a wrong wind and old buck is still going to smell you. Woodsmanship can take the place of hundreds of dollars worth of gimmicks. Yup, that guy that scores every year in underpopulated woods is sure enough a lucky rascal. Me.... I'd rather be lucky than good anyday.<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Man, I just gotta get lucky enough to get a huntin bud live david...

Some of my best hunts are from what I call &quot;Broken play&quot; days...You know, you get to your stand and someone else is setup nearby...so you move...you forget your knife, water, food, waterproof boots.. or some other important necessity. They show up when you least expect it...pants down around the ankles...waterin the lillies....you get the pic...

My most memorable was the time I was out still huntin and it was pourin down rain, no rain gear of course, when I spied this big doe at 30yds..Well I draw, aim and release only to hear this incredible &quot;TWANG&quot; and something slaps me in the face! Bow string snapped! Well after searchin for the arrow for bout a half hour I go to where the deer was standing and whoah ho! a blood trail! Yep, I got the critter!

Edited by - cyclone on 11/25/2002 07:14:44

You're right on those broken play days. They can be interesting. The best time I ever had I forgot my arm guard and a KNIFE. I shot a nice 8 point 10 minutes after daylight while leaning against a tree because I couldn't find my stand in the dark. I was 3/4 of a mile off the road, no knife and a big Georgia deer on the ground. That day I learned how to field dress a deer with a Bear Razorhead with the bleeders removed. It wasn't pretty. I ended up driving my jeep within a couple hundred yards through some pines.

A good buddy of mine has the hunters luck going big time for him. He had bowhunted maybe 4 or 5 times at the tail end of the season and then went out for his first opening day two years ago. Well he settles in his stand and about an hour later has a nice 8 pointer coming towards him. He takes a shot, misses the deer and sticks an arrow in a tree behind the deer. The deer jumps up runs around and comes back to sniff the arrow that just missed him. While he is busy sniffing the arrow my buddy sends one into his boiler room and puts him down. We field dress the deer check him in with the local DEC and come back to hunt the afternoon. You guessed it, he has a nice 7 pointer coming towards him. The deer spooks and starts to run away. He takes a running shot on the deer and the deer drops about 40 yards away. (he's a gun hunter and didn't realize at the time that running shots are not a good idea with a bow)

This year he takes a quartering away shot at a doe. Calls on the radio and says he has blood everywhere the deer is down. We figure he double lunged her. Well he goes and tracks the deer a mere 40 yards and realizes that he actually shot her in the butt. Well as luck would have it he hit and severed the femoral artery.

If that's not a series of good hyunting luck I don't know what is.

A friend of mine has a hunting buddy that he swears is so lucky he could sit down on a bucket in the middle of the day in a K-Mart parking lot, light up a smoke and have a buck commit suicide right there. I personally do not know anyone who is lucky all the time, but my friend swears this guy kills a deer every time he goes hunting and does everything wrong, wish I had that problem, I get my share of deer, but I can honestly say I have earned the vast majority of them.

The Tazman aka Martin Price
Founder and President of
Virginia Disabled Outdoorsmen Club

Sounds like the old real estate phrase....location, location, location. Sounds like the guy has land with a great deer population.