Intelligence is more important IMO need the intelect to make the most or get the mostof your experiences in the woods. You can go into the woods 365 days a year and have all the experience in the world but if your too dumb to learn anything while your out there well then your just wasting your time.

Let me throw this at you, Jeff. If you are talking about killing a whitetail ... any whitetail .... experience is by FAR the most important .... any knob can figure out how to kill a whitetail ,,,, to quote a well respected person on HNI ..."This isn't rocket science"

Now if you are talking mature bucks, assuming there are at least one or more on the property you are hunting, I defer to what the magicman said.....

I believe experience is more important. I am a fairly intelligent person with an IQ above 125. I only have 3 bowseasons under my belt, so not much experience. I have killed 7 deer in that 3 seasons. None were what many would consider a mature deer. The oldest was a 3 1/2 yo doe. My oldest buck to date was 2 1/2. I am smart enough to go out and kill deer. I believe I have not yet killed a mature,(4 1/2+), deer due to my lack of experience. That will change as I gain more experience. I will not gain more intelligence despite the fact that I will gain more knowledge.
Something that has been overlooked up to this point is having enough intelligence to benefit from the experience of others. Something this sight has helped me with tremendously.

Will sheer intelligence help you hit a curve ball? You cannot utilize intelligence without having had experiences to apply it to.Unless you are talking completely about theory.The only thing hunting intelligence does is speed the learning curve.Success in the woods cannot be defined so neatly.Some hunters with fewer years of experience get it,and some folks with many years of experience may never get it.

Instinct....hands down!

Read all the books you want..you can either relate it or you can't.
Have all the expirience you wantcan either analyze it and begin to inderstand it or you can't.

Reading every book out there and jumping 5000 deer are not gonna make you a better hunter without instinct!

Experience - you gotta have the experience to develop the instinct,
Nobody has walked in the woods and feel that twinge that you were there - in the right spot- without past history and situations to develop those instincts

Experience/Time has developed that instinct to know where to hunt the experience/intelligence works together to formulate how to hunt

Really ?? You never found the right spot on your first foray into an unknown place?

I've never played Cricket for example, but ya know what I'd be good at it..no exp, no history and no knowledge. And that my friend is one wicked googly!

The only thing experince teaches you is to trust your instincts.[:-]

I strongly believe in my instincts as well , but I also can remember being 14 and knowing squat about deer hunting, picking a spot I thought would be good and then questioning my spot

I think bawana hit what I was trying to say - Now that I have some experience - I trust my set-ups and my instincts are fine tuned

I also believe you were born with these instincts - you either have them or you don't

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