While I am still newer to the game than most here, and certainly not an expert by any means, the biggest jump in my mature buck sightings occurred as a result of a combination of things. And looking back on them, they are all rather basic, and things most would laugh at for not doing in the first place, but at the time I was killing deer & having fun so I didn’t think anything of it.

All these factors I feel contributed to me even being able to catch a glimpse of a mature buck from stand, let alone get a shot at him

1. Don’t over hunt my hunting spot.
2. Don’t push the issue in a bad wind
3. Actually be in the woods during the pre-rut/rut (which more importantly translates into don’t shoot a small buck early in the season)
4. Don’t skip the details on scent control
5. Don’t shoot small/immature bucks(yea I listed this one twice because it was my toughest to overcome)

I kind of made all these changes in a short period of time, so things clicked in a hurry for me. That said, even if you follow all the “rules” and put the time in the stand, it is far from a guarantee of getting a shot at a mature buck.

Well, I've only killed 1 buck, so I'm not entirely sure anything has "clicked" yet, but I will say that when I learned how to read topos and arials, and how deer relate to that terrain......Yeah, I suddenly became a much better deer hunter.

Thats a big one Germ! I think allot of people screw this up. I was guilty of it to many times.

Great point Rybo

I think it all "clicked" for me when i killed my first mature buck. I just got lucky and caught him chasing does late one November morning. From that day on i started spending as much time as possible in the woods and reading every magazine and talking to everyone i know about hunting trying to learn as much as i could about these mature deer, and i found that it is possible to harvest one of these bruisers every year. Nothing tops experience though in my opinion. Over the few following years i hunted hard and hunted smart and learned so much! Hell, im sure i have a lot to learn still. I basically was addicted from the moment i killed my frist big one!

GERM I did. Montgomery County. I took a bigger one then it last year as well in Montgomery County MD. Just havent made a pic small enough to fit on avatar.

Obviously I am a fan of Montgomery Counties anywhere and have a few good leads this year as well

The one big thing that started to show results for me was stay the heck out of the woods on my land until the pre rut started to show signs of life (Mid October or so). Since then my sightings and success have improved allot.

Damn that buck must have been tired after that long walk from Ohio[8D], hell that is right next to Bucks County.

You will now be know as "The King" to me

For me the first thing that helped was getting access to quality ground. I don't care how good of a hunter you are, if you are not hunting quality ground, your chances are greatly reduced. Once I able to started hunting ground that had quality bucks, you begin to concentrate on hunting those big boys, which includes letting smaller bucks walk.

A lil creative photography however he was 24" wide had 12 scorable points. actually had to sticklers that almost developed into drops if given another year he might have. However, that wasnt in his cards. I'm gonna put huntingbry on a few good ones this year in Montco MD. Yea he was so tired from his walk from Ohio, he just fell dead under my tree....but shhhh don't tell anyone haha