goose25

Hunting is a way of life! Time to be shared with family and friends, but also the game where you can use knowledge and skills to outsmart the animal. When all the time and hardwork come together and payoff there is no bigger adrenalin rush and reward!
I grew up in a rural area where all you have is family, farming, hunting, and H.S sports. It's so rural, where it takes 20 min to go anywhere to get fuel and groceries, and i only graduated with 30 other classmates.
At a very yong age i was around hardcore hunters such as my dad, grandad, and uncle. If I wasn't hunting with one then it was the other. After following and gathering different hunting strategies and lessons from each of them, I believe that I have built a firm foundation of the hunter and man I have become today!
But the one lesson/strategy that changed my way of hunting came from my dad about 12 yrs ago when I was 19 yrs olds. This was at the time trail cameras were just coming into the game. I went out and bought one. This was when it was just regular film that only took 24 images before being full. I ended up catching a buck on the camera that would be named KICKERS. This buck was a main frame 8pt with kickers off each G2 with a split off a g1 and a small drop off his base. I had it in my head that this was going to be the buck that I was going to, dedicate my hunting season too.
I hunted for that deer as much as I could, between jumping back and forth between college and farming. But i was struggling by dealing with loosing my grandad/Hero a few months earlier to cancer. Between all the new changes and struggles going on in my life, I found the woods and my tree stand as the only place I could get away and loose myself. I hunted that deer hard and only layed my eyes on him one time while sitting in the tree. By the time end of October arrived and the rut kicking in gear I knew that I only had a couple weeks left before the rifle season started. I was getting frustrated that I could not get this deer figured out. I thought how tough could this be. I was hunting only 2 patches of woods, we call hollers, that runs north and south, is a mile long by on average a 100 yards wide.
On the evening of the 25th of October I went hunting and only saw a couple does. As i was pulling out of the field that i was parked in, i noticed in my headlights that there were over 30 deer in the field. 2 big bucks and 1 of the 2 was "kickers!" The next morning on the 26th I slipped into my stand knowing that he is in the area and with the does. As it,got light and the hunt only produced a few does. Frustrated I climbed down and began home, and I ran into my dad on the road and told him that he needs to help me decide what to do. He told me he was going to go get some coffee in town and would meet me back at the house. I always new dad was one of the best at scouting and using common sense in hunting deer. Even though he hasn't hunted as much with a bow for the past several years, I knew he could get me in there on him! Hour later I jumped in with him and he drove straight to a spot and got out. He walked around for about 10 minutes and said if I hung a stand here that I could kill that buck! I thought why here instead of where I was sitting. Which is just a couple hundred yards down. I have tried this spot in the past and never saw much. He said with a smile, "That areas changes from one year to the next and some even as the season goes by. Now just go get a stand and try it." He then told me to use the terrain to my advantage by staying low and slip in and out of the location with less movement, due to it involved walking across wide open fields. I went back to the house and got a homemade lockon stand and hung it. The next morning at 9am "Kickers" was arrowed! The spot sat in the middle of one of the hollers that's pinched down in the shape of and hourglass. To the north was bedding and south was a big travel area to get to multiple food sources. There was a giant scrape in the middle of a few other active scrapes. Rubs were scattered out all around with several heavy used trails crossing the creek in the middle of the pinch point. I came home and told the news! Talk about making my dads head bigger! Haha...
Next step was recovering the deer. The shot wasnt the best but i knew he was hit hard. The tracking of the deer tought me much more about the whole game! Where we last found blood was on a trail only 20 yards from my previous tree stand. We didn't recover the deer until the next day, when dad found him 1 mile from where I had arrowed the buck. He went across a 250 acre farm that was all CRP with a small patch of trees and a small pond on it. Dad said he layed in bed all night wondering where that deer could have went. Dad new that when a deer is hit the way he was that it will catch fever and will be searching for water! He remember that pond and new that i saw that buck in the beginning of October out there in the CRP. So next morning he went straight to that pond and kickers was laying next to it. The recovery tought me so much of how that deer new where everthing was and the knowledge of whole area. That deer did travel the areas that i was hunting! Just not at the times i was hunting them. So moving a set just a couple hundred yards down makes a big difference. The deer ended up at a gross score of 147.
Now remember on the evening of the 25th when i noticed kickers with another big buck in my headlights while coming out of my bowhunt.! Well two weeks later i killed kickers running buddy on opening day of rifle season that was in the mid 150s. To know more about the strategies that I used from this hunt and now use for my myself and guiding my clients for the past several years, go to my post on "Importance of scouting" on page 2. Hope this helps you as much as it does me, and good luck. www.ganderoutfitter.com