By: Ian VanDerLinden
Hope and Frustration
The 2019 hunting season for me can be defined by the words hope, and frustration. Hunting in itself can be described by these two words. With each new season brings anticipation, excitement, focus, and a hope that we will have that one sit that we will always remember. The frustration comes in when we are seemingly so close to our quarry, yet they seem like ghosts moving through the landscape, moving just outside of our vision, appearing in front of the stand either just before or right after us, and just going through a period of weeks without a single sighting both physical and on trail cameras. Hunting would not truly be what it is without these two words. The hope of seeing your quarry with each passing minute, and the frustration of seeing virtually nothing. Hunting big game in any state is a grind that tests your mental fortitude more than your physical endurance. Your ability to find the motivation to sit night after night, or day after day is just one part of why some hunters are successful and some are not. For me, it’s the hope I cling onto. Having a positive mindset has helped me sit longer and more often. There are a number of lessons I learned this past hunting season that I will most certainly carry into the future.
Lesson 1: Patience is a Virtue
Hunting is always an exercise in patience. A good hunter is patient for seeing his quarry, patient to get the shot, and patient throughout the season when they are filling tags. The patience I’m specifically referring to, is the patience to wait until you see the deer you have been targeting all year, or waiting until the animal you are truly desiring presents you a shot. This season revealed to me that I have yet to really have that kind of patience. The ability to pass up mouthwatering opportunities on younger deer to get a shot at a more mature animal. Tied with that is having the patience to let time pass and wait for that perfect time of year. Hunt the rut, hunt their patterns, let the doe’s do what they are doing and let them bring the bucks to you, and let young bucks get bigger. This patience comes with experience, knowledge of the herd, and how everything is timed on the landscape. There is an eb and flow to a hunting season and getting in tune with it is something of beauty when you witness it or experience it. Pay attention to your data over time, notice when the deer move, what is the wind is doing, the time of year, any social interactions, etc. The more connections you can make, the more patterns you can see and rely on when pursuing a mature animal.
For me, I tend to work on my patience by trying to pay more attention to the little details in the landscape around me. When you are looking at a painting of a mountain landscape or midwest summer meadow, have you ever looked at the brush strokes the artist has used. Walk up fairly close to it as to zoom in to focus on a particular segment of the piece, and then explore all the details. You can see the brush strokes, the ridges and valleys of the paint, the different color shades and how they are used to create the elements you see. This is the level of detail I pay attention to in the woods. I train my mind to study every ridge and valley within the landscape, the different color shades, the smells, the sounds, the smaller animals and birds calling the landscape home. I work on trying to help pass time by enjoying the little details that make a landscape truly breathtaking. Patience all comes down to engagement of the mind, learning how to be present in the moment, and focus on the task at hand. Developing this level of patience will help you have more encounters with deer where you get a chance to learn something new. Perhaps you see a buck come in from an angle you have not seen before, or use certain paths that do not cut across your trail camera at a certain time. Either way it allows you to have a chance to gather more information to see more patterns to deer movement that may help you shoot that mature animal in the long run. Another added side effect to passing on younger animals is that it will eventually lead to you seeing more mature animals on the landscape, so let the young ones go and let them grow.
Lesson 2: Do not be Stagnant
This lesson came from my hunt for Mr. Big. I got hung up on chasing this buck which probably cost me some opportunities at other deer at some of my public land spots. I can’t place all the blame on Mr. Big though, part of my perseverating on this buck was due to also having the ease of access given the time I was able to hunt after work majority of the days. Whether it was leaving right after my full time job during the week or having my part time job in the afternoon on weekends I just never felt I had enough time to get to my public land spots and be able to hunt them. So what could I have done differently? Found other honey holes closer to home that would allow me to see some new terrain, and lessen the pressure on my target area. Though by the time Mr. Big came back in the area he was hot on the trail of a doe group that were pretty consistent in their patterns, he was the only unknown variable. Though for future hunting seasons my reasoning holds true. Having more places to hunt also keeps you fresh, and prevents you from getting burnt out. New spots bring a sense of new opportunities and in a way a fresh start. In addition, don’t be afraid to try hunting in different scenarios such as hunting from the ground instead of a treestand. Try different and new things, not only does it give you a different experience but also you learn how to hunt in different ways that will come in handy in future hunting seasons! That’s one of the reasons why I like to hunt on the ground on public land, it offers something different than hunting from a treestand that will ultimately help me hone skill sets that will make me a better hunter.
The turkey spot is one of my favorite spots to hunt deer because it is starkly different than behind the house. The open fields allow me to glass a good distance away opening the door to spot and stalk in a more western sense. Also, the open fields have helped me see how deer move around the landscape in different ways based on the wind versus in thicker timber areas. Find different terrain types that give you more opportunities to learn about deer and how to hunt them! Yes, treestand hunting is a more effective way of hunting whitetails but being able to know how to hunt them on the ground will help when pursuing other animal species and expand your playbook.
Lesson 3: Trust your Instincts
This lesson is more of me trusting the knowledge and my “gut feeling” about what I should or should not do. A highlight of this past season was Cory and I’s first afternoon sit of the season at the turkey spot where we had two encounters with bucks at super close range. Last season I watched from afar as a very nice eight point joined up with a group of smaller bucks at the end of a field that I was sitting on but four hundred yards away. The buck came out into an adjacent field feeding on some milo bulbs, moved towards my field (moving south) with the wind at his back (wind out of the north west that night). This was an interesting observation because one would think he would’ve put his nose into the wind rather than at his back but in reality he was putting all of his senses to work by walking with the wind a bit at his back. Since he was walking into an open field he is able to see everything in front of him and use his nose to smell anything coming from behind him. This observation led me to have us sit on this corner (those bucks traveled to it that night a year ago), with a north wind, and had a bachelor group of bucks (no giants with them this time) walk towards us in the exact manner that the eight point did a year ago. I was stoked that my plan actually worked out the way I thought it would! We did not shoot a deer this season by using that method, but it confirmed that it could lead to a kill someday.
So if you are trying to game plan what to do for a hunt, trust your initial read of the situation. When I game plan a sit I look at weather (duh), but more specifically the wind direction and speed first. Next is precipitation, is it raining or snowing and when, and if possible how much. Then barometric pressure is noted. All this information will tell me how the deer might be moving on the landscape, how much they will be moving, and where I could go that puts me in a high percentage chance of seeing a deer. My first read of the data has usually been the best one, but I have second guessed myself a number of times this season which is something I need to work on. For new hunters, this bullet may be hard to get around because you may not have prior knowledge of your quarry and the places they inhabit. Being a guy that has been there myself I would advise that you listen and watch as much content as you can on deer movement and how weather influences this. Mark Kenyon’s Wired to Hunt podcast is a great start to find tips, tricks, and some things to look for out in the field when learning about a landscape. In addition, get some boots on the ground during the summer months and explore these landscapes and get to know them. Make notes on what is where, what you saw in certain areas, and start getting data. The OnxHunt App is a great tool to help find places to hunt, and to record all of this data through waypoints. Paint a picture for yourself, you may just start to see where the hot spots are and give you some ideas for future game plans.
This season is in the books but the lessons learned is now knowledge gained. The trait of a good hunter to me is not whether they can kill mature animals, it’s their ability to reflect and learn from season to season. The ability to gain knowledge and apply that knowledge in future is how progress can be made. That progress is what leads hunters to have success year in and year out. So take time to reflect on your season, do not be afraid to be critical about what went right and what went wrong. Celebrate your achievements, embrace the shortcomings and use them to your advantage for the next season.
585 Outdoors 