Story by Tom Claycomb III

I’d bet a dollar to a donut that over 95 percent of hunters don’t intimately know the year around habits of their quarry — deer.  Regardless of the specie hunted I would even say very few know their tendencies except for the one week or scattered days when they are afield hunting.  And if more than one deer specie is hunted or even if the same specie is hunted but in different areas, those differences will need to be addressed.

The average hunter has two weeks of vacation to go somewhere with the family and then may be lucky to slip out a week to hunt and/or fish.  A week of vacation reserved for preseason scouting is usually pushed ever lower on the priority list.  Without scouting a hunter is casting success to chance and will do the best with the cards dealt.

Deer habits can and will change from opening day to full-blown rut and on to post rut. If hunting takes place in a different stage of the season than is normally hunted, it can be a whole different ball game.

What about spring or summer habits? How about when the bucks are in bachelor groups? I was turkey and fallow deer hunting in April on my cousins Flying Dubya ranch in Oklahoma. We saw one big herd of bachelor buck. There were 19 in that herd, but that will all change when rutting activity begins.

Habitat and patterns change according to many factors like the phase of the rut, weather and habitat changes. The more a deer’s habits are understood, the more successful a hunter.

It begins by knowing their seasonal habits. That way if the weather (seasonal changes) is a little off a hunter may be able to anticipate what to expect because of an understanding of their annual cycles.

In many scenarios, hunting knowledge and skillsets are transferable. It may take five years to become a good deer hunter but when you start hunting antelope it may only take two years to be a decent hunter because of transferable skills. You already know how to glass, shoot from various positions, stalk, read sign etc.

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