It’s the middle of September. I’m seeing hard-horn bucks out of velvet and bean fields starting to yellow. I am itching to be out in a tree right now, and this weekend was the archery opener in a section of my state.
I was not in a tree, and I am perfectly content with that fact.
Before I explain why that is, I ask you to recall that Maximizing Hunting Time is one of the main tenets of The Hunting Equation. To be clear, maximizing time does not mean spending as much time as possible out in the field. That will not happen based on my priorities. What is does mean, however, is to be a efficient as possible when heading afield. If there are target deer in the area, then I’m there. If there are not, then I won’t be. I am done with the Sit, Hope In Tree strategy.
Let me explain how this played out for me this week, and more importantly how it has helped my quality of life overall as a hunter and a person.
In my state, there are a few urban areas around major metropolitan centers where archery season comes in two weeks before the rest of the state. As a college football coach, half of my Saturdays during the fall are spent traveling to different campuses for games. That does not leave much time for family activities and even less time for hunting.
But, as I looked at my season schedule when it came out in the Spring, I happened to notice that I would be at a school in one of those urban areas on the same day as the early archery opener. I figured that since I’d be traveling anyway and wouldn’t be home until late, maybe that was a good opportunity to try to get out and fill an early tag after that game. If I could find an area relatively close by the campus to hunt, it was worth a shot.
Before I defined my Basic Hunter strategy, I would have simply gone out to different public land spots, found something that looked halfway promising, and just set up. I would not have been disciplined to follow the rule of ensuring that deer were actually in the area I wanted to hunt during the small window of time that I had. This venture would be different, so I had to make sure that I knew there was a good reason (i.e. target deer in the area within the last 24 hours) to hunt.
During the Spring, I spent some time funneling through potential hunting spots and put in some boot scouting to rule out or identify some good areas to put up a camera. This process paid dividends because out of the six or seven spots I found e-scouting, there was only one location worth putting up a camera for further intel.
This spot was a southern-facing hillside on a parcel of public land. It had a lot of good oak trees, was a good distance away from any parking areas, and best of all it was not far from a bunch of suburban back yards (think ‘green food’). My theory was that deer bedded and traveled on this hillside during the day and moved up into the acorns or back yards to feed in the evening. If I could get between that hillside and the oak flat/back yards, I’d have a good shot at intercepting deer. I hung a camera in a funneled spot on a bench near some historic deer sign.
With the season opener days away, it was time to check the camera. Now, before we even get into the intel, I completed one of the most important steps of a hunting husband: setting expectations with your wife. No joke, this little tip has saved me from dozens of arguments with my spouse, and I encourage you to use it too. It goes like this: if I don’t know about something, I under-promise and over-deliver (as opposed to the opposite).
In this example, I did not know if I would go hunting on that first evening. She wants to know the plan for that Saturday. Thus, I have three options: tell her I was not going to go hunting, tell her that I was going to go hunting, or tell her that I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Let’s walk out each of those possibilities.
1. Tell her I am not going hunting. Since I didn’t have the intel yet, I could not commit to this plan. Quite possibly the worst thing I could have done was tell her I wasn’t going, found a Booner buck on camera, and then change the plans on her. Guaranteed argument.
2. Tell her that I don’t know what my plans are. While this may sound truthful, it it incredibly unhelpful to my wife. For starters, it makes it seems like what I want to do takes precedence over anything else; my family can figure out what to do after I’ve made my decision. Secondly, my wife wants to know what the plan is. I’m literally telling her that I don’t have a plan. Unacceptable with a high likelihood of an argument on the horizon.
3. Tell her that I plan to hunt that evening. While this may seem counterintuitive, look at the possible outcomes. If I check the camera and find what I’m looking for, then realistic expectations have been set, and I go hunting. If I check the camera and find that the spot is not worth hunting, then I tell her that I’m no longer hunting and I’ll be home earlier than EXPECTED. Quite often, arguments occur not because of what I do but because I did not fulfill the expectations set. In situations when I don’t know what will happen, under-promise and over-deliver.
Before I went to check the camera, I went with option 3.
I went to check my camera. Normally I would use a cell camera, but this was a completely new piece of land with which I had no previous knowledge and I’m not about to get one of my expensive cell cameras stolen, so I went with a cheap, non-cellular version. I still chain all of my cameras to the tree, but I’ve had enough cameras stolen to know that chains are a deterrence to theft, not a guarantee of theft prevention.
As I approached the camera I was encouraged by the sign. There were multiple good-sized tracks. There were white oak acorns just beginning to drop. The cameras showed a decent number of deer. I actually bumped a doe as I approached the camera.
I decided not to hunt.
This is where I find myself differing than many other hunters out there. As I checked my cameras, there was consistent daylight activity in the morning. The bed to feed pattern seemed to be somewhat accurate, but this was not their primary bedding area. They milled around this area in daylight in the morning, but I did not have one daylight picture past 10am. Even the night-time activity was during the early morning hours. A morning hunt was not in the cards for me on that particular day based on my schedule.
Now, you could say that it’s just a matter of determining where that bedding area is and adjusting the plan accordingly, and you’d be correct. I do not, however, have the time to accomplish that task before this Saturday, which is the only day I’ll be in this area pretty much all hunting season. This is where I, as a Basic Hunter, decided that it was not worth the time investment to continue pursuing this spot. In the past, I may have just sat it anyway, hoping the acorns would alter their pattern or maybe my cameras were missing part of the puzzle that I could figure out with time on stand. All of these things are possibilities, but they require time, my most precious commodity. My time on stand is meant for opportunities to sling projectiles, not hope and watch the woods.
I can’t think of many things that make me feel more guilty than coming home from the field and saying to my wife that I didn’t see anything when I went into the field not expecting to see anything. That’s not to say that I always see or kill a target deer when I go out, but I at least know that a target deer is in the area during the window of time that I am afield. When I say I’m going out hunting, it means I have a concrete reason and high-expectations of having an opportunity to kill a target deer. So, if you’re reading this from a tree or a blind on the season opener, best of luck, shoot straight, and I’ll see you at the parking lot soon.