Well after my last question, this one is rather obvious. Of all the skills required to bowhunt, what's the one thing you do that you feel like hurts you the most? That's an easy one for me. Work in the offseason. When season closes, I'm pretty much done until it reopens. I do very little shed hunting, I don't set stands (mostly because the only one I own is my climber) and I don't work NEARLY hard enough at finding new places to hunt. I'll manage a new property almost every year, but it's not enough. I need to put MUCH more work in during the offseason.
Last year my answer would be time available...thats no excuse this fall. If anything it would be the locations I have at my disposal..like Mobow, I need to work harder at securing more good hunting grounds.
Time. Next to that, distance from my home to hunting grounds. My closest place to hunt is 1.5 hours. I only get to hunt weekends because of this, and I'm unable to put in the time preseason that I really want because of it as well.
Skills lacking? Mine would have to be reading the reaction to pressure. This has been one of my greatest downfalls. I have hunting clubs surrounding my main property and when they (or I) push the deer to different routes/areas, I can never recover quick enough it seems. When I hunt the couple spots close to home, I tend to overhunt because I can hunt it almost every day if I care to. (Going to discipline myself a little more on this, this season.) Bobby
I'm not sure what all the skills are that one has for bowhunting..??? My biggest issue is what I think alot of people have too.. many just don't know it or grasp it. But we're all human and it's VERY hard to get away from.. and it hampers me from time to time even though I try my best to stop doing it. I call it preconceived notion. As in.. you take a deer from one tree one day and now you always have that tree as a success.. wherein lies the problem. You'll continue to want to hunt from that tree because of its former glory.. when actually there's likely a better tree to hunt from that day.. cause there always is. But your mind can't get away from the fact that you were ONCE successful from that tree.. you'll want to go back to it at one point or another. It's a hard thing to fight.
Exactly Grizz.. it's a be-atch to stop. The worst is when shed-hunting for me. Find a good set in a short fencerow and every year for the rest of your life you'll head back to the same fencerow as if a giant set of sheds will have fallin' there again. And you know their won't.:mad1:
My lack of understanding whitetail behavior is what hurts me most. I am constantly working on that. I think one of the best things I could do, but don't, would be spend more time in the off season just observing deer and their behaviors. That's my next step.
Like Mobow, the lack of offseason preparing. Specifically trying to secure new hunting ground. I just don't take the time to do the things during the non-hunting season like I used to do many years ago.
It's easy for me to over hunt one spot...Once you know a big one is there, that's where I want to be. It's like the old song though "you got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em". There are times to move in, and times to stay out. If you hunt when the wind isn't in your favor you sure don't increase your chances to get that deer...Sometimes that's what I do.???
