Thread: What am I doing wrong???

@DCN808T When I first started hunting my results were much like yours, i was more or less stumbling around in the bush of the Kawekas and the Ruahines, trying to do the things i'd read, keeping the wind in ya face (easier said than done when terrain dictates your direction of travel at times). I was trying to slow it down, as i had also read that. I had the odd success, just happened to be going slow enough with the wind in my face at the right time on the rare occasion.

After picking up some tips from a couple of other pretty successful hunters that always seemed to have no problem finding and shooting deer, i changed the way i was hunting. They both got to vantage points that looked into areas that had clearings or faces or slips where deer often came out to feed, these feed areas obviously change depending on the seasons and what the weather is doing, but you get to learn this after a while.

I started adopting this approach, and guess what, suddenly i started seeing a huge amount more animals. Once you start to know where deer often turn up at various times of year in the different locations you hunt, then you can start targeting them at those times of the year. Keep a diary and record the details of all of your trips and what you see etc.

When you know where deer are likely to turn up, then you can find places/make places within range that you can shoot from. This type of hunting does generally require that you have the ability to be able to accurately shoot to ranges of 300-400 yards, but you may be able to find spots to shoot from that are closer to the animals than that.

Once you have found the clearings, faces, slips etc that are obviously being visited by deer regulary (at that time of year) then it just requires some patience, sitting at your vantage point and glassing the area. If you can find vantage points with lots of good area to glass then all the better. Or a series of vantage points all close by that you can do a circuit around to look into several different areas of clearings, faces etc.

Most of the places i hunt now are all the absolute front country, just on the edge of the public land/private land boundary. Some of which only take 30 mins to walk into and onto my vantage point. 1-hour drive from home, easy enough to sneak up after work this time of year for a quick evening hunt. Some of these places it's unusual not to see animals.

It works for me.