David from Illinois asks,
Bill, do you ever feel like harvesting a buck you go after is too easy? I know some are not easy , like the one you took in 2012, but I am referring to others. To me, it seems fairly easy to kill mature bucks (with a compound bow) as long as they bed on the farm you hunt. There seems to be something special about going after the bucks that are mostly nocturnal and a little smarter than the average mature buck. The chase when he's mature and years of growing a giant seem to be the most fun to me now. I was wondering how you feel about this topic?
Bill responds,
Topic: Are Mature Bucks too Easy to Kill?:
I have hunted some bucks that were not super hard to kill (usually has to do with the luck kicking in early in the hunt). But I have also been around bucks, like this one we called Loppy, that were very hard to even see, let alone kill. Loppy moved his core area every year for four years until I finally caught up with him. You have to appreciate the “easy” ones because there will be plenty that humble you.
David,
Sometimes the pieces fall into place quickly, but sometimes they don’t. I think if you hunt carefully and the buck you are after has a small home range it might seem easy to kill him, especially using trail cameras to map out that range.
But, for every one of those, there are at least two that are not easy to kill – at least in my experience. They have a bigger range or tend to be nocturnal. Or you just can’t hunt them effectively because of tough access or tricky winds there that buck lives.
Maybe I am just slow at closing the deal, but I can’t remember too many easy ones. You still have to hunt very carefully to keep that deer (and the others in his area) from knowing that you are hunting him. In some situations, that can be a challenge even if the buck himself is exhibiting “killable” behavior on camera.
I know that if you hunt an area long enough, you can predict by mid-October where you will kill a buck simply based on which part of the farm he is living in.
These super stands are spots you have learned through experience that most deer eventually move through and where you can hunt without the deer detecting you. Almost all properties have these spots and if you hunt there long enough you will find a few – that does make things easier for sure.
Then you just put in your time and (if you have enough of it) you often get the shot.
I know a guy who sold his farm because it got too easy to hunt and that took some of the fun out of deer hunting for him. I guess I can see that, but I hunted the farm we lived on for 18 seasons and I don’t remember it ever feeling too easy. Maybe I am just not a good enough deer hunter and that alone makes the pursuit seem more challenging to me.
If it gets “too easy” you can always back off on trail camera use (I normally pull mine in mid-October, for sure by Oct. 20), pick different bucks to hunt, limit your shots to a shorter distance, etc.
You learn to appreciate the differences. Killing them becomes secondary to just learning how they live and figuring out what makes each one unique. Killing a buck you are after is like solving a puzzle. Every season has new puzzles to solve. It never gets old. Good luck. (2/20/22)
