Hunting is a skill that requires a lot of patience and precision. Paul Smith, an avid whitetail hunter, enlightens us with his quantity versus quality strategy in whitetail hunting. He narrates how he got into hunting adventures going back to his younger days with his grandpa, dad, and uncles. Paul shares his experiences about how he patiently observed and caught the year’s buck. Paul also talks about Scent Crusher, how it works, why it is important, and how, while using this, he was able to successfully get the perfect catch. With all his skills and gadgets, Paul then shares how hunting is not just a tradition or hobby, but a way of life that allows him to feel accomplished with the people that matter most.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Early Season Deer Hunting Success Mr. Inside-Out – Paul Smith
We’re heading to Central Kansas. We’re going to connect with Paul Smith. Paul is like the rest of us. He works. He’s a dad. He’s got a not-unlimited amount of sits that he can do during the season. He’s come up with a philosophy, a strategy called quantity versus quality. The hallmark of the whole thing is first-time sits. Paul, welcome to the show. I can’t wait to dive into this quantity versus quality strategy that you have.
Thanks for having me.
Let’s go back to the beginning where you started to realize, “I only have a limited amount of time. I’ve got to make each one of these sits count.” How did that all happen?
I’ll go back to my younger days when growing up, I hunted about anything and everything I could with my grandpa, my dad and my uncles. We used to have a deer camp. I remember at deer camp that I would try to hunt as much as I could as long as I could. I wanted to sit longer than the next person, I wanted to get out there sooner than the next person because I thought, “If I’m out in the woods longer, if I’m out in my tree stand longer, I’m going to have a better chance of killing deer than the next person.” It so happened somebody else would bring a deer back to camp, then somebody else would. I couldn’t figure it out, so I was like, “I need to hunt harder.” One of the quotes that I’m sure most people hear “You can’t kill one from the couch.” I probably interpreted that the wrong way of thinking, “That means I need to be out in the woods as much as I can.” To me looking back at it, that’s probably some of the worst advice I’d ever heard because on how I took it. I wanted to be out as much as I could. That was the quantity of hunts, just hunting and not thinking about what I was doing. I’m trying to get on a specific buck or trying to hunt from observation stands and figuring out when the time was right to go in.
The hardest thing about hunting is how to go in and get close to a mature buck when they’re on their feet. Share on XI took it differently the way you can’t kill one from the couch. We all know you can’t kill one from the couch, but you’ve got to put in context on when the right time is to go in. If the weather has been crappy for three or four days and you have south winds and high temperatures, going in on that fifth day and the temperature is the same, the deer probably can’t be moving that much. If you wait for that early season front, you’re probably going to have a lot better chances of seeing deer or seeing a specific buck. When I got older, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results. I knew I needed to do something different. That was probably more high school/college time where I could hunt any time I wanted to. When I got older, with a full-time job and my first kid, I knew that I couldn’t go out and hunt as much as I wanted to, which was a blessing in disguise. I started listening to these podcasts and listening to all these expert guys that kill big deer and they produce consistently every year, like, “How are they doing that? What are they doing differently than I am?”
Not one guy did the same exact thing, there’s not one special recipe out there. What I learned listening to all these guys and reading all these articles was I molded it into quality versus quantity hunt on waiting until the time is right to go in on sitting back and observing. Not just hunting, not going in to sit in my tree stand because I wanted to hunt and kill something, but waiting until that time was right to go in. I started doing that because I didn’t have as much time. I can’t be gone away from my family three days a week, four days a week, I’ve got to pick that time. Instead of going whenever, I’ve got to wait until those conditions are perfect or that front comes in, go out there and my success hopefully will be better. Over the past years, it’s worked for me. Everybody has their own way to harvest mature deer. Everybody does it differently. For an average Joe that works a full-time job and has three kids, it’s paid off for me. I’ve definitely enjoyed it. I hope I can continue to do it down the road.
Let’s talk about a couple of examples of first-time sits. I know you’ve taken some nice mature bucks. Why don’t you share a few of those with us?
Going back, it was probably the first year I had my boys. It was one of them. The season started in Kansas September 12th or 15th. I didn’t hunt at all until October 11th. I almost waited for about a month until I hunted that year. In the past, I was the guy that wants to, “Season rolls around, let’s go out and hunt.” Why I waited until October 11th? The reason was that was a Saturday. It had rained like Thursday and Friday. The temperature dropped and the north wind moved in. Since it was raining, it was either all day Thursday and Friday or all day Friday and Friday night. I knew deer were going to be up on their feet that Saturday morning. I had a perfect wind to go into a set I hadn’t even been in all year. I got in there, the ground was warm. Those thermals were pushing up. I had deer all over me. I had no idea I was around. This buck came in about 20, 30 minutes after daylight. It was going back to his bed. I shot him at ten yards. He wasn’t the biggest high-scoring deer. At the time, he was the biggest bodied deer I’d ever shot. It has a big, mature, huge body. That was one example of waiting to go in until the time was right. That was eleven days into October.
Another time I shot one, another example, we had two bucks on camera in this area. In the middle of the night, it’s not like they were giving us any indication that there was daylight. At least the cameras we had and over on scrapes, they were showing up in the middle of the night. Two of them were good mature deer. I wanted to go in there and hunt. It was waiting until I thought that the conditions were right. November 1st or 2nd rolled around. I wanted to get in there at some point because of a couple of reasons. I was spoiled in this sense. This area was between my house and where I worked. I worked 25 miles from where I lived. I was able in the evenings to go by and glass from a long way away. A lot of these places in Kansas, it’s not like they’re huge ranches or anything. We’re hunting 80 acres here, 100 acres there, right off the county roads. I was able to glass from afar and I kept seeing deer on this property. Most of the time this property doesn’t hold just a bunch of deer. They move through there, but it’s not like they’re holding a lot of deer. I kept seeing deer come by in the evenings. I never saw the two bucks I was talking about, but I’ve seen a lot of deer. I was like, “If there’s that many deer in there, those bucks have probably got to be in there bumping those does or checking them.” I knew the time was getting right.
I asked my boss that week, it was Monday, I said, “Do you care if I pick one day this week to take off?” He said, “Yes, that’s fine.” I didn’t know what time it was when I wanted to, but I was going to sit back, observe and continue to watch. I rode around. The wind was right a couple of days, but Friday seemed to be the best conditions. The temperature dropped the most. The wind was perfect for one of the tree stands I wanted to go into. I hadn’t been in a tree stand that we have been into all year, hadn’t even been in this area all year. I made my move that morning. I got in, climbed up in the tree stand. Long story short, it was a great morning, a great first 30 minutes of daylight. I have seen five little bucks and one doe. This buck was bumping this doe. She wasn’t in heat, so he just turned back around. Where we set up this tree stand, we set it up on two trails, about seven yards and 35 yards. He walked down at seven yards. He had no idea I was there and made a good shot on him. He was a high 150s eight-pointer and one of the bucks that I went in after. That was another example of sitting back until I thought conditions were perfect.
Talk to me about the observation portion of it. You’re doing a lot of observing, but that’s hunting. You’ve got to grasp the context of that. If you’re in the woods, if you’re observing the deer from a county road, from a ladder, that’s hunting. What you want to do is keep closing the deal and getting closer and closer until you make your move and then you close the deal. A lot of guys and gals are doing that. Let’s talk about observation.
Everybody has their own way to harvest mature deer. Everybody does it differently. Share on XListening, as I talked about trying to figure out how these other guys that do it all the time kill big deer and trying to learn as much as I could. Adam Hays, I got maybe some of the best advice, it wasn’t direct advice. If people don’t know him, he’s on Team200 and I think he’s killed four 200-inch deer and kills giant deer. He said two things. The first thing, he said, “The hardest thing about hunting is not sitting in a tree stand, pulling your bow back, and shooting a deer.” That is not the hardest thing. I’m talking about mature bucks. The hardest thing about hunting is how to go in and how to get close 20, 30 yards from a mature buck when they’re on their feet and any other deer have no idea you’re there and get busted. That’s the hardest thing about going in and killing a mature deer. That was like a light bulb that went off. At the time he had killed seven or eight booners. He said, “Every one of those, besides one, has been on first-time sits.” He said he will sit back and wait until he thinks the conditions are perfect to go into a deer’s core area or wherever that may be to harvest the buck he’s after.
He talked about observation sits. He said, “Just because I’m not in the deer’s core area doesn’t mean I’m hunting, I’m still sitting from afar.” Whether it’s doing a hanging hunt from an observation sit and having your bow in case and glassing or going out and glassing from where you can if you can. I know here in the Midwest we’re fortunate enough to do that. Some areas I know you can’t do that because of terrain and it’s thick. That was another light bulb that went off like, “Those are things I’ve never put in my arsenal to try to use and something I need to start doing.” Sitting back and waiting until I thought those conditions were perfect. I will almost be willing to bet that some of the more success stories that they have are that first time in the stand is the best time. You hear experts talk about that all the time.
Guys that kill big deer, they’ll say that all the time. That’s something else to pay attention to. More or less you’re stacking the odds in your favor as much as you can, not knowing that, “If I go in here and do all this, I guarantee I’m going to kill this buck.” That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you’re going to stack all the odds in your favor as much as you can to try to get on a big deer. Those are some of the things on the observation. The several years, I’ve never seen one of those bucks at all when I was sitting back and observing from the road or just waiting until the time is right. Everything lined up in my mind that those deer were in there based on trail cameras or something else. That’s when I’d go in there. I’ve never seen one that I got in and was able to harvest.
Let’s talk about this buck.
Me and my buddy up here, Luke Fall, we tried to hit it pretty hard in September because we know if we have a deer on our ground, we have a couple of places we hunt. They’re not huge places. Some of them don’t even have that much cover at all, but if we have a deer on us or by us, we know that there’s a good chance early season to get on them because their patterns stay consistent. We had two bucks on this one particular property. I’ve never even paid that much attention to it and hunt it that much because in the past we haven’t had much to go after. There were two in here and we had both of them on camera. They’re good bucks we decided to go after. The problem was they were living across the road where we can hunt. Their core area is not on our ground. They come across to feed, to mill around, to check scrapes and they’re going back before sunup going back across the road. It’s unbelievable bedding. It’s six-foot switchgrass and there are a lot of covers over there. It makes sense they’re living across the road.
We had them on the trail camera. My thought was these are about the only two deer that I was wanting to chase that we had at the time. My thought was I was going to monitor trail cameras. We had two trail cameras right off the county road that we could catch them on these trails, so it was easy to get into and out of. Our access was perfect. We weren’t getting in. It’s not like we were bumping deer out. I was putting corn in the middle of the property because that’s where they eventually come at night. That was more to monitor. I don’t hunt over corn at all and haven’t had success doing it when I tried. My thought was to come. When they slip up, it may be the end of October, 1st of November when they’re going to come across the road earlier, checking does out, checking scrapes or go back early in the morning. We had already figured out the trails. We had already had some stands in the area, hung another stand for a specific trail that they were using. I was going to sit back, wait and monitor until I thought the time was right. There was another buck in the area too that we didn’t know where he was living or bedding. I was out trying to find him too to figure out where he was because I knew these two were across the road.
Friday evening a front came, it was the 28th of September and I decided to go out. Some of these places are fields that we can hunt or just cow pastures. What I started doing, I got a six-foot ladder and I started taking that with me. Usually in the past with my observations, I’ve climbed up in trees and things like that. I took a ladder out with me so I can get up high. I’ve put it in the back of my truck before and climbed up in there or put it out in the field. I was trying to figure out where this one buck was. I couldn’t see him that night. I was walking back to the truck right at dark and I looked over in this other field by where some of these deer come in to feed where we have been getting pictures of them early in the season. I’ve seen three bucks out there. I couldn’t tell which ones they were, but I knew they were bigger bodied bucks. I was certain that one of them was one of the two that we were chasing. I couldn’t verify that at all, but I was like, “One of those deer has to be one of those shooters that we’re chasing.” They came across a lot earlier than they do. Typically, it’s nighttime. They’re at least over there right at sunset. They had to walk by one of Luke’s tree stands he hung. Nobody ever sat in it. We hung it for a specific deer and we couldn’t get on that deer at all. He ended up getting killed. That told me that they came across and may have a chance to go in and to see if I can on one of these bucks.
That was Friday and Saturday rolled around. I had a family event. Friends had some cookouts, so we didn’t go. Sunday, I was planning to go and in this spot we hunt it with a south wind. It was blowing from the field to the timber. They were walking that field edge right across from the road. Our tree stand is 45 yards from this road and we’re catching them right when they get across. That’s the thought, we’ve never done that because he hung it. At 6:00 to 8:00, the weather was showing. It was turning from the south to east to northeast, which was blowing directly to where these deer are coming from. I knew I couldn’t go in because the wind was horrible and I was a little bit disappointed. I was like, “I’ll go out and maybe try to observe again or try to scout from afar if I can.” I was out in the backyard playing with my kids at 4:30. That cool breeze wind shifted out of north like two and a half, three hours earlier than the weatherman projected. I called my buddy, Luke, I said, “Is the wind doing the same thing at your house?” He said, “Yes, it’s doing the same thing, it’s northeast to northwest.”
I thought about it like, “If those deer use that trail and they come across that road, they’re five to seven yards from our tree stand,” because our tree stand is right on this field edge. My thought, with that good fifteen miles-an-hour north wind, my scent would blow right over the top of them and blow out into the field where they’re not going to be at. I kept checking the wind, then last minute I said, “I’ve got to go.” It was coming to an overcast. The north wind is blowing again, just the same conditions as Friday. I said, “I have a good feeling that they’re going to be out again early on their feet.” I went out there. I got in the stand later than normal, but I knew they wouldn’t come across until closer to dark, so I knew I had time. I thought 45 minutes before dark I heard something off back behind me where they’d be coming from and I saw a deer running back to the timber. I was assuming he crossed the road and was running back to the timber.
My wind was blowing in his direction, but he was about 50 yards out further in the field than I had expected them to come. I thought they’d be walking that field edge. I’ve seen them before in the summer. They walk the field edge. They go about 200 or 300 yards to this ditch out in the field. It’s away from the road where the cars can’t see them. I thought that’s what they’d be doing. He was 50 yards out in the field already. I imagine he smelled me. He could have seen a car or something and spooked him and got back into the timber. I don’t know what buck he was. I thought my hunt was over, I said, “These deer have been running in bachelor groups.” I was a little bit disappointed. About ten, fifteen minutes later a little four-pointer came from that direction and he stayed directly downwind of me and was feeding. They’ll go out and meander in the field ways or go down farther from where the stand is. About five minutes later, a doe and two fawns, they came out right below me. They were feeding right in the same spot. It wasn’t going anywhere else, staying right below me, directly downwind.
My wind was blowing right over the top of them. All of a sudden, you get that feeling and I had that high anticipation. I could hear stuff around me. It was getting darker. I had my bow and I was very shaken, excited. I knew something good was maybe about to happen because the way the deer was looking. The mama kept looking around, the mature doe, the buck kept looking around. All of a sudden here comes the one that we had, we called him Inside Out. I could see his horns. After about five minutes, he finally stepped in one hole that I needed him to step in, about seventeen yards, and I made a shot right before dark. I hit him good enough and he ran 50 yards and piled up. He was directly downwind of me. All those deer were directly downwind of me, but I was high enough. I’m a fanatic of scent control. It was high enough block I had planned that is blowing right out of the top of them.
Killing a big deer is the icing on the cake. Being out and experiencing God’s creation is what it’s about. Share on XWhere do you park your truck or car when you hunt this stand? How far away?
Wherever some of these places are out by people’s house. They live out in the country. A couple of places we hunt in people’s backyard, on their little farm grounds. We just park at their house or park on a county road. Anywhere that it’s out of that line of sight of the deer and definitely where the wind is good where we can get in and out.
When you were talking about, I’m going, “Where do I leave my truck, so the deer don’t see it and go, ‘That wasn’t there?”’
I just parked in the ditch about a half-mile away. I walked up that same road and climbed into the tree stand. That’s a good entry and exit spot.
I know you’ve got Scent Crusher on your hat. Scent control and the importance of that, how does that all work for you?
I’m a stickler of scent control. I personally don’t think you can just pull a big mature deer’s nose every single time, but you can enhance it and help yourself at all. At least try to get away from smaller bucks or mature does downwind of you. In my mind, you have a big scent bubble around you. If you don’t do anything, your scent cone is big, but everything you do that can reduce that scent. That scent cone gets smaller and smaller to try to make you be as invisible as you can to a deer’s nose out in the woods. I do all the basics. Take a bath, wash your clothes in it. I don’t spray down. I stopped spraying down because I personally don’t think that was helping me at all and I don’t think spray does anything, that’s my opinion. I stopped spraying down and I was getting busted less not spraying down than when I was spraying down. I mentioned Luke Fall. One of his best friends, Nick Jayne, works for Scent Crusher in Wichita. He taught me up on the scent control around Scent Crusher. I bought myself a unit. I use it a lot and it helps. I wash my clothes and also use the scent control with the Scent Crusher in my bag on the way prior to hunting. I even use it. I’ll turn it on my way to the drive there that day.
Some other things I do, as well. Bill Winke, I learned something from him. He uses gloves all the time when he goes. He wears different kinds of gloves every time. He doesn’t touch any of his clothing, equipment or anything with his hands. I try to self-film myself. I’ve got a lot of stuff in my bag that I touch and handle. I started doing the same thing. I started wearing cotton gloves or I’d go buy some black latex gloves from the hardware store and use those as well and toss them when I’m done with them. I think that helps too. It minimizes it. I’m not saying that’s a catch-all, but every little thing you can do helps. I use gloves. I don’t touch any of my clothing. I get ready when I’m out there. I take all my clothes, put it back in the tote when I get back to my truck. One little thing I did here and it may sound stupid. I had my bag on me at my knee level when I was in that last hunt I talked about hanging on a limb. I thought, “I need to get high as I can.” A bag with all the stuff is more sense. I hung it above my head up in the tree to get it higher as well and to help blow that scent over the deer’s head. That’s something else that I do. I don’t run Ozonics or anything. I don’t want to smell like anything when I’m in the woods. I don’t want to have a cover scent. I don’t want any of that. I want to smell just as non-detectable as possible. That’s definitely helped over the years.
I remember Chuck Adams, he used to use baking soda in his cap. That’s why he always had that little green cap on. It was filled with baking soda because most of our heat off our body comes through our head. It does. That scent in your nose when you’re breathing, exhaling through your nose or your mouth. There are a lot of things to think about in scent control, but sometimes the simplest things are the best things. Trappers have used gloves forever. They boil their traps. There’s absolutely no scent. You have bait but there’s no scent on the traps at all. They always wear gloves, rubber boots and that whole thing. We can learn a lot by going past and saying, “How were these guys successful? How were trappers successful?” In a sense, that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to fake out their nose, fake out their eyes and fake out their hearing. Their inner sense, their survival sense is another thing. I learned a long time ago, don’t look at a deer in his eyes because he knows you’re looking at him, look away, look down, whatever you have to do. They know predators look at them. It’s the gazillion little things that add up. You figured a lot of stuff out. I would say to anybody, break your old habits. If you want to see a mature deer. If you want to kill a doe or the first legal buck, that’s great.
These little tips and techniques will help you do that. If you want to get after mature bucks, four and a half years or older, it’s a completely different game. It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to shoot does and fill the freezer, invite me over for some good back strap and I’m there because it all works. It seems a lot of people saying, “I want a little more of the challenge. I want to do it on my terms, not the deer terms.” Sometimes in all-day sits, especially during the rut, I’m waiting for Mr. Wonderful to come by me. I know he’s there, but he might be there as well as five other bucks in the bottomlands along the Buffalo River. It could be three to five miles. It gets different during the rut. The way you’re hunting them it’s a little more you’re stacking the odds in your favor. Stacking in your favor, you have a lot of people that have helped you with your hunting tradition. Let’s talk about your grandfather, your dad and your uncles. How they all got you started on this adventure?
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family that had hunted before I was even born and spent a lot of time in the outdoors. We had a deer camp when I was younger. Some of the best memories I ever had was going up to a deer camp. Dad said he was taking me up there when I was about four years old and we’d go for the weekend or around Thanksgiving or whenever. We spent a lot of time up there. It was great. It allowed us to get away and somewhere to go and spend time out in the outdoors. I learned a lot of good hunting and basic techniques from my dad, my grandpa, my uncles, teaching me at a young age of how to read the sign and play the wind and all those things. It was something we had until I was about 21. We jumped around a couple of different times of the deer camp, but we always had somewhere to go. We got away from it when I was about 21 or so. My grandpa ended up passing away. We got out of our deer camp. I focused on waterfowl hunting a lot right after that when I was in college.
Growing up I remember the stories and stuff the guys would say. We’d get back, it would always be awesome to hear other stories. If somebody killed a deer, they’d bring it in. You listen to the story they tell and how they get it or the sightings they would see or that morning you would always wait until somebody comes in and just couldn’t wait to hear the stories. Listening to all the stories around the campfire, which I’m sure a lot of them was probably far-fetched. It was definitely great times and some of the better memories I ever had. Getting to do that with my grandpa, my dad and my uncles. I was fortunate that I grew up doing that. Many years later I’m still as addicted as I ever been. I’m thankful that I can go out and still enjoy the great outdoors and climb up in a tree stand every now and then.
What tips would you recommend to the audience about the hunting tradition if they don’t have one?
I’d say from how I grew up being around the outdoors, it was more like a way of life almost. That’s what we did outside of sports and family. That’s the things that we did. When you’re starting to chase some of these mature deer, it’s a challenge to get on a deer. It’s unbelievable when you have an accomplishment when you get on one of these big mature deer. I’ve got three kids and I’m going to try to do everything I can to bring them up in the outdoors if they want to do that. If they don’t want to do that, that’s fine. When you’re out in the woods, we’re talking on here about killing a big mature deer and the strategies behind that, but that’s not what hunting is about. When I was younger at those deer camps, I wanted to be the guy to kill a big mature deer. If somebody else did, I’m like, “How can I do that?” It was all about the kill.
I remember my grandpa saying, I’ll never forget it and I will always pass this on. Sitting around the campfire being out hunting, sitting down listening to the wind blow, the leaves. He would say, “This is what it’s about. Killing a big deer is the icing on the cake. Being out and experiencing God’s creation is what it’s about.” That is the best advice I’d ever have, something I’ll always take with me. At the time I didn’t realize it like, “Screw that, I want to kill a big deer.” Every time I’m in the tree stand, that’s what it is about and taking my boy out already. He’s five years old and bringing him up in there. It’s being out in the woods away from everything, just relaxing, listening to the animals, watching the animals when they don’t know you’re there and enjoying God’s creation. That’s the things that I’m thankful for. It’s so true to what he said, harvesting a big mature animal, that’s the icing on the cake, but there’s so much more than to harvest a mature deer.
What do you wish you knew five or ten years ago that you do now and how big of a difference did that make in your hunting?
It’s the subject to your show, it’s quality versus quantity. My strategy was to try to hunt as much as I can and be in the woods more than anybody. I thought that’s how I would kill a big deer. I’m sure that works for a lot of people. It did not work for me. If I knew what I knew then, I would focus more on the quality of hunts and not be out in the woods as much as I can. Sitting back and observing what I can and maybe running more trail cameras and reading the sign, more scouting, more in the off-season. That’s something I didn’t do when I was younger, scouting in the off-season and finding scrapes, good trails, bedding and putting that in my back pocket for the next year. Those things, scouting more, observing more, sitting back and waiting until the time is right. Not hunting any time I could, but waiting until those conditions were right. If I would have done it back then, I would definitely have probably more success. Not necessarily saying I would kill more deer, but I would have had the opportunity to be on more big deer.
Thanks for that. I want to draw it all in together as far as first sits and the quality of hunts. What are the five things that pretty much drive you to make the decision to hunt a specific day?
As the saying goes, “If you don’t have a big deer in the area, you can’t kill a big deer.” You’ve got to hunt where the big deer are. Trail cameras are vital to what we do up here and how we hunt. We’ve got to have a big deer located, that’s the very first thing. It’s not just going out and randomly sitting somewhere and hoping you have a deer come by you. Locating a deer is probably the number one thing and trying to figure out how to get on him. Is he nocturnal? If he’s nocturnal at your camera, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s nocturnal, that means he’s not showing up on your camera until after dark. Where is he bedding? It’s trying to figure out maybe his core area or his home range would be the number two thing. I’m a believer.
If you stay out of a buck’s core area and they’re not pressured, they’re still going to get up a lot of times and move. They might not be moving that far at all. If you catch the weather right and the conditions right, they’re going to move some too. If you get inside of his core area, you might have a chance of killing him. Figuring out where his core area is. Three is waiting until the conditions are right. That might be in a week, that might be four or five weeks. If you’re early season, you might need to wait for three or four weeks. One example I did that, waiting a long time to go in until those conditions were right. Having that wind perfect, fronts are obviously going to get the deer up on their feet when that pressure is increasing. That’s one of the better times to get out and chase one. The fourth thing is probably the entry and exit. Having adequate entry and exit. You’ve heard experts probably say and guys that kill deer all the time that your spot may only be as good as your entry and exit.
If you don’t have a good entry and exit and you’re blowing deer out everywhere, then that perfect tree stand is not going to be a perfect tree stand. Having a very good entry and exit plan is adequate and it worked for me. I walked up to a creek one time and got my boots soaked. I had water come up two, three feet, but the entry and exit were perfect. The fifth thing is scent control, definitely. Being up in the tree stand, everything you can do to minimize your scent you’re going to be better off. A lot of times if you have deer come by you, that big buck may not necessarily be that first deer that comes by you. The example I had on this last one I killed, there’s going to be other deer that come out first, maybe smaller bucks, maybe mature does. If you can fool their nose, you have a better chance of killing that mature buck.
Thanks for that, Mr. Paul Smith from Central Kansas. This has been great. This is deer hunting mature bucks 101. I know you’re a great student. You’re sharing a lot of information that you’ve heard from other people. That’s one great thing about our sport. We’re all willing to share tips and techniques that work or have worked for us. With that, I’m going to say thank you on behalf of hundreds of thousands of audience of Whitetail Rendezvous podcast for being a guest on my show.
Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate it.
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