Gon Deer Forum (2024)

FAQs

What is the hardest deer to hunt? ›

A mature high-country mule deer buck is one of bowhunting's most formidable challenges. Some would say that a mature mule deer buck is the most difficult critter to take with a bow and arrow.

If your target buck blows, oftentimes that's a busted hunt. Mature deer rarely blow and then stick around for another opportunity. Generally, the gig is up for the day, if not longer. This is especially true if a deer caught a face full of scent, or if it saw movement or heard noises to go with a subtle sniff of stink.

Every year hunters miss deer. I conducted an informal survey one season and discovered about 80 percent of all the shots you hear on opening day are misses. There are lots of reasons for this. Here are a few and how to avoid them.

The deer in the area may be smelling you long before you can see them. It is incredibly important that you pay attention to the wind and stay downwind of deer. If you plan to hunt feeding grounds, make sure the wind isn't blowing toward approaching deer. As the wind changes directions, you need to move too!

The . 30-30 rifle has arguably killed more whitetail deer than any other single cartridge … with the round's popularity still quite high, it's doubtful it will be unseated any time soon.

Of all the vital organs to hit, a heart shot will kill the deer the quickest because the animal bleeds out rapidly when either the atria (upper chambers) or the ventricles (lower chambers) are hit. A deer has a left lung and a right lung with its heart between the two.

Granted, if a deer smells, sees and hears you, it might be a day or more before it returns, maybe longer. It might even relocate. But if a deer only hears you, or maybe sees some movement it doesn't like, it's much more apt to return sooner.

While this is the common reaction, exceptions do exist. Consider a mature doe my son shot several years ago as it stood broadside. He swore the arrow passed through the deer just behind the shoulder but began to wonder after she ran a short distance, stopped, looked back and snorted.

Even deer that blow from a site after seeing and smelling a threat might tolerate intrusion, but it might be awhile before they return.

If I didn't get one on opening day, then the hunt was truly on. This meant going deeper into the woods, away from roads and camps, and into the thick where the big bucks lay low, waiting for the season to end. It seems that the deer possessed an uncanny knowledge of when the hunting season starts and ends.

Should I deer hunt all day? ›

You might get lucky on a midday buck, but if not, you can still take advantage of the before-dark movements. The peak rut and waning rut mark the most productive times of the season to sit all day. Use the Nationwide Rut Map to determine those dates for your area.

Q: Will a non-mortally-wounded deer come back to the area it was shot in? A: It might or might not. Some deer do return, although it might take a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months to do so. Other deer never return at all.

Deer are essentially red-green colorblind like some humans. Their color vision is limited to the short (blue) and middle (green) wavelength colors. As a result, deer likely can distinguish blue from red, but not green from red, or orange from red.

Trees and plants that produce a berry, fruit, nut or seed can be whitetail magnets. Hard mast trees such as beech, chestnuts, hickory, honey locusts and oaks, provide great food for deer. Soft mast trees such as apples, crabapples, pear, persimmon and plums also provide great nutrition.

Studies have shown that as hunting pressure increases, mature bucks move less during daylight. They also spend more time in thick cover, where you're less likely to see them even if they do move.

The No. 1 state for the suckiest big buck whitetail hunting (Coues deer excluded here) is none other than New Mexico. The state harbors a whitetail population of about 12,500 and only three booners have been killed. The biggest was downed in Union County by Logan Harlan in 2021 and scored 176 7/8 inches as a typical.

Bucks with larger antlers and body size tend to be more aggressive and more successful during the breeding season.

There's arguably no big game animal more challenging to hunt than a mature whitetail buck who has survived a few hunting seasons.