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Formula for Succes.

CJD3

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
14,630
201
NE Ohio
Access, Time and Skill.
They really need to be a balance. Stack the deck any 2 of 3 ways and a hunter can still blow it. Taking dumb or beginners luck out of the equation and you really do need a balance. I cant think of a "best 2 out of 3" combo where your still likely to kill a big deer.(year after year) The odd one out will always come back to bit ya.

Corn piles... Whatever. Hell. I could be pissed about tree stands too. In the late 60's / early 70's, deer never looked up. Then everybody started buying and using climbers or lock-on's. Not the man made fixed tree stands that sat in the tree for years. Soon after, all the deer started learning to look up.

If ya want to live the season chasing the horn, do it with a code and honor. Maybe write a book later and share your wisdom. Just don't tell me you did it alone wearing a breach cloth and a long bow when a team of people were running corn, minerals, other deer party favors and cameras reporting in hourly...
If ya get enjoyment sharing, teaching and helping others... well you just may be the future of deer hunting.

I have spent almost 50 years trying to hunt deer and every season, I have 2 out of 3... :smiley_depressive:
I would love a 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 season...
 

finelyshedded

You know what!!!
Supporting Member
31,856
260
SW Ohio
Mark me down for wanting baiting made illegal like it is for turkey season! Never understood why baiting for turkeys is considered cheating or likened to clubbing a seal and baiting deer is no advantage in the ODNR's eyes......no wait, the insurance companies eyes! I guess turkeys don't get into vehicle collisions as often might has something to do with it! Lmao
 

Carpn

*Supporting Member*
2,234
87
Wooster
The biggest advantage I see when corn piling is getting them on camera . Cept in summer when they're hitting minerals. To just kill a doe or something it definitely works but I've never seen mature deer get stupid for a bag of corn. Maybe its just cause I've always had to hunt shared property that receives a lot of pressure from others .
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
The biggest advantage I see when corn piling is getting them on camera . Cept in summer when they're hitting minerals. To just kill a doe or something it definitely works but I've never seen mature deer get stupid for a bag of corn. Maybe its just cause I've always had to hunt shared property that receives a lot of pressure from others .

That's likely it because I can guarantee you they get stupid just like a big doe does when it comes to unpressured corn piles.
 

CJD3

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
14,630
201
NE Ohio
Access, Time and Skill.
They really need to be a balance. Stack the deck any 2 of 3 ways and a hunter can still blow it. Taking dumb or beginners luck out of the equation and you really do need a balance. I cant think of a "best 2 out of 3" combo where your still likely to kill a big deer.(year after year) The odd one out will always come back to bit ya.

Corn piles... Whatever. Hell. I could be pissed about tree stands too. In the late 60's / early 70's, deer never looked up. Then everybody started buying and using climbers or lock-on's. Not the man made fixed tree stands that sat in the tree for years. Soon after, all the deer started learning to look up.

If ya want to live the season chasing the horn, do it with a code and honor. Maybe write a book later and share your wisdom. Just don't tell me you did it alone wearing a breach cloth and a long bow when a team of people were running corn, minerals, other deer party favors and cameras reporting in hourly...
If ya get enjoyment sharing, teaching and helping others... well you just may be the future of deer hunting.

I have spent almost 50 years trying to hunt deer and every season, I have 2 out of 3... :smiley_depressive:
I would love a 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 season...

Wow. Sorry Joe. That's more of a rant...lol
 

Bigcountry40

Member
4,555
127
Mark me down for wanting baiting made illegal like it is for turkey season! Never understood why baiting for turkeys is considered cheating or likened to clubbing a seal and baiting deer is no advantage in the ODNR's eyes......no wait, the insurance companies eyes! I guess turkeys don't get into vehicle collisions as often might has something to do with it! Lmao

Really of subject, has anyone actually ever seen a road kill turkey? Jackalope you grew up in turkey country, the areas in NC and SC had similar populations as southern Ohio, I have never seen a dead turkey on the side of the road.
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
Really of subject, has anyone actually ever seen a road kill turkey? Jackalope you grew up in turkey country, the areas in NC and SC had similar populations as southern Ohio, I have never seen a dead turkey on the side of the road.

I grew up in Alabama and Mississippi, never once saw a dead turkey on the road. I've seen dead turkey buzzards, Hawks, and owls. But their habit of eating road kill kind of puts them in harms way.
 

huntn2

Senior Member
6,090
157
Hudson, OH
I see a half dozen roadkill turkey each year. I have damn near hit them a handful of times as they have taken a short low flight across highways on me.
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
Now that I have a few minutes, here is what I think leads to consistent success. I use "consistent" because it differs from "blind" or "dumb" luck, which of course is its own kind of success. I shared a story about this once before around here, but I'll recap to show what I mean. I have a cousin who has been on a grand total of one deer hunt in her life. After constant nagging, my uncle took her at noon on Sunday of gun season when it was in the 50's and they sat on a hay field. She shot a 140" 10-point that was laying under a long deadfall in the middle of the field. She's never hunted again. I've spent thousands of hours in the woods and still haven't killed a 140. Who is the more successful hunter?

In my opinion, and this is all just opinion, what it takes to consistently kill mature bucks is, in order of importance: Access. Time. Skill. Money. Luck.

I've been kicking around the idea of an "article" for several months entitled "Killing Mature Bucks: It doesn't require skill..." However there is a small contingent of members (and former) who feel I have no right to give advice, let alone have the audacity to write such an article, so I've never completed the writing. The gist of the article is that killing big bucks DOES NOT REQUIRE skill and that other factors, e.g. access and time, far outweigh skill. There are a few perennially successful deer hunters here in Ohio that we all know, whose formula for success weighs heavily on access and time, with skills we could all acquire in short order if we had the money. So what's their secret? Pour the corn to deer in areas with quality deer. Find a target. Back track him using cameras until you know where he tends to bed. Park ass in stand until he comes out to head towards the corn. Does this take skill? Sure. Does it take the kind of skill that someone possess who hunts big timber without cams or bait, yet consistently kills big deer? Not even close. Skill is relative and it's a matter of interpretation. My opinion, again just my thoughts on the situation, is that 95% of the guys on this forum could trade places with those guys on their land, with their resources, and their time and accomplish the same thing. Are they better hunters than the rest of us? Perhaps. But I'd challenge them to trade places with some of us and do that same thing on the same consistent basis. It simply won't happen in most cases.

Access. To kill big bucks consistently, you need to have big bucks to hunt consistently. Beyond that, you need to consistently have big bucks to hunt that ARE NOT pressured to the point of vacating the area and/or going nocturnal. I feel this is one of the biggest factors in consistent success. I routinely have nice deer to hunt and routinely, those deer go underground around mid-October. I hunt a highly pressured area and left alone, I feel I'd be more successful. 80 acres is a small patch of ground to hunt, especially when you understand that we rarely hold deer. What deer I do get to hunt, are there for food or passing through. If they are getting pressured outside our farm, they stop coming to our farm and that makes them next to impossible to kill. Or, I just suck. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Probably is... Not all access is created equal and even good access can turn sour under pressure.

Time. I goad my wife all the time that if I only worked 3 days a week, I would get a lot more shit done. Including running cams and hunting deer. One particularly successful guy most of us know, gets all (or most) of hunting season off (or at least he used to). Talk about increasing your odds of success! For the weekend warriors, it is next to impossible to manipulate the odds in your favor like someone can who works favorable hours/days/shifts or has tons of time off. As long as you're smart about your presence in the woods, it's a huge boost to your odds of success.

Skill. I touched on this earlier. Is it a requirement? Depends on the skill. Assuming a certain level of weapons proficient and ability to keep your shit together during the moment of truth, then “skill” becomes more a question of putting deer in front of you, or you in front of deer. Our discussion on baiting, and my earlier examples of successful hunters using camera and corn, points to the difference between getting deer in front of you, versus you putting yourself in front of deer. They are not the same. One relies on manipulation; the other, skill. So what is skill in this equation? To me, it is woodsmanship. It is the ability to read terrain, sign, weather, and a host of other environmental influences in order to put yourself in the path of naturally moving whitetails. What is manipulation? Piles of corn. Cameras. Mock scrapes. Food plots. All those things that become man-made environmental influences that put deer in front of us. Does manipulation require “skill”? It requires “skills”, but not “skill” as it relates to woodsmanship. At least not to the same degree as it would without man-made influences…

Money. This is an easy one. If you have expendable resources, you can afford more/better land, more corn, more/better cameras and more time. Money tips the scale in favor of the man who has more whether it be in life, or in the woods. Money can create opportunity and people with enough money can be successful even if they couldn’t “hunt” their way out of a wet paper bag. We all know someone with an impressive trophy wall that has zero woodsmanship.

Luck. I list it last because it is the one thing we cannot control. I have one example I go to all the time for this. Greg Fleming is one of the most knowledgeable hunters I know. If you took this entire forum to big woods country and dropped them off with just a bow, my money is on Greg to be the first guy to locate a nice buck. My money is also on him to have the strangest, weirdest, most horribly timed luck. Conversely, there are guys, and we all know one, who can go sit in the wrong spot, at the wrong time, send an arrow off a limb, through the guts and nick the femoral on the way out, letting them drag a Booner home. Luck is a bitch. Or it is your best friend.

So there you have my take on the formula for “consistent” success. Why the quotations on consistent? Well we could have an entirely different debate on what is consistent. Does that mean every year? Is there a certain score/age that qualifies a buck as a “success”? Is it all just a matter of what it means to you and be damned public perception? Those are all questions for debate another day…
 

Bigslam51

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
25,778
127
Stark County
Solid post, Jesse. IMO access and time slightly outweigh skill. As far as hunting the rut, all a guy has to do is park his ass in a funnel/pinch point and sit all day. If a guy sits there long enough, and there's a few good bucks around, chances are good that one of them is going to come strolling through looking for a doe. Finding pinch points and funnels is where a little bit of skill is required but they aren't hard to find. Having land with good bucks, being able to get in and out undetected, and time is key.
 

Gern186

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
10,171
201
NW Ohio Tundra
It would take me 2 hours to give my feelings here Jesse on your post...but the comment you made here...

"There are a few perennially successful deer hunters here in Ohio that we all know, whose formula for success weighs heavily on access and time, with skills we could all acquire in short order if we had the money."

Totally fucking chapped my ass. That's like saying I would have the basketball skills of Steph Curry if I just had a Gym at my house and a bunch of money.... Fucking bullshit Jesse.

I agree with some of your post...but come on man...not everyone is gonna consistently kill big bucks...and for those that don't...maybe they need to look at why they don't.
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
It's not a blanket statement Chad. If you think that statement was directed at you, which it appears you do seeing as you took it the way you did, it wasn't. Here's some more food for thought...

I expect guys who are consistently successful to believe it's their hunting prowess and skill that makes them successful. In some cases, that's true. In others, not so much. Some guys are natural born killers. They have that "Steph Curry" factor and no amount of time or money can close the gap for someone who is totally inept. I'll agree with you on this, so see the first sentence of this post...

Some guys are still hunting the same ground they've hunted since they could walk. They have decades of knowledge about the ground they hunt that has eliminated the learning curve and now it's just a matter of seat time. The same trees. The same funnels. The same situations that made grandpa and dad successful, make them successful. I know guys who have very impressive trophy walls that can't hunt to save their ass. They can shoot a gun and they can sit in the same spot, on the same drive, every year and with some regularity, they kill nice bucks. But all they "know" is sitting in the same spot, on the same drive and making the shot. I'm not impressed...

As quoted above, some of guys think neither I, nor any one else here that is not killing bucks year in and year out, have a right to talk about this subject. Truth is, opinions are like assholes: We all have one and some stink. Welcome to an open forum with the right for public expression of opinion... whether they be shitty or not.

Again, none of this is a blanket statement, nor is it directed at you. So please, don't take it so personal...
 
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Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
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It would take me 2 hours to give my feelings here Jesse on your post...but the comment you made here...

"There are a few perennially successful deer hunters here in Ohio that we all know, whose formula for success weighs heavily on access and time, with skills we could all acquire in short order if we had the money."

Totally fucking chapped my ass. That's like saying I would have the basketball skills of Steph Curry if I just had a Gym at my house and a bunch of money.... Fucking bullshit Jesse.

I agree with some of your post...but come on man...not everyone is gonna consistently kill big bucks...and for those that don't...maybe they need to look at why they don't.

I think what he's saying is access and time has the ability to make even the biggest goober look like they're Roger Rothar. Like my example earlier about the Esker brothers. They don't kill 200+ inch deer every year because they're some sort of deer whisperer gods. The reality is the only thing they have that others don't is access to prime property and time to hunt it. A lot of people want you to believe it's their skill or deer hunting prowess that lands them a big one each year, the reality is it's 90% access and time.
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
This.

If you have Stephen Curry skills, but you never see the court, then you don't succeed. You need access and time to capitalize on skill. Without those two, skill means nothing.