Hunting Tips

Here you can find hunting tips to aid you in your hunt.

Elk Tips -
• In my book scouting is the number one thing that will increase your success for getting an elk. Start early in the year and use antler hunting as an excuse to be in the woods. Look for game paths and old rubs to give you an idea where elk my frequent at the time of year you will be in the woods and write them down on a note pad you carry with you. Don’t try and remember things you have seen until you are at home. What you have seen in a days worth of scouting should be writen down while in the field so you will get more details in your descriptions of what you are observing. This will not only help you during that year of hunting, but will let you through several years of hunting. Scouting will show patterns emerge of elk movement and habits they may have gotten into.
• With all the manufactors calls available the woods are polluted with an over abundance of calling. The animals are now very call shy and even the real sounds of other elk does not bring a response from Elk. Call shy Elk are now the norm and the irresponsable hunters do not care what they are causing. Examples on videos, call champions, and our fellow hunters - of calling a elk in just to show off their calling prowess with them chasing the elk off after being done with the game. The next time that elk will think twice before coming into any call whether real or man made. Use your calling responablely: Not before season, this hunting not a calling contest (get close before calling), Use cow calls to direct the bull to your locaion (not with the hope that more is better or that you must fill the woods with enough noise as to scare everything in it. Once an Elk has heard your first call they know exactly where you are and need no more to get them to you. The buddy system is great and should be used when ever possible. With the caller moving as needed to direct and draw the bull to the shooter. Slow and just enough to keep the bull moving, not so much that when you make a bad call they will run.
• Elk can be fouled with a snapping of your fingers when close to the herd. Your full of it you say. Here is the reasoning behind this statement. Elk can communicate with each other with a well known sound they make while walking through the forest. Their knee joints make a clicking noise when they walk. All members keep in contact with other members of the herd by listening for each members clicking to confirm their location around them. It is a calming device that makes each member of the herd able to feed or move through the brush and not feel threatened .
• Next inline would be cleanliness – With clean odor free clothes and boots (Yes your boots, just smell your stinky socks - wash with baking soda) Wash with odor free soaps both you and your duds and store in garbage bags in an odor free place. Baking soda will work in a pinch if you don’t have anything on hand while in the field. Brush those teeth – Mr. Bad breath, yes elk can smell your breath farther away than your spouse. Just think of what happens when you see a big bull. Are you not huffing and puffing like a locomotive and guess where that stinky breath of yours is going?
• Carry some kind of wind indicator whether it is a dust bottle or one of those new yarn type indicators. In a pinch you can make one from an old eye drop bottle and some baking powder. It is very important that you always stay down wind because an elk will run faster and jump higher than anything else if they smell you.
• Elk can only see in black and white and their eyes can only see quick movement. So stay down wind and walk like a cougar …very, very, very, very slow. (Do you get the point of what I am trying to tell you?)
• Here is one tip that most people don’t think about and that is keeping all shiny things on your body covered. Here is the list of things that should be covered in my option- Glasses – hard to cover up but it can be done with a facemask or some camo paint on your skin behind the glass. Wrist Watches – If it’s cold, this will not be a problem, but if it is hot and you are wearing a short sleeve shirt, that watch will reflect out to a hundred yards and give your position away to any elk within eyesight. Buttons & any other external metal or plastic – We tend to gadget our outsides with binoculars and anything we might think we will need in a hurry. Most have shiny surfaces to make them pretty, but only to you not to the elk you are hunting. Just think about what I just said, “HURRY” didn’t I say something in tip 3 about slowness? If you need to get to some thing fast it should only be your weapon not other things that will defiantly be in your way to cleanly take a shot at the elk of your dreams.
• If nothing else, take this into the woods with you – NOTHING BUT YOUR OPEN MIND AND SPIRIT - enjoy the privilege of hunting in the out of doors and take someone with you that you care about. (Your wife or husband, for starters, why leave them at home?)

Deer Tips:
• Scouting – Is the number one way to insure a good chance at getting a deer. By knowing where the deer bed and feed it will give you a head start over other hunters and let you spend more time in the woods learning the lay of the land.
• Eliminate scent – By eliminating scent you become more invisible to the animals around you. Not only are you trying to hide from deer but anything that if it spooks will alert the deer to your presents. Ever watch a deer if a squirrel starts to bark? The deer knows if the squirrel is barking then something that doesn’t belong in the woods is around. In the same vein if you hear a squirrel bark look in that direction, you might get a heads up to some game moving in your direction.
• Homebodies – Black tail deer are homebodies and are born, live and die within a mile home territory. They love the heads of drainages and south facing slopes because of the warming sun in the mornings.
• Deer like their brother elk are colored bind and can be fooled by slow movement and a mixture of patterns in the clothing you wear.
• Calls of does or bucks in heat and fawns bleating can be very productive at times and also give you some very funny moments with the way some deer react to the calls.