Total Scent Control For Great Hunting

With deer season just around the corner here in the lowcountry, and with hog season open all year, total scent control is something that every hunter should be working on to achieve the results they want!

But have you read all of the scent control articles in the many hunting magazines, and yet you still continue to get busted before you can pull the trigger on the monster whitetail or giant boar of your dreams?

That’s because most of the outdoor writers’ greatly oversimplify the truly difficult, and monotonous task of becoming and more importantly staying scent free. Most of the them just tell you to bathe in scent free soap, wash your clothes in scent free detergent, spay down with some type of scent killing spray, wear rubber boots and scent-adsorbing clothing and you will be fine.

However while saying this is going to save your hunting, the writers then insist that you stay down wind. Well, were I hunt, that just doesn’t cut it. Not only does the wind change all of the time, but on the small tracts of land that most sportsmen get to hunt in South Carolina, you must work darn hard to put a great buck, big hog or even an fat doe in front of you. Because with deer rifle season running from August 15 to January 1 and two bucks a day allowed in most of the low country, the deer that survive even one or two years become masters of evasion. Also, while some may disagree, the feral hogs that are hunted year-round are just as tough! So while taking the normal outdoor writer’s casual approach to scent control will help, it still won’t keep you from burning out a couple of hundred acre track over so long of a period without some important additional steps being taken.

Probably most critical to my success is NOT wearing rubber boots. Most rubber boots, even the ones that say they are scent free, are not. Smell them. If you can smell them, the deer and hogs certainly can. And since your feet sweat in the rubber, the bacteria builds up on your feet, their leftovers causing odor to be left on the ground as well as sent air born as you walk.

I wear Rocky snake boots pretty much all year round since it rarely gets that cold. And even when it does, my feet breath with the help of some synthetic socks, so they don’t sweat or get cold. More importantly, with some additional steps, they don’t stink. I soak them in Atsko’s sport wash for an hour, scrub them out and rinse them in fresh water before letting them hang in the sun all day. Make sure to start this process early in the day so they don’t stay damp overnight and get moldy, or put them in front of a strong fan until dry.

Next I wash all of my hunting stuff, not just my clothes, in sport wash as well. That means my sling, calls, pull up rope, and bino buddy in addition to my hat, gloves and head net. I also wash my rain gear and anything else that I plan to put into my also washed scentlok backpack.

I then spray anything that can’t be washed down with Atsko’s no odor spray. While it doesn’t absorb odor like some of the newer carbon-based sprays, it actually kills the odor molecules and prevents bacteria from growing while still being safe enough to wash out your mouth. Which, by the way, actually works to kill bad breath, another culprit of many hunts gone bad. Just as importantly, No Odor kills ALL odors not just human odor; this includes gasoline and oil! This is vitally important since hunters are likely to pick up all kinds of smells on the way to the stand.

I then suggest that you store everything in scent-tight bins until your ready to hunt. Or if you can, do what I do and just leave them out on your screened porch or on your clothes line. But watch out because there is something irresistible about scent-free things to animals. They just feel compelled to mark it in some way! And of course shake them out before you put them on; I say this because I haven’t been the same since a spider with a foot-wide diameter crawled out of my pants leg one day!

Next I thoroughly clean my weapon of choice with slip2000, a remarkable scent-free synthetic oil that blows away traditional gun oils. Not only does it not stink but it can actually make your gun shoot faster and better by greatly reducing friction in the barrel over standard oils.

The day of the hunt I shower with Atsko’s no odor soap and apply some scent-free deodorant just prior to walking out the door. I then quickly drive to my hunting area where I finish dressing and then dust down with Knight and Hale’s Stealth Dust. It’s a clay based powder that absorbs human odors that you apply by lightly rubbing a sock filled with it all over your clothes and in and on your boots. It works like a champ, even when my clothes are soaked with sweat from hunting in the 100 degree heat, I just keep dusting down throughout the day to keep all odors from forming.

Then after getting totally packed up and ready for my walk to my stand, I give my boot bottoms a spray with no odor to make sure that I am not transferring any truck odors to the ground in my hunting area. And while walking to my stand, I also try not to touch anything I don’t have to as well as not making any sound in case deer are bedded near by or already headed my way.

Once at my stand and having quietly climbed up, I periodically spray down with no odor and then redust myself. I also chew some of the new gumoflage gum that is on the market. It tastes like your eating a pine cone but it does kill the stench of anything that you have eaten. It also has cloraphyll in it which is supposed to help kill your body’s odor from the inside out.

This step by step fanatical approach allows me to go undetected as I slip into and out of my hunting area year round, and to take some great bucks and hogs. This program has also helped many of my friends like Will pictured above with his nice 9 point. However this is not a one time thing… You must do this each and every time you enter the woods for the program to truly work. Otherwise you just burn out your area and there are no animals left to shoot, even if you do happen to show up scent free a few times.

Try it, and I think you will find that even when that wind changes paths, your quarry won’t.

The Thunderbird – A Last-Day Gobbler

Well here we are… the last day of turkey season here in the lowcountry of South Carolina. And unbelievably, I still have not killed a big gobbler.

To say that it has been a tough season would be an understatement: quite a bit of rotten weather to make the hunting tough, lots of wedding work to keep me out of the woods and of course the Gobblinator. I guess that I could whine about it, but instead I think I will take comfort in the fact that I have been in this situation before and managed to shoot one with time running out.

I killed the thunderbird four years ago, and it was truly one of my greatest hunts ever. I can only say that every once in a great while, the stars align and everything in the hunt somehow goes perfectly. It so rarely happens that you can’t ever count on it, you just have to spend enough time in the woods for something like this to happen occasionally.

My wife stopped our Toyota corolla at the head of the dirt road leading to our 180 acre lease. Ahead lay two miles of muddy, torn up trail full of giant potholes that sometimes came close to claiming my Jeep Cherokee 4×4.
It was already 4:30pm, and the last day of turkey season was quickly coming to an end… without me having killed a turkey. I needed to get to my hunting area quickly, but the four wheel drive was out in the truck, so even attempting the drive in was out of the question. The only option left was to have my understanding wife drive me the mile and a half from our home to the road’s entrance and put me out with my Cannondale mountain bike. From there I would ride when I could, hike around the muddy craters when I couldn’t.

I unloaded my ultralight racing bike that I had converted into a hunting machine by adding an atv gun rack, and quickly assembled my gear. The sweat poured off of me in the South Carolina lowcountry’s May heat, but I was determined not to let my tag go to waste – No matter what it took!
I had already blown a chance with two big gobblers right at daylight near the back of the property by taking one too many steps towards them before deciding to set up. After that it was pretty quiet (if you discount the swarms of mosquitoes circling your head with their incessant buzzing) until 10am when I rode out, again on my bike, to shower and attend a small family reunion for a few hours.

Now I was back. I peddled to the far front corner and called loudly a couple of times. I figured that I needed a hot bird looking for some late season love to pull off this miracle, so why not give it all I had.
Nothing.
I didn’t even hesitate, I had already made up my mind that if one didn’t respond immediately, I was headed to the very back of the property. To the exact spot that I had squandered a sure thing this morning.
The mud was flying off of my knobby tires all over my back as I tore down the old logging road the split the property; I had to hurry since, not only was time running out, but the sky turning black with impending rain and the lightning was getting closer along with its booming thunder.
At the far end, about two hundred yards from the line, I ditched my bright yellow two-wheeler and grabbed my gun. While walking towards the corner, I pulled out my MAD high-frequency diaphragm, said a small turkey hunters prayer (you know the one, where you promise anything, just to hear that gobble), threw it into my mouth and prepared to call once I got into position.
My plan was to stalk up near the line so that I could glass the neighbors fallow fields for a strutting bird before calling. I always like to be able to see a bird I am calling to if at all possible; that way you can watch his reaction and adjust your tone or cadence accordingly as well as move to intercept them if they don’t come right in. I also hoped to possibly hear one sound off to the now startlingly loud claps of thunder.
I eased up to about 50 yards from the line, glassed the grown over field ahead of me and strained my ears after each burst.

There it was! A gobble… about 350 yards away, just off to my right but far enough down the road and out into the tall weeds so that I couldn’t see him.
My heart almost leaped out of my chest. It was all coming together perfectly. I had located a bird without even calling and that eliminated the possibly of getting busted while trying to set up closer. I was mapping out the rest of my plan when another, closer burst of thunder made him gobble again. Then again! I knew he must be fired up already, so I gave him what he wanted. I sent a string of moderately loud yelps his way followed by a quick cut.
Grrrobbb-grrrooobbble he fired back. I called again, this time with even more passion. Another double gobble. If this bird was any hotter, he would burn up I told myself as I dashed forward towards the other line that lay about 100 yards ahead. A little over half way there I called again. Grrroooble. This time he was definitely moving closer.
I unhooked my Bucklick creek vest and plopped down against a small pine 35 yards from the line, where I could see out into this grown up field and hopefully watch my bird’s progress. And what I really needed him to do was take a few extra steps beyond the field on to our side, and into the range of my old Winchester 1400 12 gauge.
And it sounded like he just might do that since he was really coming now. I knew because he was gobbling almost incessantly at the cracking thunder, giving his exact path away and keeping me from getting impatient and over-calling.
I just sat there in total amazement, drunk off of the sounds of this gobbling gift, waiting to unwrap him with some #4 heavy shot while he closed the distance. Finally I could see his tail feathers over the weeds. He was strutting down the road about 125 yards out. He was coming, but not as fast as the rain drops were starting to fall.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something if he was going to make it to me before the bottom fell out and ruined my hunt. I called one last time, pleading with him and surely making all kinds of dirty promises in turkey lingo.
He hammered back, but continued his crawl my way. I just knew the rain wasn’t going to hold off long enough. But then, there he was, 40 yards out into the field, but still technically 75 yards from the barrel. I tightened my grip, eased the safety off and waited while he just basically stood there, strutting back and forth.
There was nothing I could do. So I waited, and waited. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but in reality was probably only another 10 minutes, he started to slowly strut my way. A step here, another step there. I was getting nauseous just watching him.
He eased up to the edge of the field and peered deep into the woods for his lover. I was afraid to even blink. My red-headed savior was now just feet from the line and a mere 8 yards out of range.
Gooobbblle, he hollered into my face, still burning holes into the brush with those beady eyes. I held fast, knowing one small mistake would cost me everything.
He dropped out of strut, took a few more steps while cautiously scanning his surroundings, then caught a face full of tungstonalloy, knocking him right down.
I was up instantly, gliding over the humps in the planted pine rows towards my trophy. I was in total disbelief as I snatched him up and tried to admire his 11 inch beard and 1 inch spurs. But I couldn’t. The heat and excitement had gotten to me, and I crumpled to the ground on the verge of a heat stoke. I just sat there in a total daze while memories of so many hunts on the tract flashed through my mind. One of the most important ones was just to listen to the turkeys with my dad.

Just then the rain started coming down heavy and that helped me cool off enough that I regained my thoughts, packed up my bird and started peddling back to the highway. Once there I rode right down 321 with my bird bird sticking out of my vest and my gun on my handlebars. I just couldn’t wait to show my wife. She was as happy as I was and couldn’t believe that I had managed to kill a turkey on the last afternoon of the season. She grabbed the camera and we took some pictures before the sun disappeared. One of the shots was of me walking my bike down the old oak avenue by our hose. It is one of my alltime favorites and it now hangs in our den. On the opposite end of the house hangs the Thunderbird.

My First Turkey

One of my most cherished memories afield was when I killed my first Eastern wild turkey eight Springs ago. I had been trying for several years, but without any luck. Finally my wife and I came up to SC for a weekend of camping and hunting, and it all came together.
We slept in due to rain, then headed out about 9am. We had to wade water every where we went but finally made it to our pre-scouted spot to set up about 9:30. We had been calling off and on for about an hour when a bird finally answered from the neighboring property. He was pretty far off, so we just kept up our light calling for about another half hour. Then, like a ghost, the giant bird just appeared about 75 yards off to my right. This would have been an easy shot for my wife (we were sitting about 50 yards apart), but since she does not carry a gun or like to kill things, he went right on by her. I let him continue circling around until I was pretty sure he was right out in front of us. But with a row of brush in my way, I just couldn’t be sure. So I lightly let out a yelp with my mouth call – the big bird hammered back from just 30 yards away.
However even with him so close, I definitely could not get a shot from my spot, so I Rambo crawled across a muddy firebreak and eased up behind a big pine. There he was, and looking straight at me! I quickly drew a bead on him and let him have it… I couldn’t believe it when he went right down.
But then he was back up and flopping all around. I was so scared that he was going to run off that I looked like Carl Lewis hurdling bushes and sprinting over to get him. Once there, I put my best wrestling move on him and held him down until he stopped moving – I knew we would want to mount him, so I did not want his feathers messed up!
My wife came racing over and gave me the biggest, best hug ever, and we just stood there in complete amazement over what a spectacular hunt we had just had. The 2 year old gobbler weighed 16 pounds, had a 9.5 inch beard and 7/8 inch spurs. That bird now stands in our living room and struts for all of our guests. It was truly a moment that I will NEVER forget!

Happy Birthday! Bo “Monster Buck with Crab Claws” Hunt

Today is our oldest boy’s birthday, and I thought that I would recount the day of his birth since it is hunting related. I know that is hard to believe with our family, but it is true. And if having a name like Bo Hunt would not make sure you grow up with a serious love of the outdoors, he also has a native american name. It is just one that I gave him for fun, but it will always remind me of one of the most special days of my life.

A giant cold front had rolled in a few days before, and the temperature had not made it out of the teens all week. Today was more of the same, and Amy and I had been up since long before daylight so that we could make the hour drive to the hospital where she was scheduled to be induced. Her due date had passed 10 days ago, so the doctors wanted to go ahead and get him out for safety sake. I was also scheduled to go out of town on a business trip in a few days, and I sure did not want to miss his birth!

So we made the drive over, and they had her set up on the IV by about 10am. They then told me that it would be about 8-9 hours before it kicked in, so the birth would not be until at least 7pm. I still had a wedding album a bride was hoping to have before Christmas, so I made the hour drive back home, finished assembling her album and  DVDs, put them in the mail and prepared to go back to the hospital. It was now about 5pm, and the sun was just setting. The temperature had also dropped to the single digits, so I hurriedly made a couple of more trips out to the car with some things for my wife’s hospital stay.

And you have to remember that we live deep in the county, so I did what I always did when I came out of the front door - I looked down “the Avenue” that ran straight away from our house. It is an oak-lined drive that used to lead to one of our area’s old hunting clubs, and there were always giant bucks crossing it near dark. And low and behold, what was standing there – one of the two MONSTERS that I normally saw on it. However instead of being 400-500 yards down the road, like they normally were, he was only 100 yards away and just 50 yards from the gate/property line!

I just acted like I did not see him, continued to pack the car and then quickly walked back inside. There, right by the door, I always kept a pair of binoculars so that I could keep tabs on the bucks. However on this day, there was also a 270 WSM sitting there that my good friend Will had left with me.

OH, What to do? Here was one of the biggest deer I had ever seen in the lowcountry sitting just feet over the property line. I obviously did not have time to skin him out, but with the ultra cold night, he would hold fine. I reached down, grabbed the …….. and walked back out to the car. Sure enough, he was still standing there.

Wow, looking at him through the magnified glass, he was impressive. He had super long beams, 10 tall points with two of those being matching crab claws and LOTS of mass. I just stood there taking him in. And then I pulled the trigger?

No, I pulled the binoculars down and went back inside for one last load. When I came back out, he was gone. I couldn’t help but to stand there for another minute or two thinking about how nice he would have looked on my wall. However my overriding thought was how I did not want to taint my son’s birth day (or any day for that fact) by shooting a deer that was not mine.

I finally got back on the road to the hospital, and the whole way over all I could think about was how the native americans named their offspring for animals as well as significant events that they saw either just before or after a birth. So I decided that our son would forever be “Monster Buck with Crab Claws”. And

just so people did not think we were TOO crazy, we of course would give him the other names we had decided on.

I made it to the hospital, got changed in to some scrubs and headed in to see my wife. The doctor was already there, and he told me that the induction did not work. So we could come back and try again, or we c

ould go right in to the to the delivery room for a C-section. My wife said she was totally done being pregnant and to take her in there RIGHT now.

A few AMAZING minutes later, we had our first son – Jeffrey Bowers (BO) Hunt, forever also known as Monster Buck with Crab Claws.

Remembering My Dad and Listening to Turkeys

Four years ago today, my dad died.

I wanted to remember him in a post since he was the person who introduced me to the outdoors and first took me hunting. The picture above is of us on opening day in 2002 after I killed a young 8 point. The picture means a lot to me because he had worked all summer to keep my stands corned up although he was already in failing health. I was just thrilled to kill something so we could take a picture together before he passed away. It now hangs on my office wall, and I often refer to it when I talk about my dad with my two baby boys.

I have also written a short story about our last days together, and I thought I would share it here…Caution: This is not my usual post. If you are here only for the hunting reports, you may want to skip this.

Jeff

Listening To Turkeys

As I came into the hospital room, my dad’s eyes lit up. His face said it all. He was always excited to have a visitor, but especially his only son.

I strode over to him and gave him a big hug, then a kiss on his forehead and leaned close.

“You should be hunting” my dad said, his hoarse voice barely audible over the steady inhale and exhale of the ventilator.

“I can go later” I replied, trying to hold back the tears. “Those turkeys will be there tomorrow”.

His deep blue eyes welled up, and he gripped my hand tight. “You’re a good man, bubba”, he replied.

As I stared deep into his eyes, I could no longer deny that my 63 year old father was now quickly losing his war with ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, it is an incurable neurological disease that paralyzes all of a body’s muscles and ultimately ends in death. I just did not want to believe that his disease had progressed so fast, and that it was just a year ago in April that we had gone to listen to the turkeys

It was near the end of South Carolina’s 6 week season, and the birds were gobbling like crazy in the lowcountry. And although my dad had been born and raised here, he had never heard a wild turkey gobble. Turkeys were literally non existent in this part until about 20 years ago, and he had been lured away by city life and big money long before their return. However due to a string of bad choices, he had ended up back home two years ago, just before he got sick.

I was up from Florida for the week hunting, so I encouraged him to go with me one morning late in the season, not to kill one, but to hopefully just hear one. And since he had just been diagnosed with basically a death sentence, I thought it may also be a good time to talk about the things we both knew were coming in the days ahead. On average, ALS patients live less than a year and a half after diagnoses of the disease!

We arrived just before daylight on our lease. I parked my 87 Jeep Cherokee, and we headed off through the planted pines towards the line with our neighbor. He had just recently burned the fields across from us, and I knew a couple birds were usually roosting nearby. And while I also knew those birds were pretty much impossible to call close enough for a shot this late in the season, they would be the perfect candidates to provide the turkey mating calls I longed for my dad to hear.

About a 100 yards into our 200 yard walk, I stopped and made a quick owl hoot to see if their were any birds ready to entertain us. Thankfully not just one, but three big birds fired back from near the line! Two were close and another was just past them.

My heart jumped into my throat. That was all I wanted. For my dad to hear a big gobbler do his thing, and possibly see one strut. We tried to hurry along, but my dad’s balance was already going, and he was having to walk carefully over the downed trees and limbs.

We eased up close to the line and sure enough, two big old redheads were sitting up in a giant pine about fifty yards out into his burn. I told my dad to just slide down against a tree where he could see them, and I began to yelp. Those two hammered back and went into full strut on the limb. I called some more, and they gobbled back, and so did their nearby buddy. I just kept on it, literally making them choke trying to answer my incessant calling. They double gobbled, triple gobbled and even quadruple gobbled back. Which was all I wanted them to do since I had no delusion that they would come in. I just wanted a full show for my dad, and they obliged with twenty minutes of it.

They then flew down and away from my calling, but continued to strut and gobble as they made their way further out into the regrowing burn. We just sat there watching and listening to them until they were more than 400 yards away. Then, after a few minutes of silence, we began excitedly replaying the morning’s events.

My dad was blown away! He said he couldn’t believe that just a couple of gobbling toms could provide such a amazing display, and he now knew why some hunters were fanatics about going after them. He also however marveled over the fact that he had grown up in this area and never heard them.

After a few more minutes of talking while basking in the rising sun’s warmth, I finally started in on the subject of his illness, beginning with his funeral.

“Dad, You know how Nana is. Is there anything you don’t want me to let them do?” I asked hesitantly.

“I don’t give a god damn!” he laughed. “Whatever will make her happy. I won’t be there, so I don’t give a shit”.

I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud too. I had worried that his funeral arrangements were going to cause a problem, and I was determined not to let that happen. My dad, just like his father, did not believe in God, and he had always been upset that he had let his mom give his dad a religious funeral. So I was prepared to make sure that did not happen if he did not want it. However he was obviously fine with it.

We then talked at length about the years he had wasted away from my mom and I, as well as many of the things he had done that he was not proud of – One of them bad enough to warrant three years in prison. I just reassured him that we all make mistakes, some just worse than others, and we talked of all of the people that had given him a second chance, including me.

It turned out to be one of the best times I had spent with my dad in a long time, but certainly the hardest conversation.

Several months later, as I visited him in his final nursing home, I found him weighing just over 100 pounds. Always a round man, my dad now looked like he had escaped the concentration camps of Europe. We went out in his electric wheelchair to the courtyard to eat, and I fed him a requested favorite meal, fried shrimp. By now nothing worked on him except his eyes, and he was supposed to use a feeding tube. However he wanted to try and taste it, so I cut them all up in to fine pieces and fed him slowly. He devoured his meal, and then even had a blizzard to finish it off while I updated him on our deer season that had just started. I also reminisced about the deer he had helped me kill on opening day just the year before.

Later that afternoon I wheeled him back inside, and since he could no longer speak, he just listened while I talked. I told him how he was one of the toughest people I knew, and that anyone else would have given up with such a horrible disease. I told him how proud I was that he was able to turn his life around, and how much I loved him for it. I then explained I had to go back to work in Florida, and that I would be back in two weeks, just like always. However deep inside I had a feeling that it would be much sooner.

We sat there for a while longer while I held his hand and told him about how our business was going and how my wife Amy was doing. I then gave him a kiss and said good bye. After such a exhausting day, he was already asleep by the time I got to the door, so just stood there for a few minutes watching him before I left.

He died two evenings later, just an hour after a visit from his sister. At the funeral, almost the entire town turned out. You would have thought that Elvis was being buried. He now rests just a few hundred yards from where he grew up, in Black Swamp Cemetery in Garnett, SC surrounded by ancient oaks that saw our country founded and shaded Sherman’s troops as they marched to the sea.

I now live and hunt just down the road, and often see flocks of birds going to roost on them, so I am sure he is still listening to the turkeys.

What Does Your Hunting Journal Tell You?

Many hunters keep a log of their hunts, and I know that Arthur is one of them. He is always posting when he hunts along with many of the details of the day such as what the temperature was and the number of deer he saw from which stand.

I think keeping track of our hunts is a great idea, and I have kept a journal on and off over the years because there is so much more information in the details of a log book besides just precious outdoor memories. A log’s details will often indicate how you can hunt your property better as well as how to be more successful in less time. And while I have not been consistent with my log book entries lately, I thought I would show what all can be pulled from such a record. (Hopefully it will also remind me of the value of consistently logging my hunts so that I get back to it).

Four years ago, I recorded every detail of every hunt that my friend Will and I had on our two leases totaling 310 acres in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Between us, we hunted 97 times totaling 284 hours, and we saw 149 deer. This averaged out to 3 hours per hunt with 1.54 deer seen per hunt and 0.52 deer seen per hour. We also killed 12 deer over those 97 hunts with 10 being bucks and 2 being does. This worked out to 8 hunts per deer killed, 9.7 hunts per buck killed and 48.5 hunts per doe killed. The biggest buck was my 4.5 year old 8 point that weighed in at 165 pounds while the smallest was a yearling spike that weighed 110 pounds. The farthest shot made on a deer was 250 yards and the shortest was 30 yards. Will and I also each missed one deer.

We saw 84 deer over 20 hunts during a first quarter moon, 15 deer over six hunts during a full moon, 14 deer over three hunts during a last quarter moon, and 36 deer over 13 hunts during the new moon. That means that we only saw deer on 42 of our 97 hunts, so 57% of the time we saw NOTHING. But what else does this tell us about hunting different moons? Well, we averaged seeing about 4 deer per hunt on the first quarter, about 2 deer per hunt on a full moon, 3 deer per sit on a last quarter hunt and almost 3 deer per sit during the new moon. This shows us that hunting during the first quarter moon should produce more sightings than during any of the other three phases. It also helps us to see that while not a total loss, hunting during a full moon should produce 50% less deer sightings than hunting during the first quarter and about 25% less deer sightings if we hunted a new moon or last quarter. Therefore if we are able to choose when to hunt and all other things are the same (hunting pressure, weather, food, etc), we would be better off hunting during the first quarter.

As far as which stands were better, we would have to break down how many deer we saw from each of our 10 stands to figure that out:

* 27 deer from 4 hunts at the big field back stand = 6.75 deer per sit

* 7 deer from 3 hunts at the honey hole stand = 2.33 deer per sit

* 12 deer from 5 hunts at the first barrel stand = 2.4 deer per sit

* 10 deer from 5 hunts the second barrel stand = 2 deer per sit

* 1 deer from 1 hunt at the old tripod stand = 1 deer per sit

* 10 deer from 7 hunts at the middle stand = 1.42 deer per sit

* 49 deer from 9 hunts at the soybean field front stand = 5.44 deer per sit

* 16 deer from 5 hunts at the Snooks stand = 3.2 deer per sit

* 10 deer from 2 hunts at the wood pile stand = 5 deer per sit

* 1 deer from 1 hunt at the new tripod stand = 1 deer per sit

This data tells me that the big field back stand and the wood pile should allow us to see the most deer per hunt while the least deer per hunt from the new tripod, old tripod and the middle stand. As for what the barometric pressure told us about our time spent hunting, it said that a steady pressure was the best. I say this because we only saw deer during 8 sits with a falling barometer and no deer during sits on a rising barometer. However we saw deer on 34 sits while it was steady. So, according to the data, we should be hunting the big field’s back stand or the wood pile during a first quarter moon with a steady barometer to see the most deer and have the best chance at killing one! Great, now let’s go put one in the bed of the truck…

Unfortunately this is where an incomplete log can hurt you and show that sometimes simple numbers will not tell the whole story. Smart hunters will then increase the amount of information they record as well as use their own experience and knowledge to add to the culled data’s usefulness. For instance, the deer-seen-per-sit figures should mean that I am wasting my time hunting the middle stand compared to the big field’s back stand (6.75 deer per sit). However that is until you realize that our biggest buck of the season came from the middle stand, the one that only produced 1.42 deer sightings per sit. The numbers also don’t tell you that the big field back stand produced all of its deer sightings early in the year when the planted soybeans were the deer’s preferred food, meaning a hunter will be wasting a lot of time later in the year once the deer abandon the beans for acorns and corn. And frankly the percentages of deer seen per sit and on which moon could be better since my program did not include all of the hunts where no deer were spotted. Nor did my program compute how many deer were seen during the different barometric pressures, just that deer were either seen or not seen. And frankly the numbers of hunting days invested to kill a deer do not tell the whole story since we passed on many deer, bucks and does included.

However while our numbers could be better, I truly hope that this look at one year from my log book encourages everyone to keep or start one. I know that I am looking forward to having another season’s worth of opportunities to track my hunting to see how much more information I can pull from the numbers.