"Buck Fever" ????

[NOMAD88]

Great stuff...I think overcoming the shakes is one of the biggest challenges to hunting.
 I can't tell you how many deer I have missed due to the excitement.
Hoping to find out this evening how well I can control it now.

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

I don't know??    
Sometimes it hits me after the shot. This year for instance, I was like some robotic archer of death until my bull fell on his side. Then I melted down.
Other times it is all I can do to hold still. Deep, slow breaths through my nose helps.

[huntnmuleys]

im really strange (many who know me would substantiate), but I don't get buck fever when hunting.  I almost always feel reasonably calm and cool.  when I get it is at 3d shoots.  and I get it bad. shake uncontrollably. not accurate, and on down the line.  I think maybe im too worried about impressing my buddies.

the funny part, if im shooting with all compound guys, I still get it just as bad.  don't know why...

[Burnsie]

Best cure is to just be put in the situation enough times.  I rarely get the fever anymore.  My best cure was when I hunted an area that required you to take a doe before you could take a buck.  I was there at the heat of the rut and was covered up all day with booner bucks.  Do you think I could get a doe to come by and stand still long enough!  In the mean time I had bucks bedding down next to me,  fighting, grunting - you name it.  Went on like that most of the week.  I finally bagged a doe the second to last day,  by then I was pretty use to having big bucks close by.

[NBK]

Originally posted by Steve in Canton:
I get more excited when I can hear a deer then when I finally see them.  When I do finally see one I make up my mind if I am going to shot or not and if I decide to shoot I am so concentrated on making the shot I do not get nervous

Same here Steve.  Most times I only vaguely remember the shot, but I remember their last few steps leading up to it very well.

[Irish Archer]

Just "shake" through it, hopefully!

[mahantango]

I'm usually dead calm until after the shot, then the adrenalin dumps and all hell breaks loose.

[mahantango]

Like huntnmuleys I'm worse at 3D shoots.

[woodchucker]

I LOVE IT!!!!! The day I stop shakeing, is the day I'll stop hunting!!!  

[DennyK]

X2 What Bisch described earlier in this thread.

[Duncan]

The next time you sense the buck fever coming on try this. Get control of your breathing by "belly breathing". Pull air into your lungs from below your diaphram. You are hyperventilating by rapidly chest breathing but you are excited and don't realize it. The first step is to understand this and change your breathing pattern. A few minutes of belly breathing will begin to calm you. I read alot of posts talking about "self talk" or talking yourself through it. This combined with belly breathing will solve your problem with practice. What do say to yourself? The first thing you say is to confront the buck fever and say "I'm having buck fever". It may sound crazy but calling it out and identifying it will stop it dead in its tracks. Then proceed to call your moves or self talk what ever way you wish until you decide either to shoot or not.

[Brazos]

I try to picture the buck naked.

[Coonbait]

I tell myself that it won't happen and the animal won't give me a shot. Sometimes I try and talk myself into believing it's not big enough.  Doesn't always work, but often enough to keep doing it!
Glenn

[Brazos]

I was obviously joking in my above post but have a couple thoughts.  First, for the past 14 years, have lived in a place with tons of deer.  They are all around me and in my yard.  I have gotten used to them.  I have also noticed from my earliest years of hunting that if I see the deer a long way off, slowly coming my way I calm down.  Obviously this is somewhat out of my control.

[Yankee Bill]

Fortunately, I don't usually get it until after the shot. It's pretty thick most places I set up to hunt and the deer are usually pretty close when I see them, and often times moving. Once I make a quick decision on if I'm going to shoot it I'm usually focused on picking out a spot where I want to stop the deer.

If I do happen to see one where I can watch it for a while before shooting, I TRY to only look at the rack once, then focus on his "sweet spot" while waiting for a shot.

Still shake sometimes after I shoot one, but that's all part of the excitement.
YB

[Thumper Dunker]

I just had to learn to shoot shaking.    :rolleyes:    I fall all apart at times can't even draw my bow.