at least for me devious. wayyy more so than usual.
ok so this buck has been giving me fits. hes a huge whitetail by my standards, im guessing gross score of 135 to 140. ive been toying with him for a couple weeks now, even got close the other day. we (my dad and a buddy hunt south dakota with me, its just over the border from our town) have a stand set on water, but one of the guys set it in such a spot that the deer are coming in at eye level. i sat that stand one day last week, and my buck came in to 10 yards, but he could see the stand and knew something was out of place. stared for a while and walked away. no opportunity for a shot. came back for another look and this time walked away for good. if you a compound shooter, ya can draw when hes in the trees checking out the water holea area but of course i dont have that going for me, so....
lesson learned over 3 years of hunting with these guys, set your own stands. theyre great guys but have no idea how to hunt for a tradtional bow. anyway, i took a stand in the same area and set up in a better spot....
so, this stand is near water, but in more of a staging area. ill try to get some pics of all this next few times out. anyway, it snowed a skiff a couple days ago, but last night was the first chance i got to hunt the stand. no tracks in the snow, but it was only a day old. it was 20 degrees and breezy, so i decided to go for a scouting walk around while tracks were so visable. its supposed to be 60 degrees here by monday or tuesday so the snow will be long gone. i did figure out that deer are still all over my little spot. found "his" tracks too. 150 yds or so from my stand there is a funnel theyre going in to. it has been hammered, but i dont think i can set a stand there because the prevailing wind would be horrible. if i set one there id probably only get to hunt it once in a blue moon if ever.
so, on to my devious scheme.. i decided that i would go buy some of that doe pee stuff, and do a drag though there on the way to my stand monday (my next day i can hunt) morning. see the deer arent in there before light, its between feed, and bedding. so, if i walk into the stand this way, and do a drag it should work out, right? the wind almost everyday blows the same direction vaguely, and it would be perfect for this walk. the scent control part of this, since im gonna be walking through that area, is i got some of that scent killer spray to spray on my boots while doing this drag. is that going about it right???
im new to the whitetail game, but this seems logical.