Advice for a 1st time bowhunter

[RecurveRookie]

I am planning to hunt wild hogs, deer, coyotes late summer/fall with #50 Samick Sage, Easton St Epic arrows, 105 gr Muzzy Phantom broadheads, and a Ghillie suit.  I have friends/family with places to hunt here in central Texas. I plan to hunt from the ground, the suit is well underway and I shoot and bowfit a lot.  Any advice would be appreciated.  
  Thanks Gang!

[lpcjon2]

Study your hunting area and learn the travel patterns and the terrain. Find the water and the food sources and hunt them.

[jefffunff]

practice, practice, practice

[Terry Lightle]

Patience and use the wind to your advantage

[Shedrock]

Originally posted by okla bearclaw:
Patience and use the wind to your advantage

X2

Good luck, and pick a spot!

[Michael Pfander]

Learn proper shot angles and shot placement.
MAP

[Michael Pfander]

Learn proper shot angles and shot placement.
MAP

[Bowwild]

Make decisions that will minimize the chances you will miss or wound.

Realize that responsible follow-up of a poor shot will cost you many hours or even a day or more of hunting time.

Have your gear tuned, your proficiency practiced, and your decisions perfected to the point that you expect a quick kill every time you drop the string.

Have fun learning from your quarry.

[ron w]

Keep the wind in your face, move like your in slow motion, and keep the wind in your face. Did I mention the wind? Most of all treat every hunting outing like a class room and learn every time you go to class......oh yea, have fun doing it!

[Scarne]

I'm going to change things up a bit.  The most important thing is to have FUN!  This is an adventure and whether or not you put a tag on anything should have zero impact on having FUN.  

Believe me...killing isn't hard.  After the first couple the rest come rather easy.  To many sportsman put to much pressure on themselves to produce and it takes the fun right out of it.

[Sam McMichael]

I agree with the advice given above Remember, just keep these few items foremost in mind:

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
WIND, WIND, WIND
PICK A SPOT, PICK A SPOT, PICK A SPOT
LEARN, LEARN,LEARN
FUN, FUN, FUN
PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES

[NBK]

All great advice and I have nothing more profound to add other than your mercy for that animal comes from your practice of that shot.

[ChuckC]

Try to learn that there is much more to the whole game than dragging out a deer.  Allowing yourself the joys of dreaming, preparing, participating, and remembering your hunt, of little things (and even not so little things) that happen while out there.  Smell the roses and see the sights along the way.  They can all be a grand part of your time in the woods.

ChuckC

[KentuckyTJ]

Welcome from Kentucky!

What's your total arrow weight?

[gringol]

All good advice here, but for me the hardest part is dialing in the deer's travel patterns and then setting up close enough to get a shot.  Scout hard, but not hard enough to spook the deer and change their habits.

[Terry Green]

105 grain muzzy phantom?...If so, I'd opt for a little more hardware.  125 grain at least, 150 even better.

Only other advice....have fun.    

[Zradix]

Beat me to it Terry...

above X2

...X10 on the fun part!
   

[Bishop]

Originally posted by Shedrock:
 

Originally posted by okla bearclaw:
Patience and use the wind to your advantage

X2

Good luck, and pick a spot! [/b]

X2!

[JO_EZ]

1) Believe
Critters may not necessarilly be attracted to optimism, but they are surely repelled by pesimism. I tend to get distracted by the empty half of the glass. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself to hunt in the moment. Pretend that it doesn't matter that I am not seeing fresh sign or that I got a late start or that the wind was wrong for my carefully laid plan or that someone else was hunting "my" area.     Just pretend to be nieve about all the reasons why your hunt won't work and believe that there just may be a critter right-over-there. After all, it makes a better story to tell about a sneaky close encounter that you didn't expect than to have to say that you kicked up a couple of deer while stomping back to your truck feeling sorry for yourself about not seeing any deer... uh, or so I've heard.  :rolleyes:  

2) Keep the clue phone handy.
If you happen to see critters where you didn't expect to see them, don't assume that they are lost. Pay attention. Last year, we carefully planned out the perfect spots for my sons and I on our annual campout. We sat them the first night and saw nothing until getting to the truck where we kicked up some does at dark right by the intersection of 2 roads, next to the motorcycle trail where everyone parks and drives through. A small game hunter stopped to jaw a bit and said he also saw those deer there the week before. So, I clued him in on the house-cat-sized squirrels we saw in return for his advice. The next night we were hunting there just 60 yards from the truck and the deer came in right on schedule... I'll plead the 5th after that    .... So, be ready to change when the evidence suggests it, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense. Later, we found an apple tree that they were attracted to across the road, which is why they were hanging out there every night.

Good luck, and like everyone else says HAVE FUN.

[DeCurry]

My deer lease is in central Texas (Lampasas county) and the first thing that popped into my head when reading your post was: you may find a ghillie suit to be too hot, especially late summer and early fall.  I use an ASAT leafy suit (breathable mesh) and once the temps are in the 80s or higher, it starts to be a bit uncomfortable, even with just a t-shirt on underneath.  It will probably still be in the 80s or even 90s when bow season opens.  Just something to think about.

When using a ghillie / leafy suit, be sure to have something behind you that lets you blend into it.  You can't rely on the suit 100% to conceal you.  If you sit still, you'll have deer walk right up to you.  But at some point you have to shoot, which segues into:

Work on drawing your bow with as little noticeable movement as possible.  Even though you're wearing a ghillie, you still need to hide this type of movement or you'll get busted, so find natural cover that has 'shooting lanes' (I carry a pair of garden clippers with me at all times for trimming small limbs).

And as already mentioned, treat each outing as a learning experience.  Everytime I make a mistake, I make a note of it as soon as possible (sometimes on my phone immediately, other times back in camp).  I re-read those notes frequently until they're ingrained.

Looking at my phone, I still have some that I haven't transferred to a notebook.  Here's one:

"Trim ALL firing lanes."  I missed an opportunity on a huge 6-pt last season when the one 'lane' I didn't trim happened to be right where he ended up standing (I still remember sitting down and evaluating my shooting lanes and thinking, "Oh, nothing will ever come from THAT direction" /facepalm); I was eventually busted when I got impatient and tried to move to a spot where I might have a shot.