As we stood glassing from a hill overlooking several distant deer-dotted alfalfa fields scattered along Montana’s Milk River, one of our party of five pointed to a pod of bucks in an isolated field, his voice cracking with excitement, and said,  “I want to be right there, sitting on that field at daybreak tomorrow morning when season opens.” 

Among nods of agreement, I knew that what I was going to say next would stir some dissention. “Let’s lay off the fields until the afternoon. If we try to hunt them in the morning, we’ll have to run the deer off to get to the stands. If we wait until midday, the deer we have left the fields and we can sneak into the stands without them being aware we’re there. That way, we’ll be hunting them totally unmolested. The slightest disruption could put the big bucks down. We’ve got to do this right.” 

Before the protests could begin, I hastily blurted out the alternate plan, “Let’s set up near the river along the east and west boundaries in the morning and take advantage of any outside pressure that might push deer onto the ranch. Plus, we’ll be able to head off any interlopers who might have seen all those bucks on the fields.”

Looking longingly at the scores of deer in the mile-away fields, all agreed to wait until the following afternoon get at one of the largest concentrations of deer any of us had ever seen. 

The plan worked. Carefully, methodically, we sneaked into the vacated fields at midday and took up our vigilance unnoticed. When the shadows began to fall across the fields, the deer poured in. After four days of this, all five hunters had shot (but not necessarily recovered – that’s another story) bucks over 150! Low impact hunting made it possible. 

For most of us, the days of roaming vast, unhunted countryside in search of big bucks are over. Today, the large tracts of land are usually open to the public and see plenty of hunting pressure. To find the solitude we deer hunters so value, we are having to turn to small tracts of private land that can be protected and managed. On many such tracts, wise management can restore the deer herd to its natural, well-balanced state, where deer are free to do what they do naturally. And, an essential part of any successful management program is a balanced, aggressive deer harvest. The more intensive the program, the greater the harvest demands. 

Harvesting deer inevitably means hunting pressure, which, as we’ve often discussed, rapidly erodes natural deer behavior and movement. Unfortunately, the most desirable segment of the deer herd – trophy bucks – are the first to react adversely to pressure. They simply disappear from the scene, becoming all but nocturnal. So, the challenge on small tracts, especially on managed tracts with the goal of producing big bucks and maintaining as near to natural behavior and movement as possible, is to minimize the adverse effects of hunting pressure to the greatest degree possible. Simply stated, try not to let the deer know they are being hunted. That dictates a low pressure hunting strategy. 

How do we go about minimizing the effects of pressure? The ways are many and varied, depending on the tract and the circumstances. An entire article could be devoted to any number of the topics we’ll touch on, but here, we’re going to thumbnail some of the more important ones and trust that your hunting savvy can apply the concepts to your situation. 

Develop A Hunting Strategy

Low impact hunting requires that you think ahead. You only get one shot at doing it right. Once you’ve messed up a place, which can happen in a mere matter of days, only time will reverse the damage, and the time needed for the cure could out-last the season. The strategies are myriad, far too many to be covered here, though we will look at a couple of important general strategies. The point is, make a plan before charging in and possibly driving deer underground. Be methodical, cautious and creative.

Don’t forget about neighboring pressure; it can greatly affect you. On Burnt Pine Plantation, where I ran commercial hunts for 20 years, we always faced an onslaught of early season pressure on our boundaries by neighbors who subscribed to the grass-is-greener theory. In an effort to turn the pressure to our advantage, to be sure we got our share of the bucks that were sure to die anyway and to defer pressure from our interior, we concentrated our first week or two of hunting on the perimeters. Our aim was to be much less intrusive than our neighbors, thereby making our property more attractive to pressured deer. (As water flows to the lowest spot, so deer flow to the lowest pressure.) The strategy worked grandly, leaving us with an undisturbed interior to move into later. 

Somewhat along those same lines, another general strategy worth mentioning is what I call “concentric pressure.” Basically, it involves hunting the nearest and/or most-likely-to-be-disturbed areas first, leaving the more distant or remote places for later. If close-in or thoroughfare areas are going to be disturbed by increased hunting-associated traffic and activity as you and you party spread out to hunt the far corners of the property, doesn’t it make sense to hunt the nearby places first while they are undisturbed? Then, as pressure and traffic take their toll, gradually move into virgin territory. Let effective hunting effort pressure an area, not just traffic and ineffective activity.  

Another similar big-picture strategy I try to put to practice is what I call “progressive aggressive hunting.” In a nutshell, whether hunting a particular deer or a place, it means hunting in the least obstructive manner possible to start with and gradually getting more aggressive as the need dictates. For instance, say you’ve patterned a big buck. You know where he is likely bedding and feeding and what travel lanes he seems to be using. Under the progressive aggressive strategy, I’d start out hunting this buck on the “outside edge” of his pattern, i.e., the food source. If that didn’t work, I’d move to a trail near the food source. That failing, I’d move to an ambush point ever nearer the bedding area. You get the picture. I can assure you that the more aggressive you get, the greater the odds you’ll be detected and the shorter the time you’ll have to get the job done before the buck goes underground.

One of the compromises that pains me on low impact hunting is that still-hunting (slipping around on foot) must give way to stand hunting … unless there’s plenty of space and few hunters to cover it. A human sneaking around on foot is virtually shouting “I’m up to no good” to deer. It’s the predator look. Plus, there’s the huge added liability of laying scent down throughout the deer woods. Deer react swiftly to this program. A few people on foot in a few days can completely disrupt normal deer activity. Stand-hunting is the method of choice for low impact hunting.

Fields Require Extra Caution

You can’t believe how little disruption it takes to move old, big bucks from the daylight role-call on open food sources. Does, fawns, young bucks – oh, they’ll hang around for a while after a couple of rounds of aggravation, but not wizen old trophies. They will view even one overt intrusion with great suspicion. If not repeated, they might let it pass as “one of those things.” But, let it happen again within a short time, and they are history. You see, mature whitetails are incredibly astute at identifying patterns, and if they consider a pattern threatening, they quickly stop whatever they were doing that exposed them to the potential danger, i.e., they change their pattern. If you want to kill trophy bucks on open food sources, you cannot give them any reason to suspect you’re lying in wait for them. After all, they are already naturally paranoid about being in the open during the glare of day.

Don’t Invade Secure Bedding Areas

A big buck’s bedding area is his sanctuary. If he is bumped from his private quarters more than once in short order, he shifts to red alert status and moves to a defensive posture, making him very hard to see or kill. Don’t walk or drive through known bedding areas unnecessarily, especially if doing so represents a break in routine. Many people “scout” their way right out of trophy success by alerting area deer that something amiss is afoot.  

Time Your Activity To Low Movement Hours

If you are going to be moving around, either on foot or in a vehicle, try to do so during midday hours when deer are more likely to be bedded. This especially applies to getting into and leaving a deer stand during the daytime. You odds of encountering deer and blowing your cover are far greater when they are on the move and alert. Plus, making your move during midday allows more time for your scent to dissipate before the deer show up.  

When approaching (and to a lesser degree, leaving) a destination point for deer, i.e., scrapes, food sources, etc., do all you can to avoid running them off the place of attraction. This is critical on open food sources. Such intrusion not only has the direct effect of causing them to associate the spot with danger, but it also tips off deer to your stand location far more than you may realize. Often, a spooked deer will run only a short distance and then turn his sensory array back on the source of danger. It’s easy enough for a deer to use his eyes and ears to determine where an intruder has halted progress and then bring his nose to bear by circling downwind at a discrete distance to precisely pinpoint the danger. To a deer, a stealthy, hidden human spells “predator” and is to be avoided, now and tomorrow. For this reason, I seldom hunt open food sources in the morning. If time allows, I prefer to sneak quietly into the stand during early afternoon and take my chances at day’s end. After hours, I can usually sneak out in the cover of darkness, having already prepared a suitable exit route, without overly spooking nearby deer. Of course, all this speaks to the need to use wind and cover to the best advantage … always.

Don’t Break Routine

Deer are accustom to the normal routine of a tract. If it’s a working farm or ranch, truck and equipment traffic is part of the everyday scene and causes deer little concern. Yet, they are very quick to notice and respond to a sudden increase in vehicle traffic and, certainly, foot traffic. When season opens, don’t suddenly start driving new parts of the place or seldom-used roads. Try to incorporate hunting access and activity into what would seem to deer to be routine ranch/farm traffic. On WHITETAIL’s Fort Perry Plantation, where trucks and tractors are always on the move, we drive our hunters directly to the blind and ask them to stay there, even if they shoot a buck, until the vehicle returns to pick them up. If deer are bumped from the field or stand area, we want it to be from “routine” farm traffic, not the sudden appearance of people on foot, no matter how stealthy they may be. We don’t loiter at the blind any longer than necessary. If possible, we even drive to the downed deer, usually at midday or after dark, to minimize foot traffic … and human scent. 

Keep Stands A Secret … From Deer

If you want to kill trophy bucks from stands, particularly permanent stands, you can’t give deer, not just trophy bucks, reason to unduly associate the stand with danger. In short, you can’t let deer know you are in the stand, or even in the area. That takes some doing, because deer are well endowed in the sorting out department. The idea is to get into the stand, sit out your vigilance and then depart with the least possible disturbance or evidence of your presence. Concern must be given to all three of the deer’s major detection senses – sight, hearing and, above all, smell. And, scent is not only an immediate and constant problem for stand-sitters, but its lingering presence on the trail also threatens to alert neighborhood deer to the would-be ambush. If deer repeatedly know you are in a stand, or even in an area, you will kill off the place as a likely memory maker. 

It’s almost impossible to enter the deer’s domain and remain completely undetected day after day. The challenge, then, is to stretch out the time as far as possible that a stand can be hunted before the jig is up. Some stand sites can be hunted only a day or two before prying eyes, ears and noses have plucked you from the woodwork, followed soon thereafter by all manner of snorting and stomping. In such cases, the only alternative is to let the stand rest a while before trying your hand there again. How long is a while? Many factors come into play, not the least of which are the degree of intrusion, the nature of the site and weather. From years of experience, I’ve settled on three days as the minimum time needed for natural movement to recover after being picked off by the locales, though I’ve seen it take a week or more, especially after second and third offences.  

In stand-hunting as in health, prevention is better than cure. To that end, the hunter must try to be near-invisible. Stand selection is the key. The approach must afford an unseen, silent entry that doesn’t pass upwind of bedding areas or cross important trails leading to the hunted site. I place great emphasis on the importance of getting into and out of a stand without detection, especially when hunting open food sources. The stand must provide screening cover for the hunter and absolutely must be downwind of where the deer are coming from and expected to end up. Lucky is the hunter who can find such a stand in close quarters to a prime place. Most often, I’ve found that to meet all my security requirements I need to put some distance between me and where the action is.   

Distance tends to water down the deer’s formidable sensory arsenal. It gives the hunter much more latitude in his comings and goings and in movement and noise while on-stand. Though the scent concern never goes completely away, increased space certainly helps, especially since it allows for more unscented room downwind of the hunted area and reduces the likelihood of smelling up hot trails near the action. More than any other single factor, I rely on distance to extend the life of stands, especially ones where deer tend to gather in numbers, like major food sources. (The more eyes, hears and noses to content with the grater the likelihood of detection.) It is this need for distance as a concealment aid that has lead me to an ever-increasing dependence on long-range rifles in my whitetail hunting. 

My friend Gary Schwarz, owner of El Tecomate Ranch in South Texas, centers his low impact hunting strategy around distance and long, long-range rifles. He effects this strategy by setting up tripod stands at the intersection of three or four senderos (cutlines through the brush). His stands are completely surrounded by brush; in fact, the senderos don’t even start for more than 100 yards from the stands. Then, the 30-foot-wide open strips extend through the dense brush for at least 500 yards, sometimes more! Because of the height of the brush, working distance starts at about 150 yards. To Gary’s way of thinking, any shot less than 400 yards is a cinch to burn a tag. From the Tim McWhorter custom long-range rifle to the laser rangefinder to the dead rest to the spotting scope, nothing is left to chance on the Tecomate long shots. And, seldom do Tecomate hunters come back with tales of being picked off by deer! Often, deer on the sendero don’t even run as their compadre slumps to the ground. 

Another way to cut down on detection is by hunting from enclosed blinds. I know all about the old saying that you can’t kill big bucks from permanent stands, but that ain’t necessarily so … if the deer don’t associate them with danger. Distance, frequency of hunting and/or a concealed entry and exit can all reduce the deer’s suspicion of a box in their domain. Enclosed blinds conceal movement, eliminate the human form, which deer know all too well, mask noise and, best of all, retard scent dispersion. The degree to which scent is trapped depends on how thoroughly enclosed the stand is, but even when one and possibly two sides are open for viewing/shooting, scent can largely still be held inside under favorable winds. Often, while in an enclosed blind I’ve seen deer catch a whiff of me, only to have them wag it off after a moment and continue on their way. It’s as if the scent has “cooled” and no longer spells an immediate threat. On the other hand, I’ve also had a few turn inside out, but overall, enclosed stands can be wonderful tools in the concealment game.

When the shot rings out, every deer in the country knows where you are, right? Not necessarily. Deer, when not conditioned by constant pressure, like a backup confirmation of danger. Often, they’ll jump and run a short distance upon a nearby shot, only to stand and await verification of threat. When a hunter waltzes onto the scene moments after the booming thunder, deer get their confirmation and associate the noise and the place with people and danger. They may even be a witness to the exit from the stand. If low impact hunting is the goal, it’s better to stay put after the shot and, if possible, await the arrival of a vehicle to spook off any nearby deer … and to retrieve the downed deer. The later arrival of a vehicle probably won’t have near the negative impact that a person on foot would have soon after the shot. I know that’s not always feasible, but when it is, it sure helps stretch out a stand’s life expectancy.  

Speaking of the shot, every effort should be made – sighted-in rifles, solid rests, setups for good, clear shots, etc. – to make sure the shot results in a clean kill. Multiple shots at deer and tromping through the woods in search of missed or wounded deer have a very detrimental effect on the happiness of area deer. Needless to say, don’t be shooting at lesser critters from stands you’re counting heavily on to produce. If you really want to take a stand out of trophy buck production fast, just shoot does on it. Word will get around faster than it’ll take the last spent case to fall to the ground. 

Choose Your Times Well

As we’ve said, anytime you enter the deer’s domain you are likely to be detected, causing alarmed deer to become more difficult to catch up with next time. But, some stands are far more exposed to discovery than others. When I have a prime place to intercept a big buck that I know is open to deer scrutiny, then I try to pick my time to hunt it to coincide with the best possible deer movement or the ideal weather conditions for that stand. Knowing that each unsuccessful day I spend on the stand may well be driving my quarry further from my grasp, I don’t want to chance burning the stand site on inherently low odds days. With trophy bucks, you must calculate each move, choose your battlegrounds wisely, try to keep the advantage of surprise as long as possible and, literally and figuratively, make your first shot count. You aren’t going to get many second chances.