Archery Season Pre-Season Tips

Archery season is almost upon us, opening day being on Saturday, September 30th, and many students are excited for the opportunity to land a big buck. Many hunters fail to land their dream buck during archery season though due to the warm weather and their nocturnal activity.

Here are a few tips to help land your dream buck:

  • Make sure to hunt the deer’s food pattern- set up a stand that overlooks a heavily used game trail. Also, when hunting from a tree stand, it is good to remember safety. Be sure to secure yourself to the tree with the proper harness, and make sure you have it hooked to you properly, or else it will not be effective and you could get seriously injured.
  • Wear unscented deodorant, laundry detergent and also use dissenting spray to better your chances of not being sniffed out by a deer. I use and recommend the Bone Collector non-scented laundry detergent and then I also use the spray on my clothes. The spray does have a smell and it smells like if you would take a handful of dirt and sniff it.  
  • Hunt from a high enough tree stand so that your scent will be harder to be detected in the wind. Use the wind to your advantage. Figure out which way the wind is blowing so then you can determine where a deer would have to be to pick up your scent in the wind
  • Create your own scrapes to agitate the bucks in the area, if they think there is another buck in the area then they will patrol that area more often
  • Use scents. Bring some doe pee with you to freshen up actual scrapes and to create a scent drag. Remember that if you do shoot a buck, you want to wait about twenty to thirty minutes before you approach the deer, because unlike rifle season, the deer might not die right away, and it could try to attack you.

These tips are sure to help start off archery season right and help hunters land their dream buck.

Good luck this year and be sure to hunt safely.