Center Feature:  

Would Have, Could Have, And Probably Should Have…
Lessons learned

By Dave Robillard

Who hasn’t had a past hunt that didn’t turn out the way we wished that it would have. Lord knows I have numerous memories of some pretty impressive bucks using up one of their nine lives instead of being on my wall next to the fire place. Of all the fancy gadgets that have entered the hunting world that are guaranteeing success, I am still waiting on the Hunter’s Crystal Ball. Until some one makes it, I am just going to have to keep on learning from my mistakes. 

Should have stayed in the stand…

One of the many mistakes that I’ve made during my hunting years has been leaving my stand early. I recall a pretty impressive eight pointer. I was hunting a 100 acre track that had a horse shoe track of timber around a crop field. On one side of the tip of the horse shoe there was a thick and nasty bedding area right next to a residential area. The other end of the tip of the horse shoe was made up of a hardwood block of timber. I quickly learned that the deer were making their way out of the bedding area, cutting across the field and into the hardwoods. They had a tendency to stage there until making their way out to some further crop fields. I started hunting these deer in early October and would commonly see a large group of does funnel through with the occasional immature buck on their heel’s. This was almost an every-sit occurrence. I got quite used to having the same deer funnel through with about 20 minutes of light left and every time after they had made their way through the hardwoods, I would sit till dark with out any more sightings of deer.

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