Hunting tips, how to hunt deer muzzleloader season

For today’s avid deer hunters, the simple question of how to hunt deer is not as easy to answer as you might think. Modern deer hunters have many choices to consider. For most deer hunters it is as much about which deer-hunting season they want to hunt, or which weapon they are most comfortable using, as what is the best hunting tactics. In the Midwest states, such as, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio muzzleloader hunters, turned archers, are fortunate to have the privilege to start bowhunting in early September. Early archery season for the die-hard firearm hunters is simply too early to harvest a deer. However, it is a great opportunity for the muzzleloader and modern firearms hunters alike to get in a little pre-season scouting. You see the die-hard muzzleloader hunter’s bow hunt, with the sole purpose of getting lucky while carrying the ole stick and string. The possibility of locating a monster whitetail buck is the only thing that motivates these hunters to brave the heat and humidity of late summer.

Pre-season scouting, let us back-up for just a minute, before scouting can be of any use to any hunter. We must first understand something. Scouting is nothing more than looking for clues. Like any good murder mystery or who done it mystery, it is all about the clues. Who done it, who made a particular track, who or what has been using this game trail, who has been sleeping in this bedding area, and who has been eating the farmers soy beans in this field.

Take a deer track for instance, there are little bitty tracks, like those left by a fawn. Fawn’s tracks resemble a small goat’s track. Then there are the small deer tracks, left by a yearling button buck or young doe. Mature yet subordinate bucks and does one and a half or two years old, have grown-up and have larger bodies, so it just makes sense their hooves are larger, and then there is the monster bucks. Monster Bucks are in a class all their own, generally speaking a true monster buck is at least three years old, but a true monster, Mack daddy or muy grandee regardless of what you call him, really does not reach his full monster potential until the age of four and a half or five.

With a better understanding of who made what track, a hunter is better able to determine what is using a particular game trail, or commonly referred to by hunters as deer runs. These deer runs are the roadways into the dear’s world. Runs lead to and from bedding areas, feeding areas, and everything in between. There are the main runs that have secondary runs branching off them. Like a good mystery, each one of these runs has clues or peaces to a puzzle if you like. The plot thickens my dear Watson, as the famous inspector Sherlock Homes would say to Mr. Watson at the discovery of a new clue. Likewise, a hunter will as he uncovers a new bit of information along a deer’s run.

Much like we humans, deer seek out the freshest and tastiest food available to them. Where there is an abundance of tender, succulent and sweet food in range of a deer’s ultra sensitive nose, the rest of him will soon follow. That is of course until fall and the seasons change. You see when the seasons change, and fall is in the air a bucks attention shift from one of food and relaxation, to one of lusting after the ladies, oh yeah, the ladies, and most importantly the “RUT”. When they say love is in the air, they mean the sent of a doe is telling the monster buck and all his rowdy friends the does mood is about to change. This brings about a change in the whitetail buck’s behavior that books written about and hunters talk about with respect, everywhere the whitetail buck roams.

Best of luck with your deer hunting success, Mike

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