Bone-white antlers of a resting buck show above weeds during the pre-rut

The buck was banging its antlers against a tree, and I listened to him working a scrape for 30 minutes late last October. The buck was within 20 yards of me but he was screened by thick brush and was invisible.

I sat in my tree stand and listened. He was close enough to hear the urine hitting the scrape, and he was upwind and the pungent ammonia odor was strong. He worked that tree over, yanked at the overhead licking branch, and for all the noise and commotion he made, the buck was impossible to see.

I checked the spot the next day. He'd been working two scrapes, and one was eight inches deep and as big around as two large platters. The buck had pulled the old licking branch down, and I replaced it. It suited him because the scrape had tine marks and a hoof print in it, and the new licking branch looked pretty ragged. The second scrape was opened up, and the licking branch was chewed to a frazzle.

A spot with two or more active scrape should produce  if you don’t spook it

What was even more interesting was that the buck had opened up a third scrape. Huge clots of wet earth was piled at the north end of the scrape, and he had made it the night before. How do I know?

Buck scrapes have dirt and debris piled at one end or another, and if the dirt is piled at the end closest to thick cover, it generally means the deer is tending that scrape in the evening as he leaves the bedding area for a night of chasing cute little does.

This told me several things: One is the rut had not started but the chasing phase had set in. This chasing phase lasts several days before the full rut starts. As long as fresh activity is seen at the scrape, and it is being tended one or more times daily, the rut has not begun. Once the scrapes show no sign of activity, that means the rut is underway.

One thing few hunters realize is that the mid-day hours just before and during the rut can produce a fine buck.

This buck may have other nearby scrapes that it had been working, but once a buck is shot and is taken out of the woods, another will take its place. Nature abhors a vacuum, and when a big brown trout or a big whitetail buck is removed, another moves in and takes over.

Hunting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. works well during the chasing stage and the rut. If possible, be in your stand by 9 a.m., and sit patiently. The bucks will move during the mid-day hours.

Hunt the mid-day hours during the pre-rut

I first learned of this phenomenon many years ago while hunting ruffed grouse. Two days in a row a buck was seen darting away from me in the same area. I checked the area, found his scrapes, and went back and set up a stand 30 yards downwind of it. The buck came by that first day at about noon, wind-checked the scrape from downwind, and offered me a 12-yard shot.

Hunting the pre-rut and the rut during mid-day hours can pay off. Sure, many hunters can't take time off work to hunt those hours, but keep it in mind for weekends. Hunt near natural funnels between bedding and feeding areas, and once the rut kicks in, start hunting the heavier cover.

My only real problem with hunting the mid-day hours is a personal one. I'm good for three hours maximum in a tree before everything gets sore. I'll stick it out until about 2:30 p.m., grab a bite to eat, and then hunt from 4 p.m. until legal shooting time ends. It means spending long hours in a tree, but it can pay big dividends with a husky buck and the hunting is more fun than writing about it.

This method has worked for me, and can work for you regardless of where you hunt. Try it this fall and see if it doesn't produce action at a time when no one is hunting. It's rut hunting's biggest secret, and now only you, me and several hundred thousand other people will know. Mark this blog and go back and read it again in mid-October, and maybe it will produce a nice buck for you next fall.

Whitetails can keep a hunter honest. They also can make you a better hunter.

This doesn’t mean that my valued readers are dishonest nor does it mean they are bad hunters. It simply means that deer have the ability to make hunters think.

They also can make hunters pretty humble when sportsmen think they know everything about deer hunting. Hunters who feel superior often get humble pie to eat.

Learn from deer. Study their actions, and become a good hunter.

One thing I’ve learned over many years is to watch hunters. It doesn’t take long to determine who are the great sportsmen, and who are braggarts. I’ve hunted in many camps over the last 50+ years, and the loudest and most aggressive hunters are usually the ones who make the dumbest mistakes.

An old saying goes like this: it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. The best rule is to keep the mouth closed. listen and pay attention.

Picking people’s brains, and learning what they know, is fun and can provide valuable information. Savvy hunters never venture an opinion unless they know what they are talking about. That is especially true when talking about hunting whitetail deer.

Southern folk have some great sayings. They’ve been distilled from years of hard work and minding their manners. One saying that has a whole bunch of learning in it is “My momma didn’t raise no fools.”

Listen to older hunters, and cogitate on what they say.

Folks who gather around savvy hunters should keep that thought in mind. That means do less talking and much more listening.

Last year a man brought his son around for a hunt. The boy would come up to the house, make a dumb remark about deer hunting while several of us planned our evening hunts. We were tossing around ideas, and discussing where everyone would sit, and discussing the present wind condition.

The boy kept nattering on and on. He was taking up precious planning time by constantly interrupting.

A friend eventually spoke up rather bluntly and loudly, and said: “Boy, you better learn more about deer hunting before speaking your mind. You want to learn about hunting, sit down, shut up and listen. You’ll learn more than you will talking nonsense about a topic you know nothing about.”

The boy sat and listened for a minute, spoke up, and my friend looked hard at him, and the kid went running out the door. His daddy had money, and it’s almost certain that no one had every talked that way to the kid before.

I’ve been around whitetails all my life, and spent over 55 years hunting and studying the critters, but there are many others who know many things that I don’t know. I listen intently to them and learn.

One can read and learn, but actual hunting is the best teacher.

There are countless ways to learn things but in-the-field experience is the best when it comes to learning about whitetails. Hunting the animals, and studying them as you hunt and during the off-season, is the best way to accumulate knowledge. Reading about it, and absorbing that knowledge and putting it to good use, is another. What is most important is the hunter must learn to convert that knowledge into an action plan that works in the woods.

Experience will put a fine point on your acquired knowledge. Some of my early deer-hunting knowledge came from talking to old-time hunters and guides, and using some of that information on my hunts.

The more days spent afield will continue to add to a solid footing, and one day after learning a great deal about deer hunting, you’ll know you’ve come a long ways in your gathering of deer-hunting knowledge.

That will be the day when you can honestly look yourself in the morning mirror, and confess: “I don’t know as much about deer hunting as I thought I did.” And then you go out and learn some more.

(left) Scouting can lead to a big buck.  (right) This nice buck bedded in high grass.

Some things about whitetail hunting never change. Many deer hunters choose the same tree for a stand, walk the same trail into and out of a hunting area, and nothing changes.

Many will sit on the same stump, along the same deer trail, as they did 10 or more years ago. It's difficult for many sportsmen to break their old habits, and some hunters never try. It becomes a tradition to again hunt where a buck was killed sometime in the far distant past.

Hunters often wonder: If it was good 20 years ago, it will be a good spot now. Right?

Such a hunting attitude cause deer to go elsewhere. If possible move with them.

Maybe not. That tradition of returning, year after year, to the same old spot has probably saved the life of more bucks than poor shooting or a lack of preseason scouting.

Sadly, clinging to a traditional spot, even when it no longer is hot, is a lesson in frustration. It also leads to fiery claims by skunked hunters that the Department of Natural Resources' reports of deer numbers for whitetails are grossly inflated and way out of whack.

Perhaps this season is about time to cast aside the traditional old haunts, and think about trying a new location. Too many people never realize that food and habitat conditions can and will change, and if the landowner doesn't do something to make the land produce more food and offer more cover, the deer will move on. It's as simple as that.

Change is good but it also can be bad. Hunters must study the land, learn what natural forage is present, and nearby farmers plant that deer will eat. To change for the sake of change makes little sense. Hunters must grasp the philosophy that more food is a good thing.

Deer are animals of farmland and woodland. Granted, some deer live in deep forest and many live on farms, and that's a fact of life in this and many other states across the nation.

If recent hunting years have been unsuccessful, change your hunting ways.

If you agree that a new hunting location should be tried, where should hunters start in their search for a new spot to test their luck or skill?

Hunters can start with the DNR. They keep track of deer trends, and know which counties have the highest deer numbers and which ones produce the largest deer. The county extension agent often deals with farmers and other landowners, and they also can help gauge a new area.

Determine if you want to hunt the Upper or Lower Peninsula, but if you've read hunting reports elsewhere about deer hunting prospects, the U.P. is not the place to go. The Upper Peninsula has lots of wolves and fewer deer. The area with the most deer is south of an east-west line from Bay City to Grand Rapids.

Start asking questions. Talk with regional game biologists. Talk to conservation officers.

Learn which counties produce big bucks and lots of deer, and learn why deer numbers are so high in such areas. Determine the availability of state or federal lands nearby, but both state and federal land is often quite sparse and over-hunted. especially in the southern Lower Peninsula.

Spend time scouting two or three different areas. Determine which ones offer the best combination of land, cover, deer foods, bedding cover and access. Walk around the land, and check for well-used deer trails leading from bedding to feeding areas and back. Always be on the lookout for tiny thick covers like and over-grown and abandoned apple orchard. Tiny clumps of heavy brush on the top or side of a hill is often overlooked. Places where human foot traffic is tough are good spots to find deer.

Forget the U.P. Draw a line from Tawas City to Manistee, and hunt south of there.

Look for buck rubs and deer scrapes now. Check barbed wire fences for bits of clinging hair that indicate deer passing through the area.

Talk with landowners to determine their idea of hunting pressure in this spot. Often, in farmland, the major hunting pressure is from the landowner and his or her family and close friends.

Learn where nice whitetail lead bedding cover and how they move.

Consider the possibility of leasing hunting rights. Fees vary depending on length of the lease, property size, whether it is ideal or marginal deer habitat, and what it offers the hunter.

Good land should support good truck crops, mast and other natural forage. Sometimes, an area with some does and some bucks can lead to big bucks if they are given time to grow. If you find a good spot, practice crop rotation and try to build better ground cover.

Remember: deer need five things to grow big racks: three or more years to grow, good cover, good secure bedding areas, plenty of food and water. A sixth key is a lack of steady hunting pressure.

No one owes today's sportsman anything in terms of hunting private property. I manage my land to produce big bucks, and crop lands are rotated and some timber is cut. Doing so helps maintain good hunting, but it's a never-ending learning process to keep up with where whitetails travel after crop rotation and timbering takes place.

Finding a good spot means scouting, being in the right area and being smart.

I spend many hours scouting for good spots. Deer habits change, food supplies change, and hunting pressure can make deer seek quieter areas. A hunter doesn't know these things unless they spend time in the field on a regular basis.

Public lands feature too many hunters in narrowly confined locations, and the hunting pressure is far too high. Food supplies are far better on private land than state or federal lands. Private property holds deer, and, in many areas, it supports more whitetails than public land. For this reason it's easy to understand why more people lease hunting land even though the price of leasing acreage is rising.

Whether a hunter leases private land, hunts on public land, or manages to wangle an invitation from a landowner, scouting is a never-ending problem all year. Hunters who don't scout old land or new land run a major risk of not being successful.

Those who scout properly will never spook deer. Those that make numerous mistakes often chase the deer over onto the neighbors, but don’t expect them to thank you.

Big bucks  don’t show up often but hunters must learn every stand location.

A friend of mine used to hunt 300 acres. He had a dozen tree stands and ground blinds scattered around in key spots.

He could hunt a different stand each day, and often did the first year of his lease. He then invited one or two others to hunt with he and his wife, and while he and his wife hunted every day, he always felt sorry for his invited guests.

Sometimes there would be six people hunting, and only five stands were right for the prevailing wind. Guess who sat out that day's hunt? You got it. The man that paid the lease fee.

The hunter soon cut down on the number of guest so he could hunt.

Sometimes hunters hunted from stands if the wind was wrong. He told them to not hunt rather than to risk spooking deer, but they hunted anyway and ruined that stand for the rest of the season.

It got to the point where most of the stands were rendered useless because the hunters couldn't sit still, would arrive late and leave early, and the bottom line was the deer had patterned them rather than the other way around.

One man apparently thought deer were deaf, and talked loudly.If he had to pick up his wife, he would talk to her on the way in and out.

My friend finally told them they had only two stands to hunt. It didn't take long for those stands to get burned, and their hunting success fell off.

Which leads, in a somewhat indirect way to tonight's question How often should you hunt a stand?

My buddy, noted above, never spooked a deer when he hunted a different stand each night. He had two or three entrance and exit routes, and if the wind was wrong, he wouldn't hunt. He never spooked deer, and he always saw nice bucks.

So what is the difference? One person is more cautious when approaching a stand, and they do so quietly. He is hunting by himself so there is no need to talk to anyone. He slips in, slips out, and arrives and departs by a different route every time he hunted.

He had a favorite stand, and hunted it only a few times each season. It was his ace in the hole, and it always paid off with a good buck.

Always have at least two ways in and out of a hunting stand.

If he got pinned down by deer at the end of shooting time he would wait until the deer moved off. He would take his arrow off the string when shooting time ended, put the arrow in the quiver and wait out the deer.

A famous writer from many years ago once wrote: One boy is all boy; two boys is half a boy, and three boys is no boy at all. This translates into one person, hunting alone, can be the supreme predator. Two people make twice as much noise, give off twice the scent, and make mistakes. Three people become a crowd and shouldn't be hunting together. One person, hunting alone, is more effective.

So, how often should a stand be hunted? It depends. If a hunter has only one 20-acre spot to hunt, he will probably have to hunt that one location, but it would be best to hunt it only under ideal conditions.

Much depends on the lay of the land, but a 40-acre spot may offer two or even three stands widely spaced apart. If that is the case, hunt them every three days, and sit out one night.

Back to my friend on 300 acres with a dozen stands. His favorite tree stand was seldom hunted, so 11 other stands afforded him a good chance to move around and hunt other areas. Granted, not everyone has 300 acres to play with.

Learn how to hunt each area well & it will make you a better hunter.

He would hunt them all, and start over again, and he always knew which stands had bucks coming to them and when they would appear. If he had someone who really wanted to kill a buck, he would stick them in the stand early, tell them where the buck would come from and when it would arrive, to always be ready and the hunter would shoot it.

The trick is to never overhunt a stand. Move around if possible, and if it's not possible, hunt just three or four days a week. Never hunt the same stand two nights in a row, and always approach a stand from a different direction. Avoid being patterned by deer.

Overhunting a stand will kill it faster than anything else. Always give a stand a day or two break, at a minimum, and use every ounce of skill you possess while approaching, sitting in or leaving a stand. Doing so, time after time, will help make that stand pay off.

Just don't get over-confident, and hunt the same stand all the time. Do so, and the deer will soon program you and hunters won't see as many deer.

TITLE: Learn how to hunt several blinds for various wind directions.

Tags: ((Dave, Richey, Michigan, outdoors, learn, travel, routes, blind, locations, program, deer, don’t, be, programed))

photos & montage by i65design

The author in a pensive mood about the future of outdoor writing.

There are many important things in life, but being a full-time outdoor writer is my profession and that makes me feel good doing what I most enjoy doing.

I'm long past the stage where seeing my name in print is needed to provide an ego stroke. There are other, far more important things in my life ... like helping others understand the outdoors.

This is my 45th year of writing about the great outdoors. I wrote my first magazine article in 1967 and sold it to Sports Afield. The next five stories also were sold to outdoor magazines with another going to Sports Afield.

Success came slowly, and required a great deal of hard work.

Then came two hard years of rejected slips, and as time went on, more and more stories were sold. I began with a goal of writing for each of the Big 3 magazines -- Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield -- and it took four years of hard work to make at least one sale to all three.

My next goal was to sell to as many magazines as possible. That led to sales to well over 300 different magazines before I quit counting, and there has been more than 7,300 published magazine articles since that first one many years ago.

My ultimate goal was to become one of the most widely published outdoor writers ever, and although I no longer strive to fulfill that goal, I am, without meaning to brag, at or very near the top of the heap in terms of magazine articles sold. I worked pretty much full-time for Outdoor Life magazines for more than six years, and one year had over 140 articles published in that magazine alone.

That was then, and I doubt if such sales are possible now. The roster of outdoor magazines has crumpled in some regards, but in the field around which I built my career, the number of outdoor magazines are tumbling. As gas prices soar and car sales level out, advertising revenues have fallen. Magazines that once flourished are sinking fast or have sunk below the sea of advertising losses.

Somewhere along the way, another of my many writing goals was to write books. To date, I've written 25 on fishing and hunting. Thousands of magazine covers and inside black-and-white and color photos have been published over the years.

I've had my own radio outdoor show, appeared on countless television programs with a wide ranging host of outdoor celebrities. I guided trout and salmon fishermen for 10 years, guided bear and deer hunters for four years, and led hunts for bear and caribou.

My travels have taken me all across North America and to within several hundred miles of the North Pole, and as far away as New Zealand. I've fished for, and hunted for, every species of animal, bird or fish that would ever turn my crank.

Gaining credentials and becoming known was an arduous and long path.

I've given thousands of lectures, been a platform speaker for many years, and had a 20-year emcee job at the Detroit Boat & Fishing Show. I've given private and public seminars, and all through my 45 years, I've done what I wanted to do and went where I wanted to go. Like Frank Sinatra once sang: I did it my way.

Out of all of this travel, and after so many outdoor experiences, has come this wealth of work. I count, among my many joys, being an Active and now a Life member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA), as one of the greatest successes in my career.

OWAA became a part of my life in 1968, and I attended my first conference in 1969. I've attended every OWAA conference since 1976 in Snowmass, Colorado, and have chaired or served on perhaps 50 different OWAA committees.

I've been truly honored by having been awarded the Ham Brown Award, OWAA's highest member award, and the Excellence in Craft Award. They also named me a Legendary outdoor Communicator in 2005, and the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame inducted me into their prestigious Hall of Fame in 2006 as a Legendary Communicator.

Guess what? All of this is very important to me, but there is something even more important behind this massive 45-year body of work. It is a very simple personal philosophy: What Goes Around, Comes Around. If you give of yourself, you’ll gain satisfaction and success.

I've given freely of my time all these years to help other writers. I never viewed another writer as a competitor. Every chance I've had to help someone become a better outdoor writer, I've given freely of my time ... without any consideration of pay. OWAA has a Mentor Program, but I'd been mentoring writers for many years before the organization chose to allow some of us graybeards to share our knowledge with others.

Is this sharing of knowledge important? Certainly. It's just as important as having parents or guardians mentor youngsters about fishing and hunting. If we don't teach our children, why would they consider these outdoor pastimes in the near future? The answer is, they won't.

If I, and others, don't give of ourselves to help mentor and teach beginning outdoor writers and sportsmen, who will carry this torch of fishing and hunting freedom and our legacy into the foreseeable future?

I've given of my energy, talent and time to mentor outdoor writers and to mentor children. There no longer is a need for me to make a name for myself. I'm happily content to write my daily weblogs like this one about fishing and hunting, and am equally content to bask in whatever glory has come my way over these many years.

Awards are great but helping others has been my longstanding goal.

But all awards and honors aside, what makes me feel best is to write things people want to read, and to help mentor people who wish to become outdoor writers. Someday, in the future, once my race has been run, all I care for is to be remembered as being a good person, a good parent, a good husband, a good writer, and someone who always stepped forward to help readers understand more about the outdoors.

For me, that would be sufficient. And, I hasten to add this: Remember, that it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

You'll find lots of deer hunting information on a year-round basis.

The above title asks a good question, and it's been tossed my way for nearly eight years by many readers from around the world. My answer is invariably the same: why not?

Anglers and hunters can understand a column, which is nothing more than a bit of self-indulgence plus some solid fishing or hunting experience and information.

Columns are about what I think, feel, do, believe in, rant against, etc. The same thing can be said about a blog.

A blog (short for weblog) is a daily journal of sorts. It covers the wide range of my daily emotions, and how I look at things through a bleary and somewhat biased or jaundiced eye.

You may sense a touch of anger, animosity, joy, sorrow or other human emotions. My feelings on a wide variety of things is never far from the surface nor am I adversed to speaking my mind.

You'll almost always feel my love for the environment, the animals, birds and fish that we hunt or try to catch, and you'll feel my sense of betrayal and delusion when some sorry dude levels perfectly wonderful wildlife habitat and builds a shopping mall or hard-scrabble subdivision on it, adding more of what we don't need to the overall trashiness that has become something less than Paradise.

Each daily weblog is different, and they cover all types of fishing and hunting.

Readers will read my unabashed feelings on brook trout that invariably turn me on in their watery little trickles, and the litter that invariably turns me off when I must look at it. You'll note, hopefully with a righteous indignation like mine, when I bare my soul or teeth about the destruction of a never-ending amount of wild land.

Hopefully, you'll share my glee when the DNR does something really great or get ticked off when they continue to do something utterly stupid like depriving you and me of the opportunity to obtain private-land spring turkey permits in Region II while granting such permits to people in the Upper Peninsula and southern Lower Peninsula.

Zone II hunters get the shaft on that turkey ruling.

My weblog runs daily, and I've only missed a few days since November, 2003, and then only because some piece of crud hacked my website. My archives are available to one and all, and I urge readers to dust off some of them and see what you've missed.

You'll share my pain when my beloved twin brother George died on Sept. 10, 2003. You'll get as excited as I did when catching a 30-pound muskie, writing about the Christmas Tree Bomber, and other true tales.

I invite you to walk with me when we go into a bear swamp for a hunt, and what is even more fun, when we walk out in the darkness. Jump into my tree stand as we bow-hunt for whitetails, and whisper in my ear when it's time to shoot a dandy buck or tell me to draw down on him and let up, giving him a life he could have lost had I shot.

Come along as we wade belly-deep into an area steelhead stream during those cold March days, and grab the net when we slug it out with hefty chinook salmon in the fall. Let's take a walleye fishing trip on Long or Platte lakes, a bluegill outing to Arbutus Lake, and we can trudge through the January snow in search of cottontails and snowshoe hares, even though there are very few of the latter these days.

Do you feel up to laying flat on the ground in January as Canada geese hover overhead, honking loudly, as our belly muscles tighten and we lever our way to a sitting and shooting position? Is there anyone out there who doesn't thrill to the loud and clattering flush of a ruffed grouse as the October dew dries on the ready-to-fall golden leaves?

Does any upland gunner fail to rejoice to the towering flight of woodcock as they dart and twist ever upward out of the alders before quickly plummeting to earth before we can swing and shoot?

Calling predators with that high-pitched squeal of a dying rabbit is a heap of fun during the winter months as the coyote darts out of a thicket, and begins circling to a downwind location. We know a shot may be possible but it's nerve wracking to watch the animal close in on a spot straight downwind. Will we get a shot or be winded?

Fishing and hunting has been a major part of my life for 60 of my 71 years, and I eagerly await each new season and every new adventure. You ask me: why write a daily weblog.

I write because I must; to satisfy a strong need within me to do so. There is a deep driving need to write, and a need to share my love of fishing and hunting with my readers. I don't have to write for the money although I wish this blog and website paid more; instead, writing about the outdoors makes me feel good, makes me feel whole and productive while helping to smooth out all the rough spots in my life.

You and me, we can go places and do things. We can discover new places to fish or hunt, and learn more about what pulls us ever onward to another wonderful outdoor adventure.

People who stay indoors, and watch idiotic game shows on television have my sincere sympathy.

Me, I'd rather be outdoors with a bow or rod in my hand, and enjoying nature. How about you?

NOTE: Don't forget to check out my Scoop's Books and my Book Reviews. These sites can also be accessed from my Home Page.

Take care of each other, and mentor someone about fishing and hunting.

These Lake Michigan anglers team up to land a 15-pound brown trout.

A boast sometimes rankles other people, especially when two or more anglers are on a trip together. Almost always, one of the people is big on himself and wants everyone else to know it.

Most people could care less what people have done. The trick is to be courteous and helpful, and if asked, answer the question as well as possible without bragging on yourself.

For instance, I know how many deer I've shot over nearly 60 years. It's really too many, and I seldom bring up the topic. I've been fortunate to have deer hunted in many states beside my native Michigan but choose not to constantly dwell on myself and my deeds.

On the other hand, I dislike being in a group that is being monopolized by an ego-freak who is determined to quote numbers, sizes, the width of a rack which invariably is larger than anyone else has taken. After a short time, the egotist discovers he no longer is preaching to the choir. Church is over, they’ve gone home.

Mentoring other writers …

I mentor younger outdoor writers. All are making or have made many of the same mistakes I made when I started, but in my case, there was no one who offered to teach me any of the things I didn’t know. I struggled, made more mistakes, and trust me – when I tell people how to avoid making these mistakes, there is not a word of a brag to it. I tell them about my mistakes and how long it took me to correct many such errors. They learn fast or struggle for a long time.

A friend stopped by yesterday, and is looking forward to drawing a spring turkey tag. He wanted some calling advice, and I told him I am not a good turkey caller. I also told him that many, many hunters can call ten times better than me, but I can call turkeys. No brag involved when I downplay my miniscule calling skills, but others can associate with my lack of such because they have their own foibles. Some of these beginners are far better callers than me.

I showed him a couple of tricks I'd learned, told him how I do it, and repeated what he'd been told before. Don't call too much, don't call too loud, don't move and be patient.

A quick lesson …

Years ago, I gave my twin brother a five-minute lesson on turkey calling. I took my gent out, and the bird I tried to call came in behind us, stood there drumming and spitting, and we couldn't get a shot. My brother was hunting a mile away, and we drove over just in time to watch him call in and kill a gobbler with just five minutes of instruction.

He got a well deserved pat on the back. My gent was disappointed for a bit, but he shot his gobbler later that afternoon.

The lesson in  all of this is that bragging long and hard on oneself is boring to others. If I'm asked, I'll answer a question and quickly turn the conversation back toward them.

Beginning anglers and hunters need to boast a bit over their successes, and that's OK … up to a point. But if you've shot 100 bucks with a bow, it means that you've hunted far more often than most people. It also means, if you dwell on that number without teaching those skills to others, those people often think you are lying, boring or a game hog.

None of which may be true. I'm a good deer hunter and a good steelhead fisherman, and have spent more than 55 years at both endeavors. Unless a person is blind or stupid, it stands to reason that they should have learned something along the way. Share that knowledge with others but spare the bragging.

A guide teaches a gentle lesson …..

Forty years ago I drove to New Brunswick to fish Atlantic salmon with a guide. I sought his advice on which salmon flies to buy, and he pointed them out. I sought his advice on which fly to start with, and he picked one out for me.

Two hours into fishing, my guide said softly: "Begging your pardon, sir, but I suspect you've washed that fly long enough.  I'd suggest changing to a brighter pattern."He didn't have to dwell on the fact that I should have changed flies earlier. He offered a suggestion that I gladly accepted, and when I hooked a 10-pound salmon on a brightly colored fly, he didn't claim any credit. I'd been the one to choose the fly, and luckily, it produced a nice fish.

He could have bragged about his knowledge and skills, but instead, offered me a pat on the back for "choosing" the right fly. I had no clue what I was doing, and it was his suggestion that made that cast a success.

Even today, I enjoy giving credit to him for me catching my first Atlantic salmon. He poled the boat into position, told me where to cast, how long a cast to make, and all I did was manage to land the high-jumping fish once it hooked itself on the strike.

Stow the bragging, and if possible, share your know-how with another person without trying to make yourself look important. I labor in a business where there are more egotists than I ever believed possible, but I check my ego at the door when I leave home. It certainly works for me.

Practice now, and next fall when a buck like this shows up, you’ll be ready.

Consistent practice, whether just drawing or shooting, is more comfortable.

Just draw and aim at different household objects without shooting.

How you practice is up to you, but practice is very important when shooting deer.