By Scott Bestul
The big 10-pointer we called Saw Ear did everything you hope a late-season monster whitetail will do. He showed up early, fed hungrily and eventually walked within bow range of my dad.
Trouble was, by the time the buck made it within Dad’s 30-yards or- closer wheelhouse, the clock was two ticks past legal shooting light. And anyone who knows my dad will tell you that when the state says it’s officially quitting time, you no longer shoot — regardless of the size of the deer, whether you can see your pins or any of a dozen ethical variables most people are willing to wrestle with. Which, of course, is why most everyone who knows him admires my father. In a world of relaxing morals and elastic ethics, Dad is a black-and-white guy. But back to the deer.
The Saw Ear Buck (a 170-class giant we’d been chasing all fall) had been joined by some smaller bucks and a dozen does. Any time you get a late-season food plot (Imperial Winter-Greens in this case) to perform like that, you realize that sweating and cussing in the hot August sun to plant them is worth it. But although a field full of whitetails at quitting time is doubtlessly exciting, it also poses a huge problem. Had Dad decided to crawl down from his tree stand, he would have spooked every deer in the plot. And it would be no generic, low-level spooking. We’re talking about deer experiencing a bad-person-right-there-make-a-mental-note-to never- eat-here-in-daylight-again event. In other words, unacceptable.
Fortunately, Dad knew how to get out of there without bumping deer, which I’ve learned after many years of hunting food plots, is one of the most important skills a hunter/manager can possess. Of course, it’s fine if all your food plots do is feed deer. But let’s face it; hunting over food plots and taking a whitetail now and then is a pretty neat reward, too. And if you want to consistently kill deer over food sources, you must do everything in your power to design covert entry and exit routes. What follows are some thoughts on accessing and leaving food plot stands and blinds that will keep you into good deer hunting throughout the season.
Ease on In
One of the problems of creating a killer food plot is that whitetails — being the lazy critters they are — like to bed tight to a food source, especially early and late in the year. This can make sneaking into a stand or blind tough. Bumping a mature buck can put an end to weeks of patterning. He’ll go nocturnal or simply move to another area. Here are four tips for a covert entry:
• Be an early bird: One of the top things you can do — even if you expect that deer won’t feed until the last rays of daylight — is to get in your stand or blind early. The main advantage of this is you’re simply not hurrying, and when you’re not in a rush, you make less noise. Also, any deer that might hear you on your approach (though you’re walking quietly, right?) will have time to settle down before prime time. Finally, getting there early gives time for any scent trail you leave to dissipate. I’ve done extensive scent-control testing with drug-sniffing and tracking dogs, and time (and dry conditions) is one of the top killers of a scent trail. The older the trail, the tougher it is for a critter to smell.
• Follow a screen: Mature bucks are experts at using terrain and vegetation to hide their silhouette as they walk. Mimic them by following a ravine, creek bed, back side of a ridge or line of dense brush for your approach. Some of the most effective screens are ones you create in the off-season. This past spring. I used hinge-cutting to drop some low-value trees and create a wall of treetops that will hide my approach toward a log-landing food plot in the timber. Another plot behind my home is surrounded by switchgrass and scrub trees. I used a rotary mower (pulled behind an ATV) to create a path along the edge of the prairie grass during late summer. It’s one of the cooler sneak-paths I’ve made, and I can’t wait to use it this fall.
• Clip a path: The final yards to a setup is, in my mind, one of the most critical segments of the journey, especially in a hidey-hole plot or other food source potentially close to bedded deer. Consequently, I rarely hang a stand without clearing a narrow walking trail to the set. Using a handsaw or pruner, I clear a shoulder-width trail void of twigs and rocks that lets me make a silent approach those final few critical yards without fighting clothes-grabbing vines, brush and branches.
• Get the rhythm: I only use this technique in setups where I know bedded deer might be close and it’s dry enough that I know a totally silent approach is impossible. But an old (and highly successful) hunting buddy once grabbed my arm as we walked toward a setup. “Only humans walk with a steady one-two cadence,” Ron whispered. “Switch up your rhythm, and pause frequently, just like a deer, turkey or squirrel would.” When I asked Ron about this later, he said he’s used a walking stick to better create a three-step pattern and has even scratched in the leaves to imitate a walking turkey. That’s something to think about when setups are surrounded by timber and the foliage is extremely dry.
Exit Strategies
The only thing tougher than getting to a stand undetected is getting out of one without ringing alarm bells for whitetails. As the anecdote at the start of this story suggested, exiting a stand or blind adjacent to a food plot full of feeding whitetails is a certified recipe for disaster. In fact, I’ll tell anyone that the first time you blow out a field of happily feeding deer, you’ll see half as many the next sit. And things just go downhill from there, especially if you’re bumping mature bucks or, worse, older does. Hunters like to think of big-racked bucks as survival machines, but the scary-smart deer are the old girls who’ve raised a few fawns. Get them suspicious of one of your setups, and they’ll make it their mission to sniff you out every time they hit that plot. Here are three tips for getting out incognito.
• Give them a bump: The best way to get a hunter off a food plot is to drive in there on a truck or ATV and get him. Any deer feeding in the plot will bump off into the woods slightly. They’ll listen to a few shenanigans in their feeding area and then resume dinner as soon as they hear the noise go away. Some hunters have a hard time accepting the validity of this tactic, but think about it. If a farm-country whitetail freaked out every time they heard or saw a truck or ATV, they’d all relocate to Canada about Sept. 1, at least in my country. Here’s how my hunting buddies and I do it. If we have deer feeding around us at last shooting light, we just shoot a text to one of two of three others who are happy to come in for a pick-up. And then we just wait, which includes not setting a boot out of the stand or blind — no matter how cold, dark or scary it feels — until the vehicle appears and whitetails start running. The driver picks the hunter up at the base of the tree or platform, and the beauty of the system is that you can hunt the same spot the next day and expect no freaky behavior from deer.
• Create a ruckus: Naturally, there will be times when no one can ride in to the rescue when you face a food plot full of feeding deer. I’ve tried several gotta-get-outta-here options, with varying success. I’ve tossed rattling antlers from my stand (bad idea; deer just came closer, curious or looking for a fight), and even a bag full of metal screw-in tree steps (slightly better, but still a slight intrigue factor that scared some deer off while others came closer). When I remember to carry it, a coyote howler does a pretty good job. One of my hunting buds actually downloaded an audio app of a howling coyote on his smartphone and has cleared a plot with that.
• Hypnotize them: One of the most obvious solutions to this situation never occurred to me until a recent chat with an old friend and one of the country’s top whitetail hunters. “If I don’t have someone who can come and get me, I take a highpower flashlight out of my pack and shine it right in the eyes of the deer around me,” he said. “And then I just crawl out of the blind and walk off, keeping the light on the deer’s eyes as I go. Sure, they know something is up, but they never clearly get it that I’m slipping out of a blind they’d best avoid in the future.”
Conclusion
In my experience as a deer hunter and manager, planting food plots is one of the top strategies we can attempt to attract and hold whitetails to a property. But it’s not enough to just have great deer feeding sources. We should be able to hunt them throughout the season. Planning sound entry and exit strategies is critical to achieving those results. Back to Dad and his hunt for Saw Ear. Dad managed to get out of his stand that evening without bumping a bunch of deer, thanks to a timely pickup from my neighbor Alan, who showed up on an ATV at dark. And the next day, the wind was again perfect, and Dad crawled up the same stand. There were five minutes of shooting light left when Saw Ear joined the dozen other deer feeding in the plot, ate a few bites and then posed broadside at 30 yards. Dad’s arrow sailed over the huge buck’s back, and within seconds there was not a whitetail on that food plot. I guess missing is a solid exit strategy in itself — but I know my dad doesn’t recommend it.