How to bag that monster buck this year

Bowhunting season starts in about six weeks, and I talked with my friend and longtime hunter Toxey Haas, from West Point, Miss., about what to do to bag a monster bow buck.

Rule No. 1: Hunt An Area That Homes Big Bucks: “Regardless of the tactic you use, if no big buck lives on the land you hunt, you can hunt there for the rest of your life using trophy-buck tactics and never arrow a trophy buck,” Haas explains.

Many archers have the misconception that because an area homes a number of deer a trophy deer should live in that region. But scientists have found this assumption not necessarily true.

Haas explains that, “You can find a trophy buck on public lands. But you have to scout more and work harder than the other hunters who’ll settle for taking any buck, if you want to find and bag the really big bucks.”

To locate trophy bucks on private or public lands, search for these big deer in places inaccessible or overlooked by most hunters.

To see a trophy buck during the season, Haas learns the deer’s preferred food sources during July-September. When the deer go to these preferred foods during these warm months, they won’t act as cautious and often will come out into open fields, knowing the hunter presents no danger.

Using his binoculars, Haas looks for the bucks he wants to plan to hunt in October and November.

Rule No. 2: Prepare To Hunt A Trophy Buck: “You have to assume that you may have only one day all year long to take a trophy buck,” Haas says. “You’ll find your odds for bagging a really-big buck with a bow the best the first time you hunt that deer. Therefore, plan and prepare for that first day you hunt the deer as though you’ll only hunt him that one day. You only may see that trophy buck within bow range once before he dies of old age.”

Haas begins his preparation for hunting a trophy buck in the late summer months. He spots the buck, patterns the buck, finds the deer’s bedding area, puts up his tree stand and waits for the best wind condition and best weather conditions to go to that stand site. Before he goes to the stand, he does all he can do to eliminate odor and noise. Much like the knights of old preparing for battle, Haas studies his adversary, cleans and polishes his equipment, has his bow fine-tuned and noisefree and his broadheads sharp and takes every precaution he can to ensure success on the day he goes afield.

Haas mentally sets up a boundary for a trophy buck. Once that big deer crosses that boundary and comes into the area where Haas knows that if he makes the shot he can down a buck, Haas takes the first good shot the deer offers. He doesn’t wait. He doesn’t hesitate, because he realizes that he only may get one shot.

Rule No. 3: Become a Scent Fanatic: “I’ve become a scent fanatic,” Haas says. “I realize more bowhunters spook the deer they try to take because the buck smells them than for any other reason.”

Haas believes that odor elimination begins first with your diet. “Two or three days before you plan to bow-hunt, don’t eat spicy foods or a lot of red meat. Try to eat a bland diet. Then when you sweat, you won’t give off a strong acid smell.”

Haas also scrubs his body with an odor-killing, odor-neutralizing soap. Next he puts on his camouflage. As an extra precaution, Haas sprays his outerwear from head to toe with scent eliminator. He also chews chewing gum to try and clean his breath.

“If you don’t try and eliminate the odor coming from your mouth and nose, then you don’t effectively eliminate odor,” Haas explains. “Often the most odors you emit, especially if you have sinus problems, come from your mouth and nose.” Haas also cautions you to never go into an area where you think you have a chance to take a big buck without the wind in your favor.

Rule No. 4: Don’t hunt the deer’s food source: “Dr. Harry Jacobson, one of the nation’s leading whitetail deer researchers, has said that you rarely will find a mature buck at his food source during daylight hours, except late in the summer,” Haas says.

Haas concentrates his hunting on or near the buck’s bedding area. But if you spook a buck out of his bedding region, more than likely you can’t hunt him at that same spot again. Therefore, Haas carefully keeps from spooking the deer he attempts to take when he hunts these sites.

“I look for a natural funnel a buck has to walk through to get to his bedding area,” Haas explains. “I don’t hunt in the deer’s bedding area, but I want to hunt as close as I can to that bedding place.”

Rule No. 5 Eliminate noise: Most bowhunters spend time, energy and money eliminating odor. Yet, they rarely expend as much effort eliminating the noise they make when they hunt. But Haas believes that hunter noise often spooks as many if not more deer than hunter odor does.

“I think deer know that hunters ride four-wheelers,” Haas explains. “I’ve watched deer in the woods. When they hear a pickup truck, they often won’t even raise their heads up from feeding. But if they hear the faintest purr of an ATV engine, they’ll alert immediately, begin to stomp their feet, snort and run back into thick cover.

“Many hunters have the mistaken idea that they can drive closer to their hunt sites with four-wheelers than with a pickup truck and not spook the deer. But if I use an ATV to go to my deer stand, I’ll leave my 4-wheeler further away from my stand than I will leave my pickup truck.”

Also, the sound of your placing a tree stand will put a buck into the wind, waving goodbye with his white tail.

“To get a big buck in close, you must put your tree stand up in the tree and climb there without ever making a sound,” Haas says.

Haas has noticed that a trophy buck rarely moves much during hunting season. If you’ve found a bedding site where a trophy buck should hold, more than likely when you go up the tree, the buck will not be very far away. He’ll hear you if you’re not as silent as a worm crawling across fresh-plowed ground.

As Haas explains, “I prefer to use fixed-position stands. I try to put my stands up in the summer or well before deer season arrives. If I have to place a stand during the season, I go to that stand site in the middle of the night. Then I put my stand up close to the bedding area when I know the buck is not nearby. Even if he is close, I may not spook him if he’s never heard the sound of a tree stand at night.”

If Haas drops a piece of equipment or inadvertently makes a sound he believes will spook the deer he plans to bag, he’ll generally leave that section of land without going up his tree stand and not return to that standsite for at least two weeks.

Sometimes a bowhunter will spook the trophy buck he hopes to take because he doesn’t leave his stand site as quietly as he has come to it. If a bowhunter makes noise and spooks the buck as he leaves the stand, he may not can hunt from that stand again the rest of the season because the buck will have changed his bedding site. Then the bowhunter may not find the buck again for another year or two.

Many bowhunters may consider Haas a fanatic. However, Haas has learned that to consistently take a well-racked buck each season, he must give even the smallest details of the hunt his maximum attention. The best big-buck hunters in America consistently do more to prepare and hunt trophy bucks than the average bowhunter does.