what's the best hunting advice you have received

Now that hunting season is over I was reflecting back on years of hunting seasons. I used to watch and read every hunting video and magazine I could get my hands on to try to be a better hunter. In the process a few old timers helped me more than any of that, a few of my best tips were always, hunt the wind and stay in the stand longer than the rest. I was wondering what tips helped you guys and gals the most?

If you want a big mature buck, don't shoot the little bucks.

You cant kill one when asleep in your bed. Get up and get into the woods.

Don’t start. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the advice.

"We don't shoot the does son, they are what has all them bucks".......

Best hunting advice i ever got from my grandfather.

KILL what pleases you and dont worry about what anyone thinks.

"Just hang in there son, youll get you one". My daddy used to tell me that every year.

Heres some advice if you live around here, "Fish in december, hunt in January." Just try it, you can thank me later.

If you see a buck you like, shoot at it as soon as you can, as long as you can till it drops ( bullets were cheap in 1977).... from my dear old Dad.

90% of success hunting is attitude and expectations.

You get out of it what you put into it.

Hunt where everyone else isn’t

Be patient and put in effort. Same as with life to be successful you gotta work a lil bit

Hunt where the critters are

Dang - lot of good info here

My favs were hunt wind and pressure - kind of learned the pressure on my own and experience has showed me how heat wind was

Here is a tremendous one - if land allows - set your stand up where you don’t hav to say bye to deer every time u leave - what I mean - if u can leave undetected every time and u hunt wind - it almost like u never hunted. Been able to do this a few times in my life at a few diff places in diff states - results were mounters and lot of deer sightings - it was like opening day every day

I hav great attitude and huge expectations all time - can’t say that has ever helped me kill big one - I just always think I will win going in to a hunt or succeed

Sit still, be quiet, use your eyes and ears

Keep a bag of Oreos with you in case things get tough so you can spread the cream around your ankles to keep the ants from getting to your candy ass

1) hunt smarter not harder

2) if that lil filly wants some good lovin’ on a cold morning, roll over and give her some. The deer will wait

Don't look at where the dogs are. Be looking ahead.

Stay put after you shoot. might be another one coming.

Keep shooting until you cannot see the deer or it is not moving.

And here is a good last one we often miss - u can’t kill what u don’t have

There so many seasons with both Deer and Turkey I was in Siberia. And I hd great seasons too - but I had my share of crappie

So thankful to hav my own lease now that has deer - not giants but solid south Bama deer and club members are scaring them to death 🤣
I ain’t hd great turkey spot in decade. Great spots w turkey I would tag out early April - solid WMA spots was end of season tag out. Lot of years - only turkey I had was on the other property and if u don’t poach - that’s tuff

Welcome 1st post getting a lot of answers.
Sit still and sit long. Use the wind. Get off the couch and in the woods

can't kill him if ya can't hit him, learn to shoot that damn rifle till it's second nature.

how many folks do you know that miss a gooodun every year?????

Don't hunt with people you don't like. Surround yourself with true friends and family.

There you go .

Dont shoot does because where ever you have alot of ladies, there will always be old men!

Best hunting advice I ever heard and it is true.

Take advice from people that actually kill deer

A big old buck may not always know what he hears, he may not always know what he sees but he always knows what he smells.

Always make sure your gun is dead on and scope hasn’t been bumped around

Had a distant cousin, and an even better friend, say to me one time when we were duck hunting together, "Cuz, you shoot your gun and I'll shoot mine".

Pretty good advice for then and for a lifetime.

#1 If you shoot a deer just because your neighbor will if given the opportunity, then you are the neighbor.

#2 Sometimes hunting less brings more success.

#3 If all you are worried about is killing then you are missing the point/purpose of hunting!!!

^^^^^this^^^^^ and pay attention to what the squirrels are doing. If the squirrels are barking down the branch get ready they are seeing something.

BayedUp has it right ,especially number 3 . Words of wisdom

Be thankful for what has been provided.

Can't kill em on the couch...

Time in the woods beats most odds if u have enough places to go depending on weather n such...

The best way to clear your area of deer is to put out cameras and check them every week

Boil horns all day, and there still tuff!

Deer don’t die with their eyes closed, shoot it again

2Dogs,,, that too lol

That's wasn't the question....some care about meat more so every answer won't qualify 🤣

Go slow

Killing animals really ain't that hard . You know the land , the animal you hunting , and able to hit the animal when you shot and go as much as you can . You'll kill that animal .

I've killed a shitload of animals . Those four things is why

One thing about today versus 45 years ago is the inter net . All the info you need is at your finger tips . It's a good place to start but getting out and hunting is the best way to learn to hunt. When you do it you learn to weed the bs and agendas that are pushed by some people or research.

You dad's and mom's should really get your kids to start a journal or diary of their hunts .
I enjoyed mine till it got thrown away , that's another story

I’ve hunted with some great killers who were able to point me in the right direction. Now that I’m older, I wish somebody would have told me to just go out and hunt and don’t listen to what anybody else tells you. Experience is the best teacher no matter how many ways it can be taught. I don’t give much advice anymore, I will just take you and show you. Most folks can take that and try it differently to see what works and what doesn’t. So my advice is just to get out there. Learn the land, how things move through the land and what eats what. You’ll be at a whole lot better starting point than most these days.

I started turkey hunting 48 years ago and was fortunate enough to have two area turkey legends teach me. One thing that both of them used to say is when a gobbler goes silent, get ready. As an impatient 16 year old that was a piece of advice that was very hard for me to learn. If the bird quit answering me, I would get up and move and many times would spook the gobbler. When A bird shuts up now, I will sometimes wait for an hour or more if necessary. Many times you will be rewarded!

Lol a gun can get mighty heavy turkey hunting at times.

we used to say shoot till they don't move, ammo is the cheapest part of hunting lol

That's dang good advice

Best I have heard and still struggle at times to apply: “Quality of sits in a spot beats the quantity of sits in a spot”. Keeping pressure low in a known killing spot is tough to do but it definitely does pay off.

Don't pay any attention to advice you get on the internet

As far as technical advice goes:

Don't try to replicate what someone else is doing. I have tried that and I can't get it to work. You can watch the style of hunting someone does and try to tweak it to your own personal operation, but doing exactly what someone else doesn't hasn't panned out for me very well

Deer hunting--always hunt the wind
Turkey hunting--be patient and when you can't stand any longer and feel like you have to move, wait 30 minutes.
Duck hunting--call at the wingtips and tailfeathers or on the turn

I never commented on Turkey I don’t think - going w some really great hunters Many years ago was huge help - learned a ton on my own too. Yea - when they go silent sometimes that means they coming - the more tricks U got the better U can Un-hang a hung up bird

Just saw Fred’s about shooting your gun - I shoot several times before season - got into the trigger jerks many years ago after shooting great for years
Practice time at range and a great trigger is big for me

The more you put into it, the luckier you get.

Hunt high.

Don't drink half a pot of coffee before you go on the morning hunt. Don't eat Chinese the night before.

Always buy a cordless Q-Beam

Did you get this advice from Whildbill?

Hunt the wind

Well, um, his idea of hunting high likely is different than mine. LOL I guess I should have posted to hunt a long way from the ground. I've had bucks come in from downwind because I'm forty feet up and my scent goes right over them when they are close and to diluted to be detected when they are a little further out. Or maybe it's detected but they think it's a cold trail. Either way...

Go every chance you get......unless divorce is threatened....

dont make it more important than important things.

Best advice I’ve seen on this thread. Or a similar saying “keep the Main thing, the main thing. “

I just havent figured out what is more imoirtant.

"Find a better place to hunt"

My biggest pieces of advice for my kids were/are, always hunt the wind and stay in the stand until you can’t see (especially with a bow).

Growing up not being taken hunting once these types of threads are what I clinged to for years hoping I would find that one thing that I’m not doing. Everyone knows to hunt the wind, hunt as often as you can, sit still etc. For years I would get so frustrated because I would read magazines about the big deer killers and talk to them and do everything they said as well as work 4 times as much as anyone else looking for that edge and never have a big buck to show for it. I’m roughly 15 years in what I consider hard hunting now and I’ve still never killed a big buck, probably never will and I just have to be ok with that. If a person hunts just to kill big bucks that’s fine, nothing wrong with that at all but in this state it’s a long row to hoe. It’s one thing to create a deer factory on private but the guys like Michael Perry, who consistently take big bucks from Alabama public land, are just phenomenal woodsman. They deserve all the respect you can give them.

I guess I say all that to say this. Hunting advice has nothing to do with the woods and skills but everything to do with your outlook and appreciation.

If I had to guess, I'd bet that Michael Perry does most of his serious scouting between the end of deer season and the end of turkey season. He prob goes in and hangs his stands or identifies his stand locations, cut his shooting lanes, and puts out his cell cameras (if he even uses cameras) in mid-late summer. Then, Id be willing to bet that he does not go back into those areas at all, until he is ready to hunt it, and then he only hunts it when conditions are perfect. Reading what you wrote, I honestly think the most detrimental reason for you not killing a big buck in 15 yrs is most likely "the hunt as often as you can" part of what you are doing. I probably hunt 1/5 the the total number of days that I used to hunt in a year and I probably see and kill 4-5 times as many mature bucks as I used to. It takes discipline, but when it comes to killing big bucks, less is always more, when it comes to pressure. They simply will not tolerate it and will go nocturnal the first time they catch your scent.

If you love the woods and love sitting in a tree and love just shooting any legal deer, then definitely go as often as you can, and enjoy yourself. If you want to kill big bucks, find one, and dont hunt him or go anywhere near him at all, until conditions are perfect. Best hunting advice I ever got was, "your best chance to kill a really big buck is always the first time you hunt his home area".

*listen to mbrock

Get a good paying job, save your money, buy your own land. Do as you please from there. Definitely, do not hunt as much as possible and wind is key. However, if you’re only making $100k a year or so, pray like hell to find a good lease and use trigger control.

"your best chance to kill a really big buck is always the first time you hunt his home area"


Good stuff Abolt.

You can't kill one sitting on the couch

Never really got any advice from anyone but I would tell anyone who asks to just have fun.

First time sits are my favorite

Here another tip that burned me more than once for not doing it - loose lips sink ships - if u got a good spot - keep your mouth shut about it

Best advice I ever got I got at 13. I had just seen a good buck and couldnt wait to tell the older guy I was hunting with about it. He was a Big buck killing man for sure and had a wall full of big mature bucks even back then.

When I did he said...."Ok..well what was he doing? Where was he going? Why was he doing it? Dont just look at them, watch them. See where theyre going, what he was doing and why do you think he was doing it? Dont just watch them..LEARN from them. If you get to see a Big buck and you dont get to shoot him then you need to Learn from him. Dont just get caught up looking at him Son!"

And I never have again and that alone has taught me more about big bucks than anything. Studying them..seeing where they went..looking to see where and why.

The one thing it really taught me is they sure are different from ALL the other bucks and deer for that matter. Much more reclusive. Much more sticking to cover and lower areas where they can sneak.

Counting my blessings by seeing everyone Ive ever seen and studying them. I have spent a lifetime doing that ever since and it has led to me being very successful at harvesting mature big bucks for sure. One or two a year every year for a couple decades at least.

Wise old man and taught me a ton about big bucks for sure. Thankful for every lesson he gave me on them.

Good stuff

To consistently kill big bucks, you gotta consistently have big bucks.

Okatuppa and Abolt dead on

Turkeys- call less sit longer.
Deer- they don’t have a watch or calendar, hunt when you can.

Don't go to them, make them come to you!

If you want to hunt the place, get your checkbook out and buy it.

Can’t kill what you don’t have. If you wanna kill big deer, then hunt them where they are. Not where they aren’t

Go hunt in N Alabama 😀

Deer are way easier to kill after dark. Newborn fawns in the spring also make for good hunting.

You can’t eat the horns!

Easier to kill after dark - that’s halarius

Yep, I kill more big deer now, than I ever did when I hunted “a lot”. But, you’ve got to have big deer, and the more of them you have, the crappier you can be at hunting them.

Regarding killing turkeys, I’m not sure if this was taught to me or I just learned it the hard way…

Where you sit your azz and when you move it, is what kills turkeys.

They call it hunting, not killing for a reason.

Play the wind

Go hunt. Enjoy the memories.

Wind, pressure, and availability. Like already said, if they ain't there, you're not going to be successful.

have fun

That's some great advice. It has always amazed me at the number of people who cannot hit a doe eating grass 75 yds away. And that was out of a decent stand with some sort of rest. I used to carry a lot of church members who just hunted occasionally and many of them had never taken this advice.

Best hunting advice I've ever gotten was about turkey hunting, and it came right off this forum. Yekrut said that too avoid a turkey jinx, when you kill a gobbler get down and roll around in the feathers and blood like a dog and get as much as possible on your hunting clothes. Then don't dare wash them until the season is over. I started doing it and haven't been jinxed since.

It would probably work for deer too, but I don't care about them enough to do it.

^^^^
Not sure I believe all that but when I kill another if good Lord let’s me I am trying it on turkey

Feel tremendously unlucky. Watched turkeys before season every day on camera then they leave either a few days before season last 2 years or for first time they did stay around 4-5 days after season this year - they were henned up - I could not get on the one I did call In and another one came in behind me - now they appear to be gone again. Neighbors property is beautiful hardwoods where they go to - but I just got thinned timber - maybe they be back. Always wonder if neighbor feeds during season - he did try to get turkey rights from me

And today I just went on a 1000 acre spot that was new to me that has had turkeys in the past - not a peep - not a turkey track on 3 hour walk
My 80 in Sweetwater my neighbors try to keep turkey run off me or poach

I feel more likely to hit a hole in one than kill a turkey right now - and I can kill Turkeys if they want to gobble - hard 3 years - had 20 plus day stretches the last 2 years when I did not even hear a turkey gobble - most people prob quit

Thanks for tip PCP

And with all that complaining - I am still A very blessed man - just having turkeys to hunt is not my strong suit 🤣 - i have pretty decent deer spots though for this area