If your not familiar with Dan Infalt he is a big buck killing machine. I read an article written by him yesterday and I thought y’all would find it interesting. I’ll link the article below but here is an excerpt:

“When I look over my past success hunting whitetails there is one thing that stands out. The majority of my hunts are from stands that I have hunted in the past, but the majority of mature bucks I have shot have come from stands the very first time I ever sat them. I think the majority of hunters do not realize how important first-time sits are. Human scent can remain on your walking trail and at your stand site for a week or longer. Bucks do not get to be 5 years old or older by walking around in daylight where they smell hunters, or where they have smelled them in the past. If they have lived on that property for several years there is no doubt in my mind they know every spot hunters regularly hunt, and they avoid those spots in daylight.”


Full article

Dan's forum has opened my mind up a lot and I'm pinpointing buck specific beds in general with pretty good accuracy when boots hit the ground. Him, sean mcvay, catman, the hunting public have all helped me really up my sightings the past couple years strictly hunting public. The number one thing I start with is find the bedding areas, then figure out which wind works for that bedding area, then hunt the hottest food, scrape, run line, intersection whatever it may be nearest the bedding only on winds where the deer are likely to be there. And hunt a rotation of spots if you can, like a couple dozen of possible.

I agree with everything you said. Those guys you mentioned are sharing a wealth of knowledge on their sites and YouTube channels.

go check out the recent videos by The Hunting Public with Dan and the DIY Sportsman guy. They all teamed up to do a public land group hunt in Minnesota. Extremely interesting ideas about deer hunting that are obviously successful. Really learned a lot from those guys in the past couple years.

Ya man, I’ve been watching all of them. They killed a giant today but the video isn’t up yet.

Awesome! Just watched the KY public land hunts earlier. The P&Y buck that Ted killed was a heart pumper of a video.

Yes it was! I’d love to share a camp with those guys.

The importance of the "first sit" and how the percentages of killing a mature buck in a particular stand goes down with each sit is not new info. Always save you best stands for " when the time is right" .

Lots of good info on the hunting beast forum. I first heard of Dan last year on the Down south hunting podcast. The interview was a good one with him and John eberhardt in a heated discussion on sent control. I’m a member on his forum but I don’t post much. I’m slowly learning and applying the beast style of hunting.

Watching and learning these guys can be very educating,on learning how to
hunt the right way. But the fact is you have got to have the right land
In the right place to Kill huge bucks like them guys.

They hunt public land quite often. Do you mean that you have to hunt up North to kill big bucks like those guys or that you have to have private land?

One thing I've learned from watching or listening to those guys mentioned is that they simply work harder than 90% of hunters are willing to in order to kill deer.

yes; for years, as a new hunter, i thought my older brother was lazy as h*ll! LOL what i came to realize is -- he went "when the time is right" -- and had far more success than me ... i changed strategies after a while

I’d say from watching the Hunting Public guys that they do their homework, but also some of the public ground they hunt is light years different from the public ground in the south. Not saying mature deer aren’t killed on public land here but there is a stark difference between hunting the Midwest and Southeast. I’ll give them that they are creative in how they hunt and obviously really good at targeting mature bucks so still a lot of applicable knowledge to be gained from their shows.

Sure I would tend to agree that public land in the midwest, heck public land 50 miles north of where I sit right now is better than anything in Alabama.

I do know that The Hunting Public guys are planning a public land deer hunt in Alabama this season, although I'm not sure where. Could be Sam R Murphy since they turkey hunted it this past Spring.

Perhaps that will shed a little more light on the subject for us.

I'm pretty sure they're hunting the bankhead when they come down.

I’ll definitely be keeping up with their public land hunt down here. Interested to see if they can put one on the ground out in Bankhead.

Now to get back to the original point of the thread, my experience has been that a first sit in a new location I have fairly good luck at least seeing deer. As the season wears on sightings usually don’t increase if I hunt that same spot. After one season of figuring out an area, I typically will hold off until I know conditions are favorable for that area. You can scout like a mad man but a season of hunts will give you a good idea of what’s going on there, and you can usually use that for future reference... The big exception to that is if there has been timber cutting or some other major change in the environment.

Wow I had not heard yet they’d be going to Bankhead. They dang sure will have their work cut out for them to kill a good ern. I’ll be pumped to watch that one.

My money is on them not even seeing a deer the whole trip

Aaron Warb mentioned it briefly in one of the "where should we go?" vids before the deer drive started. Said they had friends in that region or something along those lines. I'm gonna laugh if they come down and don't even see a deer. The looks on their faces onestly might be as enjoyable as them killing a buck lol.

Most of my first sets are on the hottest, freshest sign. I've noticed over the years that a buck will be on a 3 day pattern. Whether I hunt him or not, he resets after that.

I contribute it more to hunting the freshest most current sign, versus the first time there.