The Time Puzzle

I’m sure that just about everyone out there has heard the old saying, “timing is everything”. It’s a sure bet that serious trophy whitetail hunters know just how pertinent that saying is to our sport. For as we all know, a few minutes here or there often spells the difference between failure or success.

In my book, “Proven Whitetail Tactics”, I wrote that most serious hunters have at one time or another wished that they could come up with a way to accurately predict exactly when a big buck was going to walk by their stands. After all, this would eliminate much of the guesswork involved with hunting trophy whitetails.

So the obvious question looms, “Is there a way to accurately predict when big bucks are going to be moving past our stands?” Well, even after having that question posed to me dozens of times over the past 20 years, I still don’t know if I’ve come up with a legitimate answer. Actually, let me rephrase that. I still don’t know if I’ve come up with an answer that most people are willing to accept.

Obviously, the best time to be on your stand is to be there at the exact time when the buck you want walks by. Unfortunately, trying to figure out when that event occurs may be the single most difficult task facing trophy whitetail hunters.

Now I’m not going to blow a lot of smoke and pretend that I know exactly when I should be on my stands. The secret to my success over the years is that I’ve spent a LOT, a LOT, of time in the woods. I think you’ll find this to be the case with any consistently successful whitetail hunter. You can’t shoot them if you’re not out there, period. Expecting whitetails to adhere to any sort of schedule is akin to thinking they’ll play by a set of human rules. It just isn’t going to happen.

The way I see it, if the day ever does come when we’re able to accurately predict exactly what time a big buck is going to move and exactly where he’s going to walk, every bit of the challenge will be gone from this sport. At that time, I’ll be the first to hang up my bows and guns. And that my fellow hunters comes straight from the heart!

Hey remember, hunt hard, but always hunt safe!