A Beginner's Guide to Deer Hunting

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Once you've narrowed your choices down to one or two areas, visit a hunting or camping shop that carries topographic quadrangle maps for your region, and purchase those that cover your planned hunting ground. (Do not venture far into any wilderness area without a map and a compass that you know how to use!) If you're beginning early to plan next year's hunt (the best bet at this late date), use the winter, spring, and summer ahead to do some scouting. Wear blaze orange if any of the various hunting seasons are open, but get out into the woods and note deer sign, water and food availability, and topograph ic features that might favor deer (which, if given the choice, will always choose the easiest path between two points, especially if the route is uphill). You might even go so far as to note concentrations of sign and the locations, dates, and times of deer sightings on your map (Fig. 3). A few months of such outings-which can be disguised as fishing trips, picnics, birding walks, and such-will have you entering the woods next fall with a good step up on the vast majority of deer hunters.

Of course, you're probably eager to get in a little hunting this year. If so, use the topo map to spot the same sort of features that you'd be looking for while scouting: streams or ponds, meadows or fields, draws between steep ridges, and so forth. You may not find deer concentrations right away, but you'll definitely be learning while you're looking.

ANYONE WHO'D HUNT WITHOUT CONCERN FOR THE MEAT DOESN'T BELONG IN THE WILDS

Choosing Your Weapon

Do yourself, your fellow hunters, and the game a favor; if you don't know whether you'll be using a rifle or bow, and if you don't know specifically which rifle or bow you'll be using, wait until next year to actually hunt. Familiarity and proficiency with the weapon are the most essential, and probably the most neglected, requirements for safe, successful, and ethical hunting. The deer will still be there next year. Choose your gun or bow now, use it regularly in the months to come (with the same arrows or ammunition you plan to use when hunting), and you'll be ready for your prey. Beyond stating that rule, I'll have little to say about just what you should choose. After all, your comfort with and confidence in the tool will make a lot more difference than action style, draw weight, caliber, and so forth when it comes time to let fly at a deer.

In general, though, rifles should be limited to .243 caliber and larger, and bows to no less than 45-pound-pull. Black-powder firearms should be no less than .45 caliber. If your state limits firearm hunting to shotguns, I'd be tempted to recommend one of the specialized 12-gauge "slug" guns with a rifled barrel, loaded with modem "sabot"-type slugs. This setup won't allow the versatility of a smooth bore (which will handle shotfilled bird loads better), but it will give greater range and accuracy in the deer woods. Again, though, choose what you will (of 20 gauge or larger), but take the time to get good with it before you fire at living meat.

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