A Beginner's Guide to Deer Hunting

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Shoot from various positions. Sight in your firearm from a bench, then practice shooting offhand, seated, prone, resting against a tree—in short, any way that you might be forced to shoot when taking aim at a deer. The same applies to archery. Practice from a kneeling position, from your garage roof, and so on (Fig. 4).

Then, whether you hunt with rifle, shotgun, muzzle-loader, or bow, do not take a shot at game at any range in which you haven't consistently placed bullets or arrows within a six-inch circle in practice. For most bowhunters, this puts the outer limit within 30 yards (or less). Many black-powder shooters may want to hold themselves to 60 to 80 yards, shotgun slugsters to 60 or less. Riflemen or -women using iron sights will probably want to avoid shots beyond 100 yards, while those using scopes can probably shoot out to at least 150 yards. (And yes, I know many of these distances seem conservative. If you're sure you can hit consistently at greater range, go for it, but don't fool yourself on the basis of a few practice hits. You should be able to fire from the distance in question and place one bullet or arrow after another into an area approximating the heartlung area of a deerthat six-inch-diameter circle mentioned above.)

LEARN TO SIT QUITELY AND PAY ATTENTION, AND YOU WILL GET THE DEER.

Into the Woods

So now you've located a well-populated piece of deer woods and honed your shooting skills until just thinking seems to send the bullets or arrows into the target. Just what do you do to put yourself within range of an animal? First off, I'm going to assume you're hunting white-tailed deer, since many more hunters pursue them each year than take off after mule deer (would-be muley hunters will find specific tips in the accompanying sidebar by Western Editor David Petersen).

Second, I'm going to assume that you are indeed a novice at the art of venery. With those two givens, your best hunting method will be to sit down and stay put. That is, set up a tree stand (Fig. 5) or simply park yourself against a big trunk with the wind in your face, looking over an area through which your scouting tells you deer regularly travel. Then wait. Sit still and wait. If you have to swat a mosquito, do it in slow motion. If reading a book helps you keep still, do so, but keep it down between your knees so the pages can be turned out of sight of that deer you can't see yet.

And really, that's nearly all there is to it. Oh, you can increase your "invisibility" in a number of ways. Full-camouflage clothing and makeup is all but essential if you hope to get the close-range shots called for in bowhunting. The same gear can be a real boon to the gunner, too, but check your state's laws concerning the wearing of blaze orange, and at the least wear orange-based camouflage during rifle season. No deer is worth taking the risk of making yourself a target for a careless hunter.

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