Photo: When was the last time you saw a deer wearing a watch? It might take abandoning yours to start seeing deer again.
After spending many years hunting white-tailed deer, I have come to the conclusion that if they don’t wear watches, why should I?
Think about it; they don’t care if it’s breakfast, lunchtime or even time to go to the bathroom.
Everything they do occurs according to natural rhythms.
I’ve witnessed they are sometimes perfectly content to stand in one place for a long time for no apparent reason at all.
As hunters, we are too often at the mercy of the clock and pre-set schedules. This prompts us to constantly keep track of what time it is, making it easy for deer to pattern us.
For instance, if we predetermine to get down from the stand if we haven’t seen any movement by 8:30 a.m., what if the deer are in a cycle that won’t require them to move into your area until 9:15? Big mistake.
If your instinct tells you to keep sitting, forget your watch. Keep sitting!
I’ve learned if I take my mind off the clock, I can sit back to more fully enjoy the hunt. It’s a great time to pray, meditate and learn patience, too.
So, I suggest we become more like deer and forget about the watch.
Editor’s Note by Tim H. Martin
I love Ed’s tip! Allow nature’s clock: moon phase, temperature, barometric pressure and, above all, your built-in instinct to determine your hunting schedule.
Whitetails move, eat, rut and bed according to what is going on around them, so if we forget the clock and use our inner hunter to tap into those rhythms, we will be more successful.
If your gut is telling you the bucks will be chasing does from 10 until 2, call an audible. Abandon your routine of arising well before dawn and throw them a curve ball at midmorning.
After watching your flashlight morning after morning and listening to you bust through the timber in the pre-dawn hours, it doesn’t take a whitetail long to figure out what’s what.
If you stop seeing movement early, go against the grain and try midday. It might seem unnatural at first, getting to get into the woods well after daylight, but this tactic works. And like Ed says, deer don’t wear watches.