One sure cure for snakebite is to manipulate the odds enough in your favor so that you will have a much better chance of getting a shot at a mature trophy buck. Is this really possible? The author says yes!

Want to increase your odds of shooting a mature buck this fall? Follow these four steps and your "snakebite" woes may disappear!

Are we going to hunt all day?" asked my friend and hunting partner Scott Goldman at the breakfast table over pork and fowl.

"We've been snakebit long enough, Scott," I replied. "And there ain't but one cure -- time in the woods."

I was not referring to the timber rattler that had managed to sink its curved fangs into my finger back in August while I was scouting near my home in east Tennessee. That was a real-life incident, but fortunately the snake hadn't done any damage. Instead, I was talking about my dry spell with regard to shooting a mature buck. The 2006 season had been my first season since 1980 that I had not taken a mature buck.

Because of my increasing desire to shoot bucks that were "long in the tooth," I had known that a dry spell would come sooner or later But realizing a dry spell would occur didn't lessen my desire to visit the taxidermist. Yes, my advice to Scott was that we would "hunt hard." And to both of us that meant hunting every minute legally available.

With every passing year, I realize that the secret to shooting older-age-class bucks boils down to four things: hard work, hunting the rut, hunting the right stand locations, and spending enough time in a stand. Any one of these four points will increase your chances somewhat, but not nearly to the degree that all four will when applied together. These important points serve one purpose: to put more mature bucks in front of you.

POINT 1
HARD WORK!
Let's take a look at what I mean when I use the words "hard work" in reference to deer hunting. Hard work to me means spending every waking hour available in the spring scouting hunting land from Tennessee to Illinois. Working hard means walking miles a day during my scouting trips over rough terrain and through briar-tangled thickets. It means walking up and down the same steep mountain four or five times to make sure I have not missed anything before I decide on a stand location.

Working hard is also going out at night after I've left my business and weeding two or three acres of food plots by hand with a flashlight strapped to my head. Working hard means personally hanging 25 to 35 tree stands each year. Working hard means getting up in the middle of the night after it starts to rain to pull a stand and relocate it a few yards to "just the right" location. Despite the inconvenience, rain covers a lot of the scent and disturbance that moving a stand causes.

Working hard means heading up the same 3/4-mile-long mountain 10 days in a row at 3:00 a.m. Working hard to me is spending Thanksgiving Day miles away from my family in a tree stand eating a cold sandwich instead of a warm Thanksgiving dinner.

Working hard is -- after putting in a full day's work on a regular job --spending the night working at my farming business so I can be in a tree stand the next morning at daylight.

I don't believe anyone can kill mature bucks legally on a regular basis without a lot of personal sacrifice and hard work -- unless, of course, you can afford to pay someone to do your work for you.

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