Although the author has learned many valuable lessons during his 25-year quest to become a proficient bowhunter, two important steps learned along the way helped him the most.
By Don Higgins
Even though it has been more than 25 years, I still remember the hunt on which I killed my first whitetail like it was yesterday. It was Nov. 16, 1979, and I was hunting with my dad on opening morning of the Illinois firearms season. It was my third deer hunting season, and at 16 years of age patience was not one of my virtues.
Since a buck's greatest defense is his nose, the author's first giant step toward becoming a successful bowhunter was learning how to use the wind to his advantage so that he could get close enough for a shot.
I was ready for my luck to change. I wanted to kill a deer. I didn't care if it was a doe, just as long as I finally tagged a deer. The deer hunting gods must have thought I'd suffered enough. Barely an hour after sunrise, a nice 9-point buck walked down a field edge near my stand. He was soon wearing my tag. A well-placed slug from Grandpa's Remington shotgun dropped the buck, and at last I had entered the ranks of successful deer hunters.
Now let's fast-forward 25 years to Dec. 1, 2004. On that fateful day, I was fortunate enough to tag a monster whitetail grossing 214 inches after seeing the buck a total of four different times that season from four different tree stands. The story of this buck was detailed in the January 2006 issue of North American Whitetail. It was my second mature buck of the season and the third season in a row in which I had tagged two good bucks. In Illinois, hunters are allowed two bucks per season, all weapons combined. The gross scores of the six bucks I took over that three-year period average a fraction over 155 inches, and all were killed by bow.
During the 25-year period mentioned above, I went from the greenest beginner tagging my first deer to a bowhunter who finally started realizing some consistent success tagging mature bucks. It has been a long and enjoyable journey, and I have learned a lot of lessons along the way. Most of those lessons were just little things. But when compounded with each other, they made a significant difference in my whitetail hunting success. On the other hand, there have been a couple of lessons learned that have instantly made me a better hunter.
When I look back and try to analyze my hunting career, I can identify two distinct times when drastic improvements were made in my hunting success. In this article I am going to attempt to share those lessons learned with you. I like to refer to them as "giant steps" taken toward consistently being able to kill giant bucks.
GIANT STEP 1 -- THE WIND
I was around 20 years old when I first met Alan Foster. Al was a regular contributor to North American Whitetail in the 1980s, and we both worked for the same company at the time. With our shared passion for deer hunting, we soon became good friends and our daily conversations at work nearly always revolved around hunting big bucks. Al is 10 years my senior, and he was killing good bucks on a regular basis when I was still dreaming about it.
I didn't just trade hunting stories with Al, though. I saw a great opportunity and I seized it. I figured Al could surely teach me a thing or two about hunting mature bucks, and so I did two things: I listened to what he said and really took it in and tried to digest it. That was a good move on my part because my buck sightings instantly increased.
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