If I’m being honest, the whole idea for this article came from something that is totally understandable but also kind of annoying. People love to ask me what it’s like to hunt with Steve Rinella, and I get it. He’s one of the biggest names in the sphere, and he has a wealth of experience.
But, I never know if they are asking me what his personality is like, if he’s a good hunter, if he tells amazing stories around the campfire every night, if he’s a considerate cuddler in a tent, or what. I’m not going to address all of those, but I’ll say this—he has some deeply engrained attributes that all of the best hunters have, even whitetail hunters.
Curiosity Killed the Cat (And Anything Else You Can Get a Tag For)
In whitetail hunting, we strive to take the mystery out of the game as much as possible. The primary method you’ll see portrayed in a hell of a lot of whitetail hunting content all involves taking the what-ifs off the table. Plant a food plot to make them come to you, or put out an automatic feeder that spins a cupful of corn onto the ground at exactly the same time every day.
Make a mock scrape and hang a cell camera on it. Whatever we can do to reduce the unknowns, we will do. Look, you do you, Boo, but the truth is that if you want to be a good hunter, you have to not only be curious, but foster curiosity in yourself.
I’ve had the good fortune of getting to ghost-write for a couple of extremely successful guys in the outdoor space who are self-made millionaires a few times over. They are both crazy curious people, and so is Rinella. If you aren’t asking yourself questions and then trying to answer them, you’re at a huge disadvantage. When it comes to whitetail hunting, asking yourself why a buck did this and not that, or why they always use that trail and not another one, or why this camera is dead but that one is just full of activity, you’re not growing as a hunter.
Think about the folks who just always get it done on public land, and ask yourself if you view them as generally curious people. They are, and it’s one of the main ingredients in being a successful hunter, but it’s not the only one.
Go with the Flow
This week you’ll have the chance to watch the film Steve and I made with his buddy, Pat Hoffman, down on Pat’s family ranch in Nebraska. I was tasked with being the setup guy for that hunt, so I had to scout it and develop a rut plan. After e-scouting it, then walking the property for a couple of days in July, I knew one thing—we were all about to decoy in big bucks during the rut.
When I went back in August to hang stands and put up blinds, I felt even more sure that the doe decoy factor would be huge. The ground on that working cattle ranch is mostly open, and that visibility paired with cruising bucks, would seal the decoy deal.
We ended up shooting three great bucks in four days, and never once took a decoy out. What I was so sure of, was just dead wrong. This happens to me a lot when it comes to whitetails, and it’s always a moment where my ego is forced to wrestle reality, and if I’m lucky, reality wins. The best hunters out there learn to develop a plan, but to also go with the flow. Hunt with conviction, but also be very open to new information, and how that can alter the best strategies.
This mindset works, but only when it gets paired with more and more experience. This is the key to finding the balance between trying something for enough time, but pivoting if it doesn’t work instead of riding a dead program right into another buck-less season. It’s not easy, but that’s why it works.
Trust the Process
If you watch that Nebraska film, you’ll see Steve out setting traps, during the first week of November, while Pat and I find ourselves in bow-range of great bucks. I’ve written a ton about patience in the whitetail woods, so I won’t go too deep here, but I’ll say this: If you aren’t patient, you’ll never be good at this stuff.
It is, without question, the most crucial skill to develop as a hunter. Second guessing is the enemy, and time on stand is your friend. No one talks about how hard it is to do dark-to-dark sits, or spend hours on a spot with no deer activity because you believe one will show up, but it is truly difficult. I hunt a lot of public land, and I often see parking lots clear long before the morning is done. There’s a good lesson in patience there.
If you learn to trust the process and put in enough time to see a plan through from day to day, you’ll string together something that will lead to success. This is something Rinella is really good at, and I have no doubt it at least partially comes from his penchant for trapping. There is a process to it that involves reading the land, putting in the physical work, checking the lines, and deciding if you made the right moves.
Almost all of hunting follows a similar path, and I know whitetail hunting does. Scout enough to build a plan, implement it, and then listen to what the deer tell you. Be patient with them and the process of finding them, and eventually you’ll start to encounter big bucks on a regular enough basis to make those long dead sits completely tolerable because you know eventually something is going to happen.
Steve and Tony’s Nebraska whitetail hunt is live this Thursday, be sure to tune in then!
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