The hunting industry is chock-full of good advice. From bed hunting strategies and how to read mature buck sign, to adopting a mobile mindset to surprise a deer in its core range, there is no shortage of content that can teach you how to get better at the whitetail game.
There is also a lot of content designed to get you to buy something, and I know this well, because I’ve created a ton of it. While buying the latest deer call or decoy can certainly help you put a buck on the ground, there are a few decisions I’ve made in my life that have undoubtedly helped me fill more tags than anything you can order online, and they might help you as well.
Off The Sauce
I took my first drink when I was 13, and my last when I was 32. The years in between, I took a lot of drinks. Too many, according to almost anyone who knew me then, and also according to my liver. Functioning alcoholism is rampant in our society, and it got me good.
The arrival of two babies at the same time finally gave me a reason to face who I really was, and while I wouldn’t say quitting drinking was easy, I will say that it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I had no idea how much it affected my life, and how much of an influence it had on my hunting.
Now, killing more deer is a poor reason to quit drinking, but I couldn’t help but notice how different my hunts went after I got off the sauce. I slept better, which was a huge benefit at home, but a game-changer on the road. I had more energy to scout, hang sets, and sit longer. I also didn’t feel like shit when I got into my morning stands, which meant I could focus more on the task at hand. It was like a new world opened up for me, and in that world, I was a better hunter who enjoyed my time in the field even more.
A Physical Reality Check
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve ridden around more on side-by-sides to do deer and bear work than I have in my entire life. I’ll admit, it’s pretty sweet. I get the appeal of not burning too many calories to hunt, but I also know that when I quit drinking and started working out, the whitetails suddenly found themselves in more danger around me.
I realize the fitness craze in hunting makes a lot of us want to puke, and I get it. I also know that when I quit drinking, I thought I was in good shape because I’m a man with an ego big enough to overshadow reality.
Trying to run a 5k after nearly two decades of professional alcoholism showed me what I really was, and it was not pretty. Getting into the habit of working out was way harder than getting off the sauce, but it has been a huge benefit to my hunting success. The physical aspect of hunting is what you make it, but even with whitetails, there is a real benefit to being in better shape.
Think about the appeal of hanging stands, or setting blinds, or getting up for the fourth morning in a row to sit all day. Where do you land on that stuff? A lot of your feelings toward them probably stem from how fit you are. I know they did for me, and I can safely say the second-best decision I ever made that helped me be a better deer hunter was to swallow my pride and force myself to go to the gym. I know that sucks, but it’ll help you kill more big deer than literally any product you can buy.
Baby Makers
This is going to seem crazy to a lot of readers out there, but having kids made me a better hunter. I’m not saying that you should ditch the birth control in an attempt to kill booners, but instead to say that having my time suddenly not being mine anymore forced me to be so much more efficient.
Like a lot of soon-to-be fathers, I thought when my wife got pregnant with our girls that my time in the woods would disappear. It didn’t, it just became condensed. The first trip I took out of state after the girls were born involved only four days in North Dakota on public land. It felt like a scramble, but also a very targeted mission.
I hit a point where I accepted that I didn’t have enough time and I’d eat my nonresident tag, but with 15 minutes left in the trip, a two-year-old eight-pointer followed the script. It was a watershed moment for me because I realized that I could still do the thing I loved the most and be successful at it. I just needed to understand my new limitations and how to use my time wisely because I didn’t have much of it, and I suddenly didn’t want to be away from home for any longer than I needed to be.
Quitting drinking, working out, and using a family expansion pack aren’t typical routes to leveling up as a hunter, but they worked for me. There’s a lesson in all of them, and I hope, for all of us who love the deer game enough to want to get better.
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