It’s eight days before the opener of our Minnesota firearm deer hunting season. I’m done scouting. I’m in the process of getting all my gear ready, including a trailer load of camp equipment. I still have to get to the rifle range, and, darn, I still have lots of leaves in my yard to get rid of. Most importantly, I also have to finish getting ready for taking on a whitetail hunter’s greatest challenge: getting to a stand site where I expect to see a mature buck without the buck knowing it. The final 100 yards leading to the sites I plan to hunt opening weekend have been cleared of dead branches. The soft-surfaced clothes I plan to wear have been washed with scentless laundry soap and are now drying outside under the roof of my back porch where they will be aired out throughout the coming week. My new lightweight boots, now well broken in, and my homemade backpacked stool with an attached backpack are hanging out there as well. Everything metallic I plan to carry will be checked for telltale metallic rattles, including my rifle sling swivels and hand-held flashlight. The only other thing left to do will be done when I begin my hike to my stand site well before first light opening morning — planning to arrive at my stand site one hour before sunrise or 30 minutes before the first legal shooting minute of the day. I will drive no motorized vehicle to my stand trail or stand. No metallic pickup doors will be slammed there and no one will talk out loud once we leave camp. My clothing will not be tainted by gas, oil and exhaust fumes after riding a noisy ATV, OHV or snowmobile. At the beginning of my trail, I will remember to begin bending my knees with each step and putting my feet down lightly, like a silently stalking bear. Black bears do this so well. This is difficult to continue very long without thinking about it the entire way to a stand. Sure, I’ll be stepping on dead leaves and grasses or snow, but as long as I don’t halt the entire way, drag my feet, make loud footsteps or break dead branches underfoot, deer ahead (upwind or crosswind) won’t be able to determine what I am via hearing. If they can’t identify me by my footsteps, they won’t abandon the vicinity of my stand site before I get there and my chance of seeing that buck soon after at first light will be as favorable as it can be. This I know because in 70 years of whitetail hunting I’ve succeeded in doing this so many times.

Other deer hunters who have never tried tent camping in winter typically find it difficult to believe we can actually walk around barefooted in our tent in complete comfort while it is as cold as 27-below-zero outside. We sometimes even find it necessary to open a tent door for awhile to cool things down. The only time it is uncomfortably cold inside is when our alarm clock begins ringing at 4:00 AM in the morning. At that time it is customary for me to crawl out of my sleeping bag rated for 20-below, get a gas lantern going, stack and light wood in our two-barrel Alaskan-type wood stove, get some coffee water heating on our propane kitchen stove, pull on a jacket and boots to head to the latrine outside and check the thermometer and the direction smoke is billowing from our stove pipe on the way back. By then it’s cozy warm inside, my hunting partners are sitting up on their cots yawning and stretching and asking, “How cold is it outside?” or “Which direction is wind blowing?” having certain stand sites in mind.

We began our cold weather tent camping in 1965 beginning with a 10X10 umbrella tent and aluminum bunk cots, heating the tent with a Coleman cook stove perched on a homemade rack and a gas lantern only when necessary. I have to admit, we had to be Minnesotans accustomed to cold winters to endure cold nights in deer country back then. As my hunting gang grew in number, we graduated to larger tents and improved heating systems. Today we use two big tents, 14×18-20 feet long, heated with barrel woodstoves. We are now thinking about replacing one of our tents, 31 years old, with a 27-footer to accommodate our growing gang.

Though necessary for some of us to head north a few days early to set up our camps and cut, split and stack firewood, we would hunt whitetails no other way. Our camps and parked cars mark our favorite deepwoods hunting area like bucks mark their breeding areas with antler rubs and ground scrapes. More than 99% of other Minnesota deer hunters, always welcome for coffee, have respected (not hunted in) our current hunting area for 25 years.

Half of the joy experienced during our deer hunting seasons comes from our tent camping. The sounds of wood snapping, popping and mewing in our barrel stoves, Coleman lanterns hissing above, the smells of tent canvas and sumptuous hot evening meals shared in one tent, spiced with spirited games of cribbage, our latest tales of hunting adventure and howling of wolves on distant ridges beneath the moon make our days in deer camp among the most revered and rewarding of a lifetime.

Scouting is meant to take the guesswork out of whitetail hunting: finding what kinds of deer live where so you don’t waste time hunting where there are no intended quarries. To be productive, scouting should be thorough. If thorough enough, however, while scouting you will alarm many deer in your hunting area, most of which will temporarily abandon their home ranges. Does with young, yearlings and fawns, will likely be back in their accustomed home ranges within 1–3 days unless other hunters scout in the same area after you scouted. Upon returning, these does, yearlings and fawns will be extra alert up to 4 days. Upon being alarmed enough by you while scouting to make them raise their tails, snort and/or bound away at top speed, mature bucks (2-1/2 years of age or older) are likely to remain off range 1–2 weeks. Being experienced at surviving hunting seasons, upon returning, they will remain extra alert a week or more. Ideally, to ensure the whitetails of your hunting area will be doing predictable things at predictable sites (feeding areas or certain deer trails, for example) during predictable time periods (making them most vulnerable to hunting), you should complete your preseason scouting, stand site selections and other field preparations at least two weeks before a hunting season begins.

Scouting a day or two before the opener is one of the most ruinous things you can do. Afterwards, like one neighboring hunter said a few years ago, you’ll likely end up saying, “Hunting was disappointing. We didn’t see near as many deer in our hunting area as we saw while scouting the day before the opener.” If you can’t scout early enough, you’d be better off skipping preseason scouting all together.

A whitetail’s nose is only useful for detecting potential danger upwind. Though very sensitive to spotting movements, a whitetail’s eyes are not particularly effective for spotting motionless hunters at least 50% masked top to bottom by natural cover. The only sense that enables experienced whitetails (2-1/2 years of age or older) to identify and avoid danger 24/7 in every direction safe distances away is their excellent hearing. Ironically, most whitetail hunters spend considerable money on products intended to mask or eliminate human odors and on other products intended to mask or conceal their bodies, but few do little, if anything, to minimize or eliminate the enormous number of readily-heard, telltale sounds characteristic of humans hunting whitetails.

Many sounds unique to human hunters come from clothing — coarse-surfaced outer fabrics that create rasping or crackling sounds when brushed against tree trunks, branches, bark, foliage, tall grasses and shrubs. Some identifying sounds come from metallic objects carried in pockets such as jingling cartridges, a flashlight, knife, whistle, match safe and compass. In addition to squeaking sling swivels, their rifles frequently glance off or bang against tree trunks and branches. Their backpacked tree stands or metal-framed stools occasionally make distinctive, metallic sounds as well, and it is nearly impossible to install a portable stand in a tree without making identifying sounds. Hunters who speak out loud to partners while on the trail to a stand site, or sneeze, cough, clear their throats, blow their noses, spit and drag their heels on a quiet morning are soon pegged by every mature deer within up to 200 yards. Other identifying sounds include saplings slapping boot fronts and swishing branches snatching hunting caps. Much too often, branches break (snap) loudly when pushed through or stepped on by deer hunters. Meanwhile, deer hunter’s footsteps are characteristically heavy (loud) and frequently interrupted by periods of silence — the hunter often halting to scan ahead and listen — revealing to deer the hunter is hunting and therefore dangerous.

A common prelude to all these identifying sounds are sounds of approaching gas-powered vehicles — snowmobiles, ATVs or other off-road vehicles — easily heard while being off-loaded and running miles away. Most who use them drive them close to stand sites or trails leading to stand sites. Today, there is hardly a mature whitetail anywhere that fails to realize sounds made by any of these approaching machines means, “Here comes a hunter.” There is hardly a mature whitetail today that fails to realize when one suddenly becomes silent nearby, a crack of thunder may soon be heard or a hunter will soon be heard approaching on foot. There is hardly a mature whitetail today that fails to realize the familiar fumes of oil, gas and exhaust being carried on a breeze are coming from a hunter (clothing and boots) that recently used such a vehicle. Similarly, there is hardly a mature whitetail today that does not realize what to expect upon hearing an approaching truck or car halt nearby, typically followed by echoing slams of metal doors and human voices.

Isn’t it strange that the vast majority of the largest and best equipped army of whitetail hunters ever known continues to overlook the fact that sounds made by hunters are a main reason for a lack of hunting success?

There are quite a few elements that shorten morning and/or afternoon hours whitetails are active (most vulnerable) during hunting seasons. One of the most profound is wind. While winds exceed 15 mph, blowing steadily or gusting, few whitetails will be active during daylight hours (except, perhaps in west Texas where deer might consider a 15 mph wind to be relatively calm). While winds are 10–14 mph, daylight portions of morning and evening feeding periods will be reduced 60–90 minutes, about 30 minutes for winds 6–9 mph. While the wind is calm to light (5mph), whitetails are most active, not uncommonly active an hour longer than normally in the morning (until 11 AM) and beginning an hour earlier in the afternoon (2:30 to 3 PM). Why?

It’s because a whitetail’s most reliable means of detecting the approach of a predator or hunter from any direction, 24/7, its sense of hearing, is seriously handicapped by sounds caused by stronger winds. Winds that cause tree trunks and heavy branches to rock, scrape and screech against one another, cause branches to break, cause dead trees and branches or clumps of snow to fall to the ground or merely cause leaves, grasses and corn stalks to rustle loudly effectively mask sounds made by passing or approaching predators or hunters. Under such circumstances, the best way for a whitetail to avoid danger during daylight hours is to remain motionless and stubbornly bedded in the safest place it knows: its secluded bedding area.

Typically, however, winds strong enough to greatly alter periods whitetails are active in the morning do not ordinarily become strong enough until 9–10 AM — another good reason to be at your stand site 30 minutes before the first legal hunting minute of the day. Unfortunately, strong winds, steady or gusting, late in the day do not ordinarily abate until the onset of darkness (dusk). Once a strong wind, steady or gusting, becomes light or calm, however, whatever the time of the day, within minutes every whitetail in the woods is going to be up and about, feeding.

To be ready to take full advantage of periods whitetails will be predictably active (or not), keep track of local weather reports daily while hunting, beginning upon rising from bed in the morning. Then, despite predicted ruinous winds, hunt anyway. Endure the mild nausea (motion sickness) caused by your rocking stand tree because you never know, old mossy horns might show up regardless. Though uncommon, this has been proven in my deer camp several times (mostly by my son, Ken).

This may seem ridiculous, but in preparation for whitetail (buck) hunting I scout up to 31 times per year.

In spring just before leaves begin sprouting I scout 2–3 days, mainly searching for fresh mature-buck-sized tracks 3-1/2 inches or more in length and fresh mature-buck-sized droppings ¾-inch or more in length to determine where bucks 3-1/2 years of age or older are living in my hunting area, making later scouting easier. At this time I also search for browse areas (made evident by lots of ragged white tips on branches of woody shrubs and saplings) where my deer will begin feeding beginning the second week in November.

At least 2–3 weeks before a hunting season, I scout during one or two 3–4 day periods, mainly to check for evidences of feeding in graze areas (current grassy and acorn feeding areas), select and minimally prepare, if necessary, five stand sites and approach trails for the first 2-1/2 days of the hunting season (primarily around feeding areas with access from two wind directions) and check cruise trails, used beginning day three of the hunting season to search for very fresh buck signs (next stand sites).

Beginning on day three of a hunting season, until I take a buck I scout non-stop four times per day: 1) on the way to an intended stand site in the morning, sometimes changing stand sites upon discovering new fresh deer signs, 2) on the way back to camp via cruise trails between 11 AM and noon (most important), 3) on the way to a stand site in the afternoon and 4) on the way back to camp after dusk in the evening.

The rest of the time I hunt: sitting on my backpacked stool, using new (previously unused) ground level stand sites almost every half day and occasionally watching unsuspecting antlerless deer (great decoys), yearling bucks and 2-1/2 year-old bucks (sometimes taking one) while waiting for a big buck to appear, which generally happens sooner or later.

Being equally active in darkness and sunlight, the degree to which whitetails begin to favor being most active in darkness during hunting seasons depends on how often they must raise their tails and flee and moonlight. For hunted whitetails that have survived two or more previous hunting seasons, moonlight at night is the clincher (a no-brainer) for mostly limiting activities to nighttime hours only — the period during which they are not normally threatened by aggressive (roaming) hunters and/or alarmed by nearby gunshots. When there is moonlight before sunrise in the morning, even when provided by a mere sliver of a moon, where hunting pressure is moderate-to-great (including hunting pressure attributable to wolves), hunted mature whitetails are typically on their way to bedding areas when the first rays of sunlight begin to stream from the eastern horizon. When there is moonlight in the evening, hunted mature whitetails generally wait until dusk to stir from their bedding areas. When there is moonlight all night, few whitetails are likely to be seen on the move throughout the following day.

The moonlight effect may cancelled by dark, heavy clouds, moderate-to-heavy precipitation and/or winds exceeding 15 mph at night; occasionally by does in heat. Bright northern lights can have the same affect as moonlight.

By no means should you forgo hunting in a morning or evening because of moonlight. Most mature whitetails are rarely completely nocturnal. To improve your odds for stand hunting success, don’t miss a minute of legal shooting time during the first and/or last hour of the day. On a moonlit morning make it point to get to your stand site 30 minutes before first light so there will be complete silence and no discernable movements made by you during the 30 minutes between your arrival and the first legal shooting minute of the day. If you arrive at first light, you will have wasted half of that first hour. If you arrive at sunrise, you probably will have wasted the entire morning. On a moonlit evening, remain at your stand site until 30 minutes after sunset.

Ordinarily, skilled stand hunting is most rewarding during the weeklong period each 28 days when there is no moonlight at night. By skillfully keying on the first and last hours of the day during periods of moonlight, your odds for success can be nearly as favorable. Keep in mind, too, despite moonlight, lone yearlings and fawns (not being led by older experienced does) are likely to be active throughout hours whitetails normally feed in daylight.

Whereas whitetail fawns and yearlings do not think about it much and many 2-1/2 year-old bucks consider merely being out of sight of a hunter to be safe enough, while not bedded most bucks 3-1/2 to 6-1/2 years of age (few live longer) and many does 2-1/2 years of age or older are firm advocates of “the 200 yard rule” — responding in some way to avoid discovery by an approaching hunter currently about 200 yards away. It’s not a 100% effective rule because hunting humans cannot always be heard, seen or smelled that far away. Whenever possible, however, an older, experienced whitetail will always somehow react upon detecting and identifying a hunter about 200 yards away. If not moving toward the deer, it will generally ignore the hunter. If the hunter is drawing nearer (typically made evident by sounds characteristic of big-footed human hunters moving on foot), however, an older experienced whitetail will become prepared to do something to avoid discovery by the hunter. At first it may merely remain where it is and continue whatever it was doing, feeding for example, but during the following 15–30 minutes it keep extra alert in order to monitor the progress of the hunter. Once it appears the hunter will definitely close within 100 yards, the deer will begin moving away. If sounds indicate the hunter is moving non-stop, therefore not currently hunting, the deer will not usually move far, merely moving to nearby cover out of the approaching hunter’s path where it can watch the hunter pass. If sounds made by the hunter are often interrupted by short periods of silence, indicating the human is often halting, therefore hunting, the deer will silently vacate the area before the hunter is near enough to realize it, after which it will not likely return to the same area four or more days. The 200 yard rule thus enables mature whitetails to regularly out-maneuver unsuspecting hunters without the need for haste or the need to abandon their home ranges (a hunt-ruining response).

My family of whitetail hunters and I became addicted to hunting mature bucks after using primitive platforms nailed six feet above the ground between adjacent tree trunks in the early 1970s and using doe-in-heat lure scents introduced in the early 1980s, making buck hunting remarkably easy. By the late 1980s, however, mature bucks were beginning to prove they were learning to identify and avoid hunters using both of these hunting aids. It was then that we began searching for new and improved hunting methods, the relative effectiveness of each tried determined only by numbers of unsuspecting mature bucks seen within 50 yards during a specific (multi-year) period of time. It was then that we discovered about 85% of the mature bucks we were taking were spotted during the first three legal shooting hours of the day beginning one-half hour before sunrise, half during the first hour. We also then discovered it takes about a half hour for unseen upwind whitetails within hearing distance of our stands (50–200 yards away) to quit being especially alert and cautious after we sit down at our stands (then becoming completely silent). To avoid missing a minute of effective hunting time during those first three hours, in 1991 we made it a rule to arrive at our stands (in trees or at ground level) one-half hour before legal shooting time begins (one hour before sunrise). To facilitate unerring travel on foot in darkness, we mark our stand trails with fluorescent tacks that light up like Christmas tree bulbs in the beam of a flashlight. Today, this precaution remains our first rule for earning opportunities to take mature bucks.