What made your most successful hunt successful

My most successful hunts are nearly identical in details.

2003 Opening Day -- The Savage Spoke



2007 Opening Day -- The Savage Spoke Again



The story is real simple:  I went to my favorite stand, climbed up and sat down. Shortly before sunrise, The Big One came out and stood broadside to me at short range. In 2003, it was the first rifle hunt out of this brand new stand.  In 2007, it was a nigh-on repeat, except the buck had   a hat rack considerably larger.

What made the hunts the most successful:

1)  The Rut.  In both cases, the bucks were in a feisty mood.  In 2003, I witnessed a fight between bucks and managed to bag the winner.  In 2007, the lesser bucks were all acting cagey and scared, because the big boy was taking on all comers.  I blew a little half-hearted grunt, and that was all it took to make him come prancing in from a good 200 yards off.

2)  The Stand Location:  I worked for two seasons prior to this trying to find the optimal spot to locate the stand.  I knew this was a hot spot from the beginning, but it had not paid off.  What I had was a saddle offering the best, easiest traverse between two large creek systems.  I had tried several places, and finally positioned a stand on the gully leading away from the western side of the saddle.  In the process, I had tried a similar position on the eastern side of the saddle, as well as near a bedding area further down the western side.  I made my final choice, because I had the best possible view over the most ground. Additionally, I was located in the midst of a stand of oaks that seemed to produce acorns that the deer favored. Truth be told, what really cinched it was the number of remnants of old rotted stands close by.  As best as I can tell this location had been producing since the beginning of the Modern Era.

3)  The Big Picture:  I'm not going to try and kid you about my superior skills as a hunter.  I am in a great spot in a great state.  The farms around my parts have gone from tobacco to beef and are slowly going fallow.  The deer outnumber the people.  We're on the edge of one of the top B&C counties in the state. 


On the emotional side of this, what made these two hunts so good was the feeling of accomplishment.  This was the culmination of 20 years of work, trying to make time despite a lot of important commitments.  It was the pay-off of several years of concerted effort to take the land I had acquired in 2001 and turn it into something better.

The rifle and load were both new in 2003.  I'd been trying to find just the right rifle for me.  This is probably my best stab at it to date:  a Savage 99 in 308 WIN.  The load mimicked a 300 Savage.  This has remained my GOTO gun since.  I am not going to say the rifle made the hunt, but I have to say having a rifle that feels just right does make a difference.  It was worth the effort.

The last thing that made it all successful was that for the first time, in 2007, I got to share it all with all three of my sons.  My younger two sons you have all heard about,  Angus and Moose. They both hunt with me and are becoming avid outdoorsmen.  You usually don't hear about Junior, my oldest, because he doesn't hunt.  He has a bunch of things going on that keeps him out of the field, the biggest one being autism.  For once, he got a chance to come out and be a part of it.  Out of all my hunting experiences, the trophy I probably most treasure is this picture from the Opener in 2007: