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"I wish I could train that buck!" If you ever find a bottle with a genie in it, save your wish for something better. Why? Because you are already training deer. The truth is that you train deer without realizing it, every time you go into the woods.
You're training them as surely as dog owners train their dogs. Look at it this way -- your dog learns quickly when to expect you home and when to expect his supper. He recognizes the signs that you're going to take him for a walk, and he's ready before you are. If you have a dog, your habits train him. Repeatability is the secret to training.
Football players repeat drills. Guitar players repeat chord transitions. And hunters train deer by doing repeatable things. In archery season when you take the same path to your tree stand, at the same time of day, with the same deliberate walk, you are repeating something deer quickly learn to avoid. You teach them to go to a safe place where you're not likely to go.
The big difference between training a dog and training a deer is that you are no threat to your dog, but you are a threat to a deer. You train a dog to eat on your schedule and to "do their business" on your schedule. You train deer when you will be in your tree stand, and they come to expect that. In archery season, when your timing meets their expectations, they will see you, or smell you, or hear you coming. They're probably even glad about that, and they will retreat to escape from you, or to surveil you from a safe place.
The same goes for rifle season. You park in the same place, enter the woods at the same place, walk the same path, and head for the same spot. When you hunt the same piece of woods you tend to hunt it the same way. Whether you hunt from an elevated stand or on the ground, you watch the same patch of woods. If you're a still-hunter, you use the same route, stop in the same places, and look ahead or down over the same hillsides.
To say humans are creatures of habit is not a discovery; it's simply an observation. We live by habits our entire lives. Habits form, habits change, habits can be good, habits can be bad, but
habits rule. Habits can train for greatness, or habits can train for mediocrity. Habits will bring success or failure in life. Your deer hunting habits work the same way.
One of the most difficult things to do when we're in the woods is to break our habits, to do things differently than we did the last time we were in the woods. Deer hunters should form anti-habits. That is how we avoid training deer. Otherwise, you will probably develop the habit of not getting deer.
Have you ever known a new hunter who got a nice buck on his first hunt? That guy probably didn't do anything that was routine. Have you ever got a buck the first time you were in an area? You hadn't become habitual in that area, so deer didn't know what to expect. After you developed habits on that property, you never had the same success.
So, one secret to deer hunting success is to develop anti-habits. If you avoid habits, deer will have a harder time avoiding you. Never do the same thing twice. Don't dream about training deer. Instead, work at becoming unpredictable so deer don't have expectations of you.
Take a different route -- and you're more likely to surprise deer. Don't show deliberation -- and deer might overlook you as a threat. Try to look aimless, purposeless -- and you might arouse the curiosity of deer. Reverse direction -- and you might catch deer that think you've moved on. Do something you've never previously done -- something deer don't expect.
Anti-habits help you avoid repeatability in the woods. Remember this -- your repeatable routines train deer as surely as they train your dog. And if you're having a dry spell, maybe this is why.
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When "The Everyday Hunter" isn't hunting, he's thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018 and 2023 national "Pinnacle Award" for outdoor writing.