I have been hunting the deer in 4 southern states for 46 years. I didn't even see any deer the first 2 years. I din't kill one until my 5th year. The older I get, the more deer I kill. I had to spend a lot of time listening to older hunters and learning from them, so that I could understand the deer as well as the terrain, weather patterns, reading sign, etc.
I didn't go to college until I was 38. A lot of the younger students wanted to learn how to hunt deer, and I bought a home and some property in GA near the campus. We would set up drives when the pressure drove the deer to go nocturnal. If we were short of standers, I would set out dirty, sweaty socks and tennis shoes at both ends of the edge where the clear-cut growth changed over to open field. It was hilly ground, and I would direct the standers to setup over looking the gullies. Since I was driving the thickets with my sons, it didn't matter that I had the smell of the socks/shoes on me. There were several good deer killed using this approach. As the deer headed for the corners, they would wind the stinking socks/shoes, turn toward the center to avoid the roads on either side, and turn toward the center and the gullies where they could slip through unseen. Some did manage to slip through and were seen, but too late to take a shot. Me and my sons wore plenty of orange, and as we got close to the standers, we would back off so as to avoid any mis-haps. Even though I had coached them well about safety, I didn't want to chance any buck fever accidents.
Deer are always hard to figure, but sometimes you do have to pull out your bag of tricks,or go without meat. With 4 kids to feed, and many students who wanted to try venison, I definitely needed the meat. We had a blast, killed many deer, and I made a lot of friends for an older student. They nick-named me "Boomer" cause I taught them to shoot too, and I am a baby-boomer. They also elected me to be the President of the Student Body during my Junior year. And I thought it would be hard to make friends at college cause I was older. Hunting has always been a blessing to me, even during those first 5 dry years. I always enjoyed those days afield with my elders.
