Preparation is the key to Success
If you're anything like me, you can't wait for Deer Season. On June first of each year, in my home state of Florida, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission starts accepting applications for the quota hunt permits necessary to hunt for the opening week of the General Gun Season, and for various special scheduled hunts around the state. After going without hunting for so long, it suddenly becomes a priority again; get that license, fill out that application, send it in before it's too late! Suddenly September 26 (this year's opening date for Archery Season) doesn't seem so far away. I start to crave the woods; I want to find a big ol' rut scrape and climb a tree and wait for hours on end to ambush that big buck I've been seeing sign of for the past 4 years... Then I wake up and realize that it's June, and the heat index is a whopping 120 degrees.
Still, it's never too soon to start practicing your shooting skills. In my own bowhunting experience, I have found that the only way to consistently improve my accuracy is practice, practice, practice. Sometimes the skills aren't enough to lead to kills, but we each need to do our best to improve our marksmanship and our familiarity with the equipment we'll be toting in the woods. Now's the time to dust off the bow, make sure that $60 sight is working properly, replace batteries if required, check out those arrows and broadheads, and who-knows-how-many other items.
Don't neglect your guns, if you're planning to hunt in the Gun Season. Clean up that rifle or shotgun, get out to the range, and burn up some ammo. Complete familiarity with your equipment is a must when you're hunting with a rifle or shotgun, as well as with a bow. I read often, in hunting magazines, bowhunting columnists who stress, as they should, the need to learn about and to thoroughly know your bow and related gear. But rarely do I see the same statement directed towards hunters who use guns. Sure, it's easier to shoot a deer with a gun than it is with a bow, but unless, unlike myself, you live where the deer are very plentiful and tame, getting game with a gun usually isn't all that easy.
You need to be familiar with the tools you'll be using. I'll give you an example. This past gun season, in the fall of '97, my father and I were staying at a friend's place (now my very own home!) close to the Ocala National Forest for a week. Wednesday, I decided to hunt the edge of a clearcut. In this neighborhood, clearcuts can get big; I would guess this one was better than 100 acres. Since I had all that open land in front of me, I borrowed Dad's scoped 30-06. I'll make a long story short: that morning I hit, but didn't kill, both a coyote and a bobcat. They were both hits, just not good ones.
Since I have always been in favor of a slow-moving heavy bullet versus a light, high-velocity one, I promptly returned the '06 to Dad and went back out to the clearcut with my tried and true Ruger 44 magnum carbine, no scope, just a Williams peep sight. That afternoon I shot a spike, deer number 16 for that rifle. My point is, I'm used to that 44; I've toted it for 16 years in the woods, and I know it well. It just wasn't a problem making the shot once I determined that the buck's antlers met the five-inch minimum legal length.
So, take the time to get familiar with your chosen equipment, be it rifle, bow, shotgun, or all of the above. It could mean the difference between making a clean kill or letting that big one get away, possibly to die in misery later if you make a bad shot. Besides, practice is fun!
- Russ Chastain
