If you remember 1992, we had a tremendous snow storm on Halloween that year.  There was probably ten inches of fresh snow on the ground on November 1 and the temperature kept dropping as the wind kept increasing.  I couldn't afford decent gear so I was huddled in my waffle pattern longies and my barely insulated boots.  I froze.  Each morning I would stay on stand until I literally couldn't pull my bow back I was so cold and stiff.

I was a sign hunter.  All my scouting and all my stand locations revolved around deer sign.  I didn't have enough confidence in my knowledge of deer behavior, which was very limited, to hunt someplace where there wasn't a bunch of buck sign.  The problem was timing.  In some cases bucks will return to the areas where they made sign, but sometimes they don't.  Sign, by its very nature, tells you where a buck was, not necessarily where he was going to be next.

The week dragged on and I continued to freeze in my frustration.  Discouragement was setting in just as fast as frost bite.  On November 8, I was heading through a small standing cornfield to reach a stand that I had overlooking a scrape.  As I neared the end of the field, I was looking at a brushy fence row, along which I had to walk to reach the big timber where my stand hung.  When I was still 40 yards from the fence row I spotted a nice buck walking along the brush edge.  He seemed giant, but likely he was something along the lines of a 135-inch eight pointer.  I wasn't able to get a shot and went on to my stand overlooking the scrape.  Once again, nothing came within sight.  The whole time I sat there, I kept thinking about that buck.  There was no sign along that fence row, why was he there? 

Finally, it dawned on me that he was just using it as a travel route to get from one block of timber to the next.  A light bulb came on - you don't need buck sign to shoot bucks, you only need a travel route.  I was back at noon the next day, putting up a stand in a gnarly old box alder tree in that fence row, right where I had seen the buck the day before.  By dark I had seen five bucks and shot the biggest one, a dandy, wide eight-pointer.  

It took two months before I got my full feeling back in my toes after that week of hunting, but the lessons were worth almost losing a few digits off my hands and feet.  Here is what I learned that has served me well ever since.

LESSONS LEARNED

1.   I learned that you don't need buck sign to shoot a buck. 

2.   I learned that deer, especially bucks, follow the path of least resistance when traveling during the rut and they also orient toward cover whenever possible.

3.   I learned that you can't pattern bucks during the middle of the rut - it is an exercise in frustration.

4.   I learned that it is much easier to get in and out of a travel route stand without alerting deer than stands located right in their living rooms.

5.   Finally, I realized that you can pick some pretty darn good stand sites simply by studying an aerial photo, without ever walking the property.