Editor’s Note” “My grandmother had a problem,” Jamie Jensen informed me. “The deer were eating her garden, primarily the peas and the beans, but also not culling the corn and some other vegetables. I set-up a trail camera along a deer trail leading from a briar and honeysuckle thicket about 20 yards into the woodline. I felt sure the deer were bedding near there.  After my trail camera had been out for about a week, I spotted two does and one huge buck leaving the thicket and coming to the edge of the woodline to walk down the trail to my grandmother’s garden. But there was only one good place to set-up a tree stand, and it wasn’t on that trail. Because Grandmother had nearby neighbors, I’d have to hunt and take this buck with my bow, so the report of the rifle wouldn’t freak them out.”

To have a shot at the buck of his dreams, Jensen knew he would have to get those deer to abandon the trail they’d always walked down and create a new trail that the deer could switch over to that still would provide access to the garden as well as funnel the deer by that one lone tree big enough where he could place his tree stand and shoot his bow.

“I used my grandmother’s lawnmower and weed eater to cut down the weeds from the garden to the edge of the woods, creating a trail, about 6 weeks before bow season was to start,” Jensen reports. “I also piled-up brush for about 5-6 yards from where the old deer trail left the woods and went out into the field.  I used the brush to funnel the deer off the old trail and onto the new lawnmower path I’d cut and set-up my trail camera.”

Jensen stayed out of this region for about 2 weeks before returning to check the trail camera to see if his plan had worked.

“I saw photos of the does, the big buck and also two younger bucks using my lawnmower-cut path when I pulled the card from my camera,” Jensen explains. “I stayed away from this stand site until opening day of bow deer season. However, I did cut a smaller trail with my weed eater to enable me to reach my tree stand on days with a northwest wind, the dominant wind in Alabama most of the time, without my being seen or heard.”

About 3:00 pm on bow season’s opening day, Jensen sprayed down his body, his clothes and his boots on the soles and the uppers with Scent A-Way and then climbed into his stand.

“About 5 minutes before dark, the does walked past my tree stand,” Jensen recalls. “Next the two small bucks came in, and finally the big buck. Once he was 25-yards away, I drew my bow. At 20 yards, I grunted, he stopped, and I released my arrow. The buck only ran back to the edge of the woods before piling-up.”

Expert Guidebooks on BowHunting Deer: Best Sellers

How to Hunt Deer Up Close with Bows, Rifles, Muzzleloaders and Crossbows
To be more successful as a deer hunter, learn all you can about the animal, the wind, the temperature and the techniques required to get in close.

In this book, you’ll hear about some of the best hunters in the nation who know how to hunt deer close, including one of the greatest archers who ever lived, Howard Hill.

John E. Phillips also shares his own deer stories and hunting tips from 50 years of experience.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

Many deer hunters have told me: “I want a deer-hunting book with regular hunters who are just like me” and “I want a deer-hunting book with the best advice from the best professional deer hunters in the nation”. 

Mossy Oak’s Pro Staff is made up of some of the nation’s best deer hunters, professional deer hunters, and TV hosts whose names and advice often are heard in deer camps all over the nation. But many of the more than 1,000 Mossy Oak Pro Staff hunters are everyday, weekend, and vacation deer hunters just like you.

Whether you hunt private or public lands, you’ll find tips and tactics in this book from the Mossy Oak Pro Staff that will increase your odds for locating and taking the bucks of your dreams. 

If you’re serious about learning to hunt and take deer with a bow, if you’re looking for a different strategy that will help you identify and harvest big bucks, if you want to learn from your misses as well as from the shots that connect, and if you enjoy being in the great outdoors that the Good Lord has blessed us with, then this book is for you.

VERSIONS: AUDIBLE, KINDLE & PRINT

Tomorrow: Make a Deer Come to You