Editor’s Note: You can scout for the perfect spot for taking deer, put up your stand and camp out to wait for deer to come along. But all your work will do you no good, if you’ve picked an obvious place that other hunters also will choose. The trick to bagging big bucks is to think outside the box like other hunters don’t. Here are some tricks I’ve learned through 50+ years of deer hunting that have helped me overlook the obvious and take more bucks.

Lead Deer to You

Like humans, deer will travel the path of least resistance. Bucks with wide, tall antlers may avoid thick-cover areas. However, if you’ll go into the center of any thicket and cut a 2-foot-wide trail that runs in the same direction as the prevailing wind, the deer generally will use that trail to move through the thicket. For instance, to cut a trail into a gallberry thicket, I’ll go 20 to 30 yards into that thicket. I’ll cut a trail that runs from northwest to the southeast, since a northwest wind usually prevails in Alabama, my home state. Then I’ll take a stand on the end of that trail and look down the trail with the wind in my face.

Hunt the Clear-Cuts

Have you ever had a productive hunting area that later someone has cut as clear and clean as the sidewalk in front of your house? Study that section of land, and look for deer trails. Deer often will use the same trails to go across a property after someone clear-cuts it as they’ve used before. Map out these trails on your GPS. As the young pines and the brush start growing back, notice that the deer still will follow the same trails. Once the young trees and brush reach shoulder-high, move into these clear-cuts. Hunt the trails that the deer will continue to use and the exit points where these trails come out of or go into the clear-cut or the windrows.

John E. Phillips’ latest deer book “How to Hunt Deer Like a Pro: Volume II,” just was published on Amazon in print at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BGSP3QPB/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tpbk_p4_i4

The Audible version should be available by December. Since deer hunting and deer hunters are drastically changing each year, John interviewed some top deer hunters like Mark Drury, Dr. Larry Marchinton, Dr. Bob Sheppard, Pat Reeve, Gene Wensel, Cody Robbins, Ernie Calandrelli, Brian Murphy and Luke Brewster, who took the world’s largest whitetail, to learn their up-to-date techniques for successfully hunting deer and having more places to hunt.

Also, John’s first book in that series “How to Hunt Deer Like a Pro” at http://amzn.to/YpoQHA for Kindle, print and Audible, includes other outstanding deer hunters.

You need to check-out John’s book, “PhD Whitetails: How to Hunt and Take the Smartest Deer on Any Property,” available in Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007A2N792/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i8

and in print and in Audible at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1979793387/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p7_i5.

You may have to copy and paste these links into your browser. When you click on the books, notice on the left where Amazon says you can read and hear 10% of these books for free. On the right side of the page for each Audible book and below the offer for a free Audible trial, you can click on Buy the Audible book.

Tomorrow: Hunt Times Other Hunters Don’t