How to Hunt Pressured Deer Camps

Occasionally, someone would shoot a big buck, and I don’t mean big for the pine hills of Mississippi. They would have been big anywhere. But those opportunities occurred about as frequently as snow did. When someone killed a deer of that magnitude, it might as well have been snowing. Members would come to the camp house, folks’ plans for that day all but canceled, and even the hardest of men couldn’t help but grin and jabber on.

Like many other rural areas, a service station where you could get your tires rotated, buy bar and chain oil, or purchase a gallon of milk was the hub of the community. Once the initial shock at camp wore off, the proud hunter and other members made a procession to that store, where he or she would drop their tailgate for all to see. As the excitement died down, members would leave. One by one, trucks would pull out until the parking lot was empty. Like those seldom snow days in south Mississippi, everyone tried to milk the excitement as long as they could. Almost like they knew it probably wouldn’t happen again for at least another year, maybe two.

While those caliber of deer seemed rare, they certainly weren’t the only ones roaming the woods. During dog runs or even rabbit season, someone would jump a big buck. Neighboring camps would kill one, or the occasional road kill or dead head would attest to the class of bucks too.

Of course, the pressure and predictability of that camp kept a lot of those deer alive. Like most deer camps, it had pre-hung sets, generational ladder stands, and renowned box blinds named after terrain features or mature bucks once killed there. Hunting strategies for camp were limited to a pin-out board, and everyone stuck to the script. It’s not that members couldn’t try something new within their pinned-out area; they just didn’t.

The Dissidents

Eventually, a few dedicated bowhunters (which not a lot of folks did) started to have success by ditching the food plots, reading sign, and going to where the deer were—not where people wanted them to be. The fact that they were bowhunters gave them an immediate advantage in what was primarily a gun-hunting club.

They had an entire month and a half to hunt before anyone else, and this was before crossbows were legal. However, their willingness to rebel from traditional deer camp hunting and get “mobile” before it was cool enlightened everyone in camp. Big buck kills slowly went from occasional to annual, and it wasn’t uncommon that multiple were taken every year.

While most members still hunted the food plots or participated in the deer-dog drives, a handful of people, like my dad and grandfather, started keying on terrain features, using historical data, or hunting around the predictable spots rather than in them. Instead of sitting on the food plot, they would anticipate bucks j-hooking into them and hunt the woods. Rather than climbing a ladder stand overlooking a wide creek bottom, they’d walk the creek until they found the best crossing and hunt from the ground or a turkey stool.

They also started hunting a lot of the camp’s SMZs, where they had consistent success and long drag-outs in the dark. And surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) they were some of the few paying attention to the wind. No, they weren’t killing a Pope & Young every year, but they were shooting bucks that any of the members would have been happy to see.

While my dad and grandfather adopted these new strategies, they didn’t stop sitting on food plots completely, and they definitely didn’t miss the first week of deer-dog runs. But when the pressure heated up and deer sightings dropped, they hunted off the beaten path. They toed the line of enjoying the traditions of deer camp while hunting big bucks with purpose.

Tread Your Own Path

I know some deer camps frown upon or downright prohibit straying from specific stand locations. Those camps tend to occupy one end of the spectrum or another when it comes to success. But I know most camps typically use a pin-out or log system that gives each hunter a certain amount of acreage they can hunt. If that’s the case for your camp, and the daytime activity has dropped at the food plots or historical stand sites, it’s probably time to try something new.

For starters, look at your camp map with a fresh set of eyes. Rather than seeing the stand locations as huntable areas, think of them as no-deer zones. These spots get hammered, regardless of wind direction. You can bet the deer will do their best to skirt these areas. Not only will this approach point you in the right direction, it’ll actually narrow down where you should focus your efforts.

Every camp has spots that get run through like a cattle shoot. These spots typically become famous because someone killed a big buck there in the past, and everybody and their brother has been trying to repeat that same feat ever since. Don’t join the long list of folks who failed to kill anything there but their hopes. They’re hunting memories, not big bucks.

While I haven’t been to that camp in years, I sometimes talk with old members, and the hunting approach there remains largely intact. Most everyone shows up to opening week of deer-dog season or hunts the food plots, while a select few see consistent success. In that regard, it’s not so different from hunting anywhere else. I’m all for the community of hunting camps and how successful hunts seem to reinforce that aspect. While it might take a bit of healthy revolt to find consistent success in your deer camp, just think of it as enduring tradition.