Deer Hunting | The Advantage of Being a Weekend Warrior

Why being a weekend warrior is better than deer hunting every day!

A good majority of you Bone Collector fans, both guys and gals are deer hunting nuts. Your passion lies in the outdoors, and you place yourself in it every day you can. Unfortunately that is only Saturday and Sunday if you’re lucky! You’re at a disadvantage…how can you compete with the success of Micheal, Nick, and T-Bone when they have a week to hunt and you only get two days. It may not seem like it but being a weekend warrior is not a total lost. In some situations it’s a complete advantage!

Once November rolls around hunters are hard pressed to get in the stand with any and all time available. That often means Saturday and Sunday, then it’s back to work with a grueling 5 day wait! This wait however might be the one thing that’s allowing you to kill big deer over those more fortunate.

Clint McCoy, a deer biologist out of Auburn University recently conducted his Ph.D. research on how hunting pressure affects buck movement in the immediate area. His findings shed some new light on the weekend warrior.

McCoy tracked movements of 37 GPS collared bucks (evenly across age classes) in relation to breeding and hunting pressure. They also tracked information about hunters such as where, when, and how long they spent in the stand. The research found that, after 12 hours of deer hunting pressure at the stand site and immediate area, there was a significant increase in buck avoidance. The question was, for how long?

After 12 hours of hunting pressure, a bucks chance to enter the immediate area was reduced by half. The results show that a buck was twice as likely to avoid that site for 3 days after the hunting pressure. After 4-5 days there was no significant difference recorded, meaning that after a period of 5 days bucks would no longer avoid the area.

Everyone has their favorite stand site, that perfect place on the property. If you have only one or two properties, putting hours in that stand is good, but only for so long. If you have more than just weekends to hunt you’re putting yourself at a bigger disadvantage. The weekend warrior has it unknowingly figured out. Hunting once or twice only on the weekends with a 5 day break allows time for stand sites and bucks to recover. Once the weekend comes around again they will have just as likely a chance to see a buck than before.

There you have it, your leg up on the pros! The weekend warrior deer hunting fanatic was once thought to be handcuffed by that time, but you couldn’t be more wrong!