3 Tips For Hunting A New Property
hunter safety system
written by Evan Anderson
Dylan Lenz and Ryan Unger from Breaking Point try out a new property in Wisconsin with high hopes of shooting a nice whitetail buck. With lots of prep work done in the summertime, the two hunters are anxious to get onto their lease as soon as they can. But they run into some challenges once they get there, mostly related to noise. It’s one of those hunts where everything seems to be working against them. But they keep at it, varying their strategies until eventually, they land a great kill. The key to their success lies in their extensive preparation. Here are some ways in this episode that Lenz and Unger used their experience to adapt to a new property, showing us some tips so we can better prepare for our future hunts.
Photo: Black Stamp Media 2019
1. START YOUR PREP WORK EARLY
It’s important to let your site sit undisturbed for a good amount of time before you start hunting it. If you set your site up a week before opening day, the deer will most likely avoid it because of all the noise you’ve been making. Plus, unless you really put a lot of work into controlling it, your scent will be all over your site. Lenz and Unger began hanging their stands mid-late July. This gives their site a full two months to settle in and feel more natural and safe for whitetails in the area. “I’ve been having a hard time wiping the smile off my face,” says Unger, “It’s the first time Dylan and I are sittin’ on this lease we got on early summer this year. And after last year, it feels good to just have our own property to ourselves.”
“I’ve been having a hard time wiping the smile off my face.”
Make sure that when you are doing your prep work and setting up a stand you use some kind of safety harness. Many injuries and deaths have occurred from hunters falling from tree stands. Hunter Safety System makes a great harness and lifeline, you can see Dylan and Ryan clipping into it throughout the episode. Whatever your strategy, take the proper precautions to ensure a safe and successful hunt.
2. FIND THEIR NEEDS
Find the need, you find the game. Across all species of game if you identify what the animals’ needs are, you have a much greater chance of a successful harvest. Whitetail deer have 3 primary needs: Food, Water, and Bedding/shelter. Reproduction is another strong need, but it is more seasonal. A buck will be looking for does more intensely during the rut, and you will find the does still looking for those 3 primary needs. These are what Dylan and Ryan tend to base their sites around. “Our access is from the North here and we got food here to the south,” Ryan says about one of their sites. “There’s some good bedding here too. The plan is to sneak in here in the morning, catch ‘em coming off the field...I like this spot.”
Sometimes you can create the needs as well. Here, Dylan and Ryan dig water holes using 50-gallon tubs that they bury in the ground. Many hunters also plant clover or bean fields to create a good food source.
3. GIVE YOURSELF OPTIONS
“We’ve got a lot of work to do today,” says Unger, “We’ve gotta hang 12 double sets, so 24 stands in all, [and] dig in 4 water holes.” This might seem a bit excessive to a new hunter, but giving yourself options in a new area is crucial for a successful hunt. If you only set up one stand or only scout one or two areas that look promising, those may end up being dry holes in the fall. And if that happens, you’ll end up spending more time looking for a new spot than you will actually hunting.
“We’ve gotta hang 12 double sets, so 24 stands in all, [and] dig in 4 water holes.”
Lenz and Unger put up many good sites that look promising to them. But when they came to hunt, they ran into challenges with noise in most of them. Everything from neighbors running chainsaws to sighting in their guns creates a huge amount of noise that keeps the deer away from many of the sites they had set up. As Unger says during one of these moments, “We’ve got a guy cutting his field behind us on a zero-turn, we got a guy to the south getting ready for the nine-day gun...yeah so that’s where we’re at.” He smirks and says, “Happy hunting,” as an airplane flies low over their site.
This is a common problem experienced by many hunters. The way these two overcome it is by constantly switching between their twelve sites. If one isn’t working out because of noise, they move to a different site. If the wind isn’t great at that site, then they have a few sites more suited for this wind direction. Eventually, they quietly sneak into one of their sites early in the morning, clip into their Hunter Safety System, and sit until everything lines up and they come home with a beautiful 8-point buck.
You don’t have to set up twelve tree stands to successfully hunt a new area. Most of us don’t have the time or the money to devote to that, anyway. But you should at least have two or three areas that you can switch between throughout the season, even if only one has a stand and you plan to walk or still-hunt the others. The point is to keep switching it up and varying your strategy.
Hopefully, you find these tips helpful in preparing for your next season. Check out the full episode here to see how Lenz and Unger use these to set up their new property and overcome some of the difficulties they encounter in The Breaking Point S6:E5 of “Unger, WI”
To learn from real-life examples, watch these guys in action on The Breaking Point. Best of luck chasing on your next hunting adventure. Follow us on social for awesome hunting content, @waypointtv.hunting and be sure to tag us in your photos! #FindYourWay
