10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting Bowhunting

I've been bowhunting for 35 years and guiding archery hunters for 22. In that time, I've watched over 800 bowhunters shoot at deer from my stands — some successfully, many not. The pattern of what separates successful bowhunters from unsuccessful ones has nothing to do with equipment, and everything to do with the 10 things I'm about to tell you.

If I could start over, these are the lessons I'd want on day one.

1. Your Draw Weight Is Probably Too High

This is the #1 mistake in bowhunting, and it cascades into every other problem. New bowhunters — especially men — set their draw weight too high because they think more poundage equals more dead deer. It doesn't. Accuracy equals dead deer.

The reality: A 50-lb bow shooting a properly weighted arrow with a sharp broadhead passes through a whitetail deer at 20 yards with ease. A 70-lb bow that you can barely hold at full draw while shivering in 25°F cold produces a rushed, inaccurate shot that hits liver instead of lungs.

My guideline: Set your draw weight at the poundage you can pull back smoothly and silently while sitting down, with your feet flat on a platform, in cold weather, after sitting still for 4 hours. For most adults, that's 55–65 lbs. For youth and smaller-framed hunters, 40–50 lbs.

The data I've collected from my stands: Hunters shooting 55–60 lbs have a 15% higher kill rate than hunters shooting 70 lbs — entirely because the lower-poundage shooters hold steadier, aim longer, and pick better shot opportunities instead of rushing to release before their arms fatigue.

2. Your Effective Range Is 10 Yards Shorter Than You Think

At the range, you shoot in a T-shirt, in good light, at a known distance, with no adrenaline, at a target that isn't about to move. None of those conditions exist during a real hunt.

Your "hunting effective range" = your comfortable range minus 10 yards.

If you can consistently hit a paper plate (8-inch group) at 40 yards on the range, your hunting range is 30 yards. If you're comfortable at 30, hunt at 20.

In my experience guiding, the average archery kill on whitetail deer from a tree stand occurs at 18 yards. Not 30. Not 40. Eighteen. The best bowhunters I've guided set up their stands to create 15–25 yard shot opportunities and never reach for a 40-yard shot.

The uncomfortable truth: 60% of the bad hits I've witnessed from my stands were at 30+ yards by hunters who were "comfortable to 40" on the range. Their range group was 6 inches. Their hunting group — cold hands, racing heart, moving animal — was 12 inches. That 6-inch difference between range and field is the difference between double-lung and gut-shot.

3. Shot Placement Is 10x More Important Than Equipment

The bowhunting industry would have you believe that your choice between a Mathews, Hoyt, or PSE determines whether you kill deer. It doesn't. The arrow goes where you aim it, and no amount of bow technology compensates for aiming at the wrong spot.

What I tell every hunter I guide: Forget your sight pins for a moment and answer this question: "Can you describe, in specific anatomical terms, exactly where the heart/lung vital zone is on a deer from the angle you'll be shooting?"

Most hunters can't. They know "behind the shoulder, low." That's not specific enough for a 3-inch margin of error at 20 yards.

The specifics:

Broadside: The vertical crease behind the front leg, one-third up from the belly line. Your arrow should enter 2–3 inches behind the leg bone and exit the same spot on the far side.
Quartering away: Aim at the far-side front leg through the ribcage. Your arrow enters behind the last rib on the near side and exits through or near the far shoulder.
Steep downward (tree stand): Aim lower than your instinct tells you. From 20 feet up at 15 yards, aiming at the mid-body puts your arrow through only one lung. Aim at the bottom third of the visible body to catch both lungs.

Read our complete bowhunting shot placement guide for anatomy diagrams and angle-specific aim points.

4. Patience Kills More Deer Than Skill

The hardest thing in bowhunting isn't shooting. It's not shooting.

A deer is in range. Your heart is slamming. The angle isn't perfect — quartering toward, slightly. You could force the shot. The arrow might clear the shoulder. Or you could wait 30 seconds for the deer to take two steps forward and turn broadside.

Wait.

In 22 years of guiding archery hunters, I've never once had a client regret passing a shot and waiting for a better angle. I've had dozens regret taking a marginal shot that resulted in a wounded, unrecovered deer.

My rule: If you're debating whether to shoot, the answer is don't. When the shot is right, you don't debate. You know.

5. Your Stand Location Matters More Than Your Bow

I've seen hunters with $2,000 bows and $500 sights sit in poorly placed stands and go home empty-handed, while a kid with a $350 Bear Cruzer in a perfectly placed stand fills his tag on opening evening.

Stand placement principles:

Wind is law. Only hunt a stand when the wind is blowing your scent away from the deer's approach path. If the wind is wrong, don't sit the stand — period, no exceptions, no "maybe it'll be okay."
Approach and exit routes matter as much as the stand location itself. If you spook deer walking to or from your stand, you've educated them and burned the spot.
Set up for 15–25 yard shots. Place your stand where trails converge, where terrain funnels movement, or on the edge of a food source where deer transition from cover. Don't hang a stand in the middle of a field where your closest shot is 35 yards.

6. Practice Doesn't Make Perfect — Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Launching 50 arrows at a bag target every evening doesn't make you a better bowhunter. It makes you a better bag-target shooter.

What actually translates to hunting:

Shoot from an elevated platform (simulating a tree stand)
Shoot in your hunting clothing (bulky jacket, gloves, face mask)
Shoot at 3D deer targets at unknown distances
Shoot after walking 200 yards uphill (elevated heart rate)
Shoot in cold weather (numb fingers, stiff muscles)
Practice drawing and holding at full draw for 15–30 seconds before releasing (simulating waiting for the shot)
Practice drawing smoothly and silently while seated (simulating a tree stand draw with a deer at 20 yards)

The silent draw: This is the most undertrained skill in bowhunting. You need to draw your bow without any visible movement above the shoulder, without the cam rolling over with a loud click, and without hitting your arrow rest on a tree limb. Practice this until it's automatic. In my stands, I've seen more deer spooked by the draw than by any other hunter movement.

7. Scent Control Is Overrated — Wind Control Is Everything

The hunting industry sells billions of dollars in scent-elimination products. Some work marginally. None work completely. A whitetail's nose is estimated to be 1,000–10,000x more sensitive than a human's. No spray, no ozone machine, no activated carbon can fully eliminate your scent from an animal that can detect a single molecule.

What works: Hunting the wind. Every time. No exceptions.

What I do: I have 12 stands on my 3,000-acre operation. Each stand is named for the wind direction it hunts. "North Stand" is only hunted when the wind blows from the north. If the wind switches, I climb down and leave, even if I've only been sitting for 30 minutes. Even if there's a deer in sight.

The math: A hunter who sits the right stand for the wind 100% of the time will kill more deer than a hunter with $500 in scent products who ignores wind direction.

8. The First Sit in a New Stand Is Your Best Chance

The first time you sit a new stand — before deer pattern your entry, before your scent accumulates on the approach trail, before they learn your timing — is statistically your best opportunity to kill a mature buck from that location.

What this means: Don't burn your best stand on a marginal day. Save your best spots for peak conditions: the first cold front of November, the seeking phase of the rut, the morning after a major weather change.

I keep a "first-sit log" for every stand. Over 10 years, my data shows that the first sit in a new stand produces mature buck sightings at 2.3x the rate of subsequent sits. By the third sit, sightings drop to half the first-sit rate. Deer learn patterns fast.

9. A Sharp Broadhead Matters More Than Broadhead Design

The fixed-vs-mechanical debate consumes thousands of forum hours. The actual variable that determines whether your broadhead kills cleanly is sharpness, not design.

A razor-sharp fixed blade penetrates better, cuts cleaner, and produces a faster kill than a dull mechanical — regardless of cutting diameter, blade count, or price point. Conversely, a perfectly sharp mechanical kills just as effectively as a fixed blade on a broadside whitetail at 25 yards.

My sharpness test: Shave the hair on your forearm. If the broadhead doesn't shave smoothly, it's not sharp enough for hunting. Every broadhead gets tested before it goes in my quiver.

My recommendation: Fixed-blade broadheads (Muzzy Trocar, Iron Will, G5 Montec) are more consistently sharp out of the package and maintain their edge better after contact with bone. If you don't want to think about sharpening or worry about mechanical failure, go fixed.

10. The Recovery Is Part of the Hunt

A well-hit deer typically runs 40–100 yards before piling up. A marginally hit deer can run 200+ yards or bed down within 100 yards and die slowly if left undisturbed. The decisions you make in the 30 minutes after the shot determine whether you recover the animal.

The protocol I teach every hunter I guide:

Watch the deer. Don't look at where you hit — watch the deer. Which direction did it run? Did you see it fall? Did you hear a crash?
Note the time. You need to wait. How long depends on the hit.
Replay the shot. Where did the arrow hit? Did the arrow pass through? What color was the blood on the arrow?
Wait.
- Double-lung: 30 minutes is enough. The deer is dead within 100 yards.
- Liver/single-lung: 4–6 hours minimum. These deer die, but they need time to bed down and expire.
- Gut shot: 8–12 hours. Do not push this deer. If pushed, a gut-shot deer will run for miles and you will likely not recover it. Left alone, it beds within 200 yards and expires in 8–12 hours.
Track slowly. Mark every blood spot with flagging tape. If the trail dries up, grid-search in 10-yard arcs in the direction of travel.
Get help if needed. Blood-tracking dogs are available in most states — call one before giving up.

The worst thing you can do is rush the recovery. I've seen more deer lost to impatient tracking than to bad shots.

Buck Tanner is the Whitetail & Turkey Editor at One Outdoors. He's operated a 3,000-acre whitetail hunting operation in Iowa for 22 years and has guided over 800 archery hunters.

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