Here’s how to beat the post firearms opening-weekend slump this whitetail season

Most of the whitetail hunters who pick up a firearm to participate in the general firearms season pin their hopes on opening weekend, and for good reason. Most of the deer that are shot throughout the season are killed early, and there are two pretty obvious reasons for this.

The first is that while not everyone will hunt the Wednesday after the opener, nearly every hunter who buys a tag will be out there on opening day, and most likely, all of opening weekend. The pressure is always front-loaded.

The second reason is simply because by the time the firearms season is two days old, the deer that aren’t swinging from the meat pole back at camp know exactly what’s going on.

Does that mean it’s best to hang up the blaze orange for another year once that first Sunday evening has come and gone? No, it just means it’s time to rethink your strategy.

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Dealing with hunting pressure is often inevitable during a gun opener; here’s how to deal with it

Where pressured deer go

As much as we want to place the ladder stand on the edge of a field where we can see for 500 yards in most directions, that might not be the best choice for grinding out the dead part of the firearms season.

Deer are prey animals through and through, and their primary methods for staying alive when the woods are saturated with rifle-toting predators is to head to the thick stuff.

This is no secret, but it’s not something that a lot of hunters willingly accept. This is because most hunters don’t want to wade into the thick stuff and spend hours with limited views during a part of the season that is historically slow.

It’s also just the reality of deer behavior that if you’re going to find one after opening weekend, it’s most likely either going to randomly follow a hot doe past you (not likely), or it’s going to be where it has real advantages over approaching hunters.

Hunt the thick stuff now

A mobile strategy is standard fare for a heck of a lot of bowhunters. The limited range of archery tackle means that you have to be where the deer really want to be in order to earn a shot.

Whether that’s a lightweight stand and some climbing sticks or a feathery-light saddle setup, the fact remains that going and finding the deer matters.

Most gun hunters won’t even consider this, which is a mistake. The folks who do decide to go find deer often just try to still-hunt their way into range, which is a low-odds endeavor. A better bet, if you haven’t already hung a backup stand in the thick stuff, is to go where you would expect to boot some cottontails and then figure out a way to either set up on the ground, or, more likely, in a tree.

Just this effort alone will set you apart from nearly all of your competition, who might decide the easiest way to get a midseason deer is to push the thick stuff. A fair number of folks try this, and it does get some deer moving. Unfortunately, shot opportunities on a thick-cover deer drive are often not great, and the deer will often just circle right back into the safe zone.

Ambush hours

A better strategy, but one that takes a lot more will-power, is to figure out how to hunt the edge of really thick cover for as long as you can hack it.

Patience kills deer, and there are plenty of firearms hunters who don’t seem to exhibit an overabundance of patience. The hunter who can identify the right security cover and then post up for hours while waiting on a 50-yard, tight-window shot, is the hunter who is still in the game even when most folks have tapped out.

While this paints a bleak picture, the truth is that you’re more likely to have the woods largely to yourself after opening weekend. That means that while the daytime movement will be highly limited to thicker cover, there will also be windows of time during which that movement can mirror opening day more than the last part of the season.

You just have to be out there to witness it.