Now that you’ve taken inventory and defined your trophy, all that’s left is our goals for the season. Just like with any challenge, you want to make goals realistic but somewhat specific. Most likely, as you move along year after year, those goals will become more and more specified. For instance, my example above: My goal was to kill any deer with a bow. Simple but specific, at least to the weapon, and attainable. Now this year my goals are much different. By doing my homework, I know there are 5 bucks on a certain property and one of my goals is to take any of those bucks with a bow. So I’ve moved to narrowing it down from any deer to a handful of specific deer that I know are frequently in the area. I’m not to the point where I’m confident in my own abilities to narrow it down to simply the biggest one on that list, but I’m confident that I can get one of those 5. Also these goals can differ for different properties. On my other properties where I haven’t run cameras as much, my goal is simply to fill some doe tags with any weapon and have fun with the others that hunt it. Lastly, goals don’t even have to include you killing anything; my final goal for the season is to help my good friend kill his first deer with a bow. That is one of the goals I’m most excited about and will be just as, if not more rewarding than meeting my other goals.
Although it seems discouraging, this should only encourage you to be sure you’ve done your homework, defined your trophies, and consequently made your exact goals. Doing this can make a big difference in the end result of your season and like any challenge, when you overcome the odds or meet a goal you’ve set for yourself, the feeling of accomplishment is great. While you might be somewhat disgruntled by the fact that the realistic trophy for your property is a goofy looking 4 pointer, don’t take the opportunity to hunt for granted. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a man from the Czech Republic who had submitted some trail camera pictures for a contest I was hosting. This obviously struck my interest, and as we exchanged e-mails I suddenly felt like an idiot for never realizing how lucky I was. To legally own a weapon he had to sit through several scrutinizing exams, and then to be able to hunt he must take a year’s worth of weekend courses and additional exams. Unfortunately, because of his job as a NATO soldier, he is prevented from taking those courses and thus unable to hunt because of his unknown and often abrupt leave as he is deployed. For now he is limited to just enjoying trail camera pictures with the hopes of one day being able to hunt.
So as you compile your trail camera pictures, scouting video and mental notes to develop your goals and maybe a few wishes for the season, remember how lucky we all are to have this opportunity to chase big (by any definition) whitetails!
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