This public-land bowhunter uses pressure to his advantage, and he has the racks on the wall to prove his techniques work.
Hunters who go after deer with bow and arrow agree there is nothing like it. A gun hunter can sit comfortably in a padded swivel chair out of the weather in a covered box stand wearing jeans and sneakers, snacking on chips and soda pop, listening to a football game on his portable radio — and he has a legitimate chance of putting the crosshairs on a buck at 200 yards.
Bowhunters, on the other hand, know this won’t work for them.
A bowhunter sits statue-still on a lock-on or climbing stand, clad head to toe in scent-masking camo, withstanding buzzing mosquitoes and the elements. Taking a shot at a buck at 200 yards is not an option; his quarry has to be 40 yards or closer before he even considers drawing his bow.
The thing that sets bowhunting apart from box stand/gun hunting is the size of the playing field. It’s like sand-lot football compared to playing on an NFL field. Since the quarry has to be in close quarters with the hunter before becoming fair game, the bowhunter is afforded the opportunity to quietly observe wildlife in action.
Most bowhunters will see scores of deer before the one they want presents a good target. While waiting for the right moment, best angle and perfect opening, the archery buff gets to watch deer do what deer do in the wild.
Thus, to take a deer, any deer, with a bow and arrow is a worthy challenge. To take a trophy buck with archery equipment is a treat so rare most bowhunters never get to experience it.
Rayville’s Eric Broadway is not only an expert bowhunter; he goes after his quarry on lands most seasoned archers seldom consider. He bags his season limit of bucks nearly every year on public land, and he does it with bow and arrow.
Obviously, bucks don’t stumble into his lap by happenstance. He has a system that has worked for him through the years, a system that if seriously followed will improve the average bowhunter’s chances at regularly taking deer, even bucks, on land over-run by other hunters.
“The more the merrier,” is how Broadway sums up what others see as a problem.
In order to get a handle on just how impressive Broadway’s bowhunting success is on crowded public lands, all you have to do is drive by any of the camps next to most of Louisiana’s wildlife management areas just prior to deer season opening.
At every pull-off, there is a truck or two parked. Hunters are sometimes lined up to get to choice spots to scout. At first glance, such areas would seem to be the least likely to produce a good buck because of hunting pressure and the accompanying noise, human odor, etc.
“One of the most important things to do in hunting public areas is to figure out people,” Broadway said. “Sure, it’s a challenge to deer hunt with so many other hunters in the woods, but I’m successful because I’m going to try to figure out people first, deer second.
“Here’s what I mean. Let’s say there is a soybean field next to a particular management area, a field that is being heavily used by deer. The average hunter, in scouting the area, finds dozens of sets of tracks crossing from the bean field into the management area. He parks his truck, hangs a climbing stand on a tree near the road, expecting to kill a deer.
“The next morning, he’s right back there at the same spot, and he soon becomes discouraged because not only has he not killed a deer, he hasn’t seen one. He’s confused because he saw tracks everywhere but never laid eyes on a deer. This is where using your head comes into play.”
Broadway says these deer tracks are all being made at night, and when the hunter is up a tree near the road, the deer are a mile or more back in the middle of the area bedded down.
“The first truck to drive in before daylight is like an alarm clock to these deer. They know it’s time to pack it up and head for the woods — back to where I’m waiting on them,” he said.
“You learn this by hunting an area regularly and paying close attention to what the tracks are telling you. If you see 15 sets of tracks crossing the road in one area, it rains and you go back and see 15 sets of tracks again, that’s a good crossing. You get a clean blackboard after every rain. This is valuable information, but that’s not where I’m going to hunt.”
Broadway cruises the entire outer perimeter of a management area, driving slowly and looking for deer tracks.
“If I drive a mile of border road and see only a couple of sets of tracks, I can easily surmise that deer aren’t using this area, at least not now. They may later when the food supply changes, but that’s another story,” he said.
“I’ll make notes in a notebook or on my map of the area of crossings I find. My entry might be something like ‘30 yards past culvert,’ or ‘50 yards past crooked beech.’ Next season, I might forget if I didn’t make notes. Next year, I know I can find tracks at these same areas because deer tend to use the same crossings year after year if the terrain stays basically the same.”
By driving the perimeter of the area and making notes, Broadway is able to eliminate a large portion of a particular public area as non-productive.
“You can zone off everything that is near a road, an entrance, a river or stream or any other access point. That’s where the majority of hunters will be, so I stay away from these areas,” he said.
Once he determines that deer are crossing an area, Broadway takes his map and compass and begins his quest of finding the deer that made the tracks. What does he look for?
“Deer,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll follow the trail until I actually jump the deer. It’s like cows; you know they’re somewhere on your property, and you walk until you locate them.
“With cows, you can rattle the feed bucket, and they’ll meet you halfway. With deer, you have to crowd them enough to make them get up and run. Once they do, I’ve found where they spend the daylight hours. If they’re there at 2 p.m. today, they’ll be there at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow.
“Deer usually walk in a fairly straight line when they’re heading for their bedding area. You can easily see where they cross a road, but once they get into the woods, you’ll lose the tracks. That’s not all that important to me because I’ll take my compass and take a reading on the direction they’re traveling, then look at my map to see what features are in that direction, features that are more attractive to deer.
“They like to walk around the head of a slough, or along higher ground in otherwise flat terrain. These are features that a good map clearly shows, and those are spots I’ll look because I know deer like such places.”
Another advantage Broadway has in figuring out the pattern of other hunters is to use them in his quest to arrow a buck.
“Lots of hunters sit up in a stand for an hour or so, and if they don’t see a deer, they leave,” he said. “This noise and commotion of motors starting up and hunters yelling to their buddies pushes any deer near them in my direction.”
By being observant and paying close attention to what he sees, Broadway has been able to accumulate a wealth of information that gives him an advantage in deer hunting.
When it comes to hunting deer, Broadway believes it is of utmost importance to think like a deer, figuring out where they are at any given time during the day.
“When scouting a new area with which I’m not familiar, I’ll study my map, circling features I think might hold daytime deer,” he said. “I’ll ride, looking not only for tracks that reveal where the deer are crossing but trying to figure out why they’re crossing there. I’ll look to see if a hunting club adjoins the management area, if there is a soybean or wheat field next to it. I want to know all I can about the adjacent areas where I can’t hunt.”
Another practice that gives him an edge over the competition is his constant scouting, even during hunting season.
“I’ll usually stay on my stand until noon, get down and comb my area over, especially if I didn’t see a deer; I want to know why. I scout in the middle of the day to avoid disturbing other hunters. I hate for somebody to come blundering through the woods at 8:30 a.m. or at 4:30 p.m. I try to respect that man who’s been sitting in a stand for several hours,” he noted.
Although Broadway may walk three miles before he finds where the deer are bedding, they will sometimes be much closer.
“A prime bedding area may not be more than a quarter mile behind the gate to the management area,” he said. “If that place is the only area that has been avoided by humans, that’s where all the deer will go to bed down.”
Broadway tries to look at the big picture when planning to hunt a public area.
“I want to know where I am, not only in that part of the state, but on a particular 10-acre tract of ground,” he explained. “I know that a management area has four sides to it, and that helps me on planning my hunts on windy days.
“If the wind is out of the north, I’ll hunt the same core area, but I’ll approach it from the south. If I find a spot I plan to hunt tomorrow, I don’t dare walk into it the same direction the deer walk in.
“If the wind prohibits that, I just won’t hunt that area today because the deer can pattern you rather quickly when the wind carries your odor to them. A lot of what I do simply involves using your head.
“Sometimes I’ll find a road crossing, but all the tracks indicate the deer are leaving the management area. However, I can keep driving the road and somewhere along the way, I’ll find deer tracks with all of them coming into the area. These deer have just made a big loop, going out at one point and coming back in another. This is the trail I’ll follow to locate bedding areas in the middle of the woods.”
While deer hunters go to the extreme sometimes to use cover scents, Broadway doesn’t use them.
“It’s not that they don’t work for me; I just don’t need them because a deer isn’t going to smell me anyhow as I’m using the wind to my advantage. I’ll always be upwind from where I know the deer are, and they won’t smell me until they pass under my tree. By that time, I’ve already released my arrow,” he noted.
“I could pay good money and join a quality hunting club. But why do that when I have some of the state’s best deer hunting woods right at my back door that I can hunt for free?”
Granted, successful bowhunters spend much of the offseason practicing with their equipment. Building muscle tone and strength is a must for those adrenaline-rushed moments when a big buck walks into a shooting lane.
Once an archer feels proficient with his equipment, it is a good idea to follow the advice of successful bowhunters like Eric Broadway to be in the right spot and ready when the moment of truth arrives.
