From his experiences on the road and at home, Chad Wall has come to realize that most hunters have lost the ability to read deer sign put down by nature.
“Nowadays, somebody getting into deer hunting —or even some who have been doing it forever — understands how convenient it is to buy a trail camera and a mineral block,” Wall said. “Put them out, and before you know it that’s the only way you know how to hunt.
“We’ve become entirely too dependent on them.”
Natural sign can include reading the weather, woods, trails, tracks — everything from pawing to scrapes and sign on the ground. All these things put together can help you unlock the secret to exactly where you should set your stand.
“There’s nothing wrong with trail cameras — I use them, too — but make sure to study your pictures,” Wall said. “They’ll show you where the deer came from and what time he was there. A lot of people see a deer at 2 in the morning and never factor in where that deer came from.
“The only place they know to hunt is right over the top of that camera.”
Sticking with his low-impact hunting style, Wall also doesn’t run his cameras every day, because he has come to realize that a deer camera picture shows where a deer was yesterday not where it’s going to be tomorrow.
