After waiting for what seems like decades to the hardcore bowhunter, archery season in Texas is here once again.

Hopefully you haven’t waited until this week to pick up your bow to practice, and hopefully you have even had the opportunity to take a few hogs in the offseason. Either way, the season is here and talking about what could have been won’t get us anywhere.
Here are a few tips that should be useful for your season:

1. Limit your shot distance
It always puzzles me when bowhunters try to push to extreme distances with their archery equipment. No doubt it is good practice and fun on the range. However, if you desire to take long shots, a rifle is the best way to go.  There are simply too many factors involved to try to shoot long distances at whitetail deer with a bow.  Whitetail are typically nervous animals and the are extremely fast.  All it takes is for the deer to take one step before the arrow approaches on a long shot and it will be wounded and unlikely to be recovered.  Remember that the whole purpose of bowhunting is to create a challenge by having to hunt animals at extremely close distances.

Do yourself a favor this season and become very accurate to 50 yards but don’t shoot a deer past 30. This will increase your likelihood of recovery and will make you become a better woodsman.

2.  Always play the wind
A whitetail deer has keen eyesight and great hearing, but his No. 1 defense is his nose.

It is important to set your stand in such a way that the wind blows from where you expect the deer to come from. Keep the wind in your face. Using great scent control practices such as scent killer spray and unscented detergent will help, but it is not a guarantee fix.

Another great product to use is an Ozonics ozone machine. These are costly but seem to work better than anything on the market.

3. Hunt from 20 feet high
This is obviously going to depend on the area you are hunting. If you are in Deep South Texas, this probably won’t work since you would be higher than the cover around you. However, if you are in East Texas, or an area that has live oak trees, it is a good idea to hunt from a high elevation. This will help with scent control and also reduce the likelihood of an animal seeing your movements.

Regardless of the height you hunt, be sure to have plenty of surrounding cover so that you won’t be sky lined.

4. Always wear a safety harness
This should go without saying, but when you are elevated from the ground, you should always wear a harness.  No one who has ever fallen out of a tree thought that it would happen to them.  Each year many hunters are injured and some even killed by falling.

It’s not the fall that hurts … it’s that sudden sip at the end!  Be safe and wear a harness.

5. Hand corn is your friend
I have been very fortunate to kill several Trophy animals with my bow.  None of the big bucks have been at a feeder.  There are exceptions to every rule, but big bucks don’t grow old by hanging out at feeders.  Your best bet is to back off 100-200 yards from the feeder and place your stand near trails in this area.  Sprinkle 20 or so pounds on the ground up wind of your stand every day or two that you are at the lease.

Within a few days this will become a hotspot and a trophy is likely to appear.
I hope these tips help and that The Lord blesses your bow season. As always … be safe and have fun in God’s great outdoors.

Brian Johnson, originally of Port Neches, is pastor of the Outdoorsman’s Church in Winnie, owner of DuckDogTrainer.com and outdoors writer for The News.