HELPFUL HUNTING TIPS
To keep from losing your bow string release, tie it to your hunting clothing. You can use a leather boot string or plastic "coiled chain" with a snap. It looks like a phone cord with a snap on the end and only costs a couple of bucks. Tie your release to one end and snap the other end to your belt loop. The "coiled chain" works best.
To keep from wounding game know your shooting limits. Set your personal shooting maximum. It will probably be between 30 and 40 yards. Don't shoot beyond your limit.
When you sight-in your bow during the off season, be sure to check the penetration depth of your arrows at your farthest shooting distance. If you are not getting adequate penetration at this distance, you need to keep moving closer to your target until you get good penetration. Set this distance as your maximum shooting range. Poor penetration will just wound game.
After you field dress your deer use a plastic sled to drag it out of the woods. The sled is much easier to pull and it also helps keep dust, dirt and debris off the animal. Other benefits are, they are very inexpensive, light to carry or drag and they are sold almost everywhere.
New deer hunting drag has Aluminum handle and 16 feet of rope (pull tested to over 350 lbs.) works great with 1 or 2 people. Gives you something to hold onto so that the rope is not digging into your hand. It has storage in the handle and comes with a zip lock plastic bag for heart and liver, field dressing gloves, a moist towelette for cleanup, a pen to sign your license, a safety pin, strike anywhere matches. It also has room left over for a small knife or anything else you may want to put inside. It is very light weight, only 10 oz. Just clip it, with the quick snap clasp, to your hunting belt and you're on your way.
Nothing can ruin a great hunt quicker than the frustration of becoming lost (or should I say "geographically embarrassed" because we never get lost right?) while trying to return to a specific point. So the one thing I always keep in my backpack on every hunt is about four glow sticks, or kem-lites as we called them in the army. Many times I have dropped two deer within seconds/minutes of each other right at the evenings last legal shooting light (where legal in that state) and was faced with getting two deer, my treestand, and weapon back to my truck. As I usually hunt solo this would end up taking me at least two trips to get everything back. So I would 'crack and shake' a glow stick and hang it in a tree branch head high above the deer and/or at my treestand. Now I could easily return on a second or possible third trip and quickly and easily find my other deer/treestand (of course I also keep track with a compass but you can't beat a glowing light at night for finding a very specific point at night, like a dead deer). At that point I've already harvested my deer and am not really concerned with any 'light discipline' during those hours of darkness, I'm only concerned with getting my deer and equipment back to my truck as quickly and as painlessly as possible so I can get home. Keep in mind though that glow sticks do not last forever, they can 'go bad' so start each season with new ones. Just about any Wal-Mart or camping store should have them, once activated they glow for about 4-6 hours. They really can come in handy for all kinds of situations requiring highly visible marking of a site, possible even emergency situations.