Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

So you’ve been hunting deer with firearms for a few years, and now you want to take the plunge into the world of bowhunting. Welcome aboard!

Bowhunting deer is no different than hunting them with firearms. The goal is to get close enough to a deer to be within effective range of your weapon in hand. The difference is, to shoot a deer with a bow and arrow, you need to be a lot closer to it than you do with a rifle.

And the closer you get to a deer, you more you’ll magnify all those things that worry you as a gun hunter -- increasing the odds that a deer will detect your presence before you can make a killing shot.

Take up bowhunting, and you’ll also realize the need for precision shooting. Because a bow is less powerful than a rifle, the margin for error is smaller for estimating range. And because an arrow kills by hemorrhage, while a rifle bullet kills by shock, a bowhunter’s shot placement has to be more precise. You must put that arrow right through the boiler room to ensure a quick, clean kill.

Following is a list of the five most common bowhunting errors -- and tips on how to avoid them:

AGAINST THE WIND
It’s no secret that the whitetail’s greatest defense mechanism is its nose. To put your tag on a big buck, you have to beat that deer’s sense of smell. And that task begins at home.

Wash your hunting clothes in unscented, bacteria-killing detergent, hang them outside to dry and then seal them in a plastic tub or bag to keep household odors from seeping into them.

For added protection, buy hunting clothes lined with carbon, which prevents human odors from escaping into the air. In the container with my clothes, I like to put something that will smell like the area I’m going to hunt -- dead leaves, acorns or some other earthy scent -- to impregnate the cloth with a cover scent to mask my own odor. Then, don’t take your clothes out of their protective container until you’re in the field and ready to hunt.

Once you’re dressed and ready to go, spray yourself down with a scent eliminator, which kills human odor on contact. There are dozens of brands of scent-killers on the market. You can also apply to your boots a cover scent, such as raccoon urine, to mask any human scent you may leave on the ground when you walk to your stand.

When you choose an area to hunt, pick multiple trees for your stand(s) so that you can hunt effectively no matter which direction the wind is blowing. Remember, you want to be always downwind of where you expect deer will appear. If a big buck gets one whiff of you, you might never see him.

If you’re in a stand and the wind shifts, climb down and relocate.

MOVING VIOLATION
“I had this nice buck come right up to me. And when I went to draw my bow, he caught the movement and took off.”

If I’ve heard this account of a botched bowhunt once, I’ve heard it a million times. I’ve even been the hunter in this situation a time or 30. Deer may not have the world’s greatest eyesight when it comes to picking out stationary objects, but twitch a finger at the wrong time, and they’ll nail you.

Most bowhunters hunt from elevated platforms. When you set up your stand, try to find a spot that provides cover, such as tree branches, leaves or some other vegetation, behind you so that you can avoid being “skylined” -- with nothing but clear sky behind your outline. When you have no cover behind you, the movements of your dark body against the backdrop of the much-lighter sky are pronounced and easy to spot from the ground.

It’s also not a bad idea to have cover in front of you. Anything you can do to break up your silhouette is good. Of course, if you do have cover in front of you, you need to make sure you have lanes through which you can shoot an arrow at a deer.