• Myth No. 11: The best shot to take on a deer is the neck. Wrong. If this is the only shot available and you’re an excellent marksman, go for it; otherwise, aim for the back edge of the shoulder, or an inch or two behind it.

Solid reasoning backs this up: The target is larger, the shot is virtually always fatal if you’re using modern, high-quality ammunition, and the wound produces a better blood trail for tracking. Perhaps best of all, very little top-grade venison is lost with a shot placed in this area.

But if you place a neck shot just a few inches off target either way, you may waste a lot of venison -- the whole deer!

• Myth No. 12: Rattling is only worthwhile on private land with a good buck-to-doe ratio and an abundance of older-age-class bucks.

Slamming a pair of antlers together, grinding them, raking brush and pounding the ground with them: All of this shows rattling to be one of the most exciting deer-hunting methods of all time. Certainly it reaches its pinnacle on private areas on which a fairly good sex ratio exists among the deer herd.

Old bucks seem to sense that to travel widely about makes them vulnerable; they also have the stature to claim the best territory as their turf.

But rattling can be productive anywhere -- provided that you catch bucks when they’re in the right frame of mind. And the only way to discover if they’re in that frame of mind is to try it.

And on more and more public areas, sex ratios are getting better as biologists encourage hunters to harvest more does and pass up young bucks. Similarly, deer’s dominance and territoriality instincts don’t vanish because they happen to live on public land; an older public-land buck will often come charging in to the sound of antlers if you hike in to areas not pressured too heavily.

You may have to cover more ground, and you can’t expect a lot of action, but some bucks can be called in this way. And it’s a mistake not to have rattling in your arsenal for at least occasional use from the pre-rut through the post-rut. Just be sure to make sure that no other hunters are close by when you try it -- and wear plenty of hunter orange.

• Myth No. 14: It’s important to bleed a deer and remove the tarsal glands before field-dressing it.

Touching the tarsal glands with your hands and knife could spread some of the scent to the rest of the deer after you cut them off; left alone, they won’t taint the rest of the meat.

Another ritual that you can forget: the need to slit a deer’s throat and bleed it before field-dressing. Actually any modern weapon, bow or gun, will cause bleeding sufficient to make slitting the deer’s throat unnecessary. It won’t make the meat any better, and will be challenging for a taxidermist to repair if you want to get the animal mounted.

• Myth No. 15: The largest doe in a herd is the oldest.

It’s middle-aged does that are the biggest. They’ll be heavier every year until they’re about 4 or 5, declining slightly in body size after that.

•Myth No. 16: If a buck with superb antlers breeds a doe, the offspring will display similar trophy qualities.