Geno...
Some of us have done this so long it seems like second nature.
1. learn how to walk. I know that sounds silly- you know how to walk. But do you know how to walk in the woods without sounding like a person?
Tromp tromp tromp tromp sounds like one thing- people. Toe/heel is the way you walk- to reduce noise. Its a lost art to a lot of people..but when you put your toes down first, you feel sticks, rocks, whatever you are stepping on that might make noise, and you can then stop, lift your foot off of it and replace it. You can't do that when you put your heel down first.
Then how about the way you walk. Do you walk like a metronome? step step step step step..without stopping? Try taking two or three steps, and hesitate. Think about the deer you hear walking in the woods. Try to move your feet like their feet...or like a squirrel moving across the forest floor....that is the type of noise that game is used to hearing and will not alarm or alert them.
2. Wind. Get a squeeze bottle, and fill it with corn starch. Walk to your stand with the wind in your face, and away from where the deer are if possible..sometimes its just better NOT to hunt a stand...and always know where the deer are when you are moving into a stand location.
Is it close to a bedding area? You have to be really quiet when moving into a stand placed there. If in the dark of night, on a morning hunt, you have to find a way into your stand where you don't tell the deer you are there. Come in from a direction away from where the deer are in the dark..and let them come back toward you, going to bed.
If in the evening, you want to hunt trails and transition areas where the deer get up out of their beds, stretch and stroll into to await darkness. Especially bucks...they won't typically move into open areas to feed until the cover of darkness, after Labor Day and their horns harden up.
3. Hunt high in the morning if you hunt food sources, like ridge lines or saddles...and hunt low in the evenings...usually good advice there but temper that with your scouting.
4. if you don't find fresh droppings under an oak, don't hunt it...just because there's acorns there doesn't mean deer are feeding on them. Remember whites first, reds and blacks second- oaks that is. Soft mast, like grapes, persimmons,apples, crabapples, pears...that's like candy to a deer.
4. Creeks and streams are good ways to get into an area quietly...and stands hung near them gives you lots of cover noise as well.
5. look for pieces of deer when scanning the woods, not the whole thing...and always look for movement becuase that's what you will pick up on most..more than seeing the deer itself is movement. Train your eyes while riding in your car to see things in your peripheral vision..like movement...and horizontal lines in a world of vertical lines( the forest is usually taht way- vertical) so any horizontal line should be suspicious to you as a potential target)
Stick with it...it gets easier. Hunt squirrels and other small game....it will train you to hunt big game well.
Topic: you have my respect (Read 937 times)
