Still hunting tactics. Share yours.

[Jslotter]

Still hunting is my favorite hunting tactic following opening weekend of Wisconsin deer season. Usually, I go 'light' out in the woods. I will wear a pair of camo paints, a small blaze orange backpack with extra cold weather clothing, my fleece camo jacket with my blaze orange vest, and a pair of lightest weight boots that are silent as you step. I am real strict on sound that comes off of clothing. I will wear only fleece, because it doesn't make too much noise when it comes in contact with brush or when you make movements. I don't really wear any cold weather clothing until I sit and wait for long stretches of time and get cold from not moving. I will use the easiest routes such as logging roads and edges of fields scanning hillsides and through brush piles. I have a little bit of ADD and its hard to make me sit after opening weekend. Its also a good time to get a little recon of your area and see what the deer have been up to. What tactics do you use for still hunting?

[Woods Walker]

jslotter: WELCOME to our little corner of the D&DH forums! Your tips are good ones.
 
We've had an ongoing thread on this very topic which kind of fell off the front page.....
 
http://forum.deeranddeerhunting.com/tm.aspx?m=51032
 
Take a look at it, as well as the other threads, by going to the "Show Threads From Past____Days" box, and go back 180 days or more.
 
Glad to have another "ground pounder" among us!!!

[Jslotter]

Thanks Woods walker. Will do.

[DeanoZ]

Actually mine is sort of a question.  I asked a good friend how he still hunts, specifically how he moves and how far.  He basically walks very slow, takes a couple steps and then freezes..scans the area and then moves again.  He does not try to get to cover nor does he crouch or take a knee when he stops as he feels the movement down and back up again is excessive and your more prone to getting busted for movement that way as opposed to just freezing in place.  Any thoughts on this?  how do you seasoned still hunters do it?

[scotman]

ORIGINAL: DeanoZ

Actually mine is sort of a question.  I asked a good friend how he still hunts, specifically how he moves and how far.  He basically walks very slow, takes a couple steps and then freezes..scans the area and then moves again.  He does not try to get to cover nor does he crouch or take a knee when he stops as he feels the movement down and back up again is excessive and your more prone to getting busted for movement that way as opposed to just freezing in place.  Any thoughts on this?  how do you seasoned still hunters do it?

Those are good tips your friend is giving you. Yes any excessive or quick movements will get a deers unwanted attention. I goes as far if my nose itches or I have to readjust my hat I don't automatically just move my arm up quickly, I move my arm up slowly while scanning the terrain.

As far as moving I am a stop and go still hunter I stop for a few minutes listen and look then I creep up another 20-50 yards and ect. It really is a personal preference plus if you know the lay of the land you can use it to your advantage. The only time I crouch is if my body is silhouetted on a ridge line or top of a gully were a deer could spot you easily.

I harvested my first 6 pointer with a bow by the stop and go method. He walked within 15 yards halfway up a ridge going south to north parallel to the ridge and did not even have a clue I was there. Those are the best hunts when a deer passes you so close you can hear them breathe. 

[Woods Walker]

Those are the best hunts when a deer passes you so close you can hear them breathe.

 
You got that right! I'm at the point where if I can do that, for me it's no different than a kill, except I can't eat it. 
 
 
 
Deano: There is no set time frame or method. It's what ever works best for you. If you are seeing deer before they see you, then it's working.
 
My own method involves the constant use of binoculars to look "into" the layers of cover. I make myself believe that there's ALWAYS a deer just beyond where I can't see. If the cover's dense enough, I will go to my knees so that I can look under it. Being on your knees also obscures the human form even more, but you have to move slowly.
 
Cover is not the only thing that can hide a deer. Even in a relatively open woods, if there's ANY variation in terrain, and I mean as little as a dip or gully that goes down only 2 1/2 feet or so, can either completely hide a full grown deer, or obliterate enough of it that you can see it unless you can spot the TIP of an ear, or the top of a single tine.
 
I will many times go at my stillhunts with the attitude that I will only move if I have a REASON to.....like to see the cover/terrain from a new angle, or to make sure I have a good shooting position.....because when you are standing still YOU have the advantage. If you move, you give that up. This is why the best stillhunts are on ground that you know VERY well, so that you know that the area you are in is where the deer either are, or soon will be.
 
I also do try to use the shadows and the outline of larger trees or deadfalls to break up my outline. If you do much fishing, you will know that the larger predator fish that hunt singley (like pike, bass, and larger trout) use weedlines, shadows, water turbidity, structure and even thermoclines to mask their movement and shape. Be like a bass!!!!
 
 
 

[randytew]

I'm new to this website but have been reading as many topics as I can since I've joined (not been getting much done at work the last few days). While I was reading some of the other topics, I noticed people differentiating between still hunting and hunting out of a treestand. I'm from the south and down here when we are going to get in a treestand, we are still hunting. I'm sure it's just a different use of terminology but my confusion comes from the fact that it seems the style of "still hunting" that is being discussed in this thread seems more like stalking because you are walking around looking for deer instead of sitting still and waiting on a deer. Would somebody please clarify or educate me further on the different styles of hunting.

[Woods Walker]

Well first off, welcome randytew!
 
I think that like everything else, there are regional differences is meanings, and this is no different.
 
When we say "stillhunt", it means that we are hunting the COVER where we believe deer may be. This involves moving VERY slowly to dissect the cover head and behind us for signs of deer in general, and not a specific one. The whole game depends on the hunter seeing the deer first. After game is spotted, then it will either become a stand hunt (where we let the animal come within shooting range of us), or a true STALK, were we are trying to get within shooting range of a specific animal that we have seen first that hasn't seen us. It may even be a little of both. The advantage here is MOBILITY of the hunter, and the option to be flexible in his approach.
 
A stand hunt like you describe, is done either out of a tree or a blind, and the hunter is not mobile at all.

[bad faulkner]

Still hunt here in SC means staying still entirely for the entire time, usually from an elevated stand. The term used here tends to be "slip hunting" or "Spot and stalk." Slip hunting is more accurate.

Slip hunting/still hunting is great. I love it. But it's frowned upon by many who feel the slip hunter is "burning" up the ground and spooking the deer out of natural movement. I like to combine still and stand hunting, either with a nice foldable chair or my climber. I'll sit somewhere for a couple hours beginning at dawn and then I'll slowly move to another ambush site (pinch point, choke point, funnel, etc). I try to be smart about when I do it so as not to walk through another hunter's set-up. Very often, it helps other hunters though. Sometimes, we push deer to someone who's up a tree nearby!

The biggest thing is when I'm slipping along, I like to stay near the edge of cover and I move slowly. The woods are wet and swampy where I hunt or they are regenerating clear cuts or they are pine forests and this makes for quiet footing anyhow. I like to hunt right along the edge of a drain and never even pick my feet up much. I move slowly and barely make a ripple.

[Woods Walker]

[font="Verdana"][/font]Damp ground is good for stillhunting, in that like you mentioned, it's quieter. The drawback is that damp areas with higher humidity also hold your scent in the area a lot longer if there's little or no wind. Just like a bird dog that doesn't miss a bird on a damp morning, a deer can be the same way.

I've also heard the concern that if you stillhunt you "burn" an area out. That may be true if you don't move slow enough, and you flush most of the game you see. The way I hunt, I move so slowly (maybe 100 to 200 yards in a morning's hunt), that the area that's 30 or 40 yards behind me, I may have moved through an hour or more ago. If you are moving this slow, and are hunting with a cross or quartering wind, then the area behind you is just as viable for having game approach as the area in front of you. I check the areas behind me as much as the areas in front. That's one of the reasons why I move so slow....I am constantly glassing into cover that I can't see with my naked eye. I move a few steps and the view changes, so I do it all over again. I make myself believe that there is ALWAYS a deer just past wehere I can't see.