Stillhunting

A couple years ago, my friend Brady Appleman had tagged a fine buck that he downed while sitting in a nice treestand. It was a buck to be proud of.

That evening, my son, Bob, and Brady were discussing their successes. Bob had also tagged a fine buck that day. Unlike Brady, Bob had not shot the deer from a treestand or while watching a deer crossing. He had pussyfooted through the woods until he had spotted the fine buck. He then steadied his 30.06 on a tree and shot the buck.

A couple days later, Brady and I were talking, and he said, "You know, Rich, Bob hunts deer. Most of us ambush them. Ninety-nine out of a hundred guys couldn't kill bucks by hunting them."

I realized that Brady was correct. My son's favorite hunting method is often referred to as "stillhunting." This involves sneaking through the woods, trying to spot a deer before the deer sees the stalker. For the most part, this is a lost art. But Bob is much like his grandfather, my dad, whose name was also Bob. Dad stillhunted for "big woods" bucks successfully during the 1960s through the 1990s, before the deer herd near the camp he hunted from was obliterated after new roads were pushed into wilderness areas and the deer were grossly overharvested after this and because of the establishment of new deer management rules. My son is now one of few hunters I know who kill deer regularly this way.

Stillhunting is not generally effective on the first day of rifle deer season when large numbers of hunters are in the woods: It is difficult to stalk deer without bumping into other hunters or pushing deer ahead to them.

Nor is it a popular method of hunting during archery deer season when almost all bowhunters and crossbow hunters hang stands from the sides of trees where they expect deer to walk past. It would be tough to stillhunt successfully during archery deer season.

This is also true of turkey hunting during the fall. (It is not legal to stalk turkeys in the spring.) However, Bob and our friend Scout are successful when stillhunting fall turkeys.

Since Bob likes this type of hunting, he's thinking about expanding his deer hunting next fall. Instead of spending all of the small amount of woods time he has available prior to turkey season scouting for birds, he hopes to do some crossbow hunting for deer. "I think there are a couple places I can sneak up on bucks," he smiles.