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By Cavan Williams—onXmaps Content Editor www.huntinggpsmaps.com
S
itting in a tree stand, while effective, can be a mind numbing and bone chilling effort. Those of us who suffer from hunting ADD prefer to have boots on the ground looking for deer. The noise of walking through the woods, combined with the movement of your body, though, give deer ample warnings and often the only sign of a buck you see is a white tail running through the woods, oddly resembling a middle finger.
“Still hunting” can be an incredibly effective way for restless hunters to pursue game, however, as long as you have the right gear, techniques and a proper application of patience.
Jim Durfee is an avid bow hunter in southern Utah and the founder of SneekTec, a company that makes noise dampening boot covers for still hunters. Below, Durfee shares his best tips to help you find hunting success with boots on the ground, instead of going stir crazy in a tree stand. Know the area you hunt, intimately. Durfee said you need to know the topography of the area you are hunting. Access points and game trails are like veins and arteries, leading to the heart of where bucks and bulls live. 12 - Hunting & Fishing News
Topography isn’t the only thing you need to understand, however. Durfee said you also need to know the terrain of where you’re hunting as to better know what kind of land you will be stalking on and which camo patterns will match. Always have your bow, or rifle, ready. Durfee keeps his rifle unslung while still hunting, and prefers to use open sights for a more traditional feel and for the quick shots that come with still hunting. Durfee will also keep an arrow nocked while bow hunting depending on the terrain. In thick timber and brush, Durfee keeps his arrows in the quiver because the risk of having your arrow catch a branch and swing off your rest is too great. Wait for a light rain. Durfee prefers light rains not only for the quiet they create in the forest, but for the effect it has on the animals too. While you may be wearing a brimmed hat to keep the water out of your eyes, Durfee said without this technology animals may have their heads down more often to keep the water out of their eyes. Learn a new definition of slow. Go slow, like painfully. This seems obvious, but you need to blend in with the stationary bushes Durfee said. Possibly more important though is to keep your sound down. While deer are great at seeing anything that doesn’t belong in their woods, they can’t see it if their back is turned. Their hearing, on the other hand, works 360 degrees. So if you’re creeping through the woods and getting lapped by snails, you’re probably still going too fast. Learn to cope with going slow. It can be mind numbing, but you need to do everything in your power to stay focused and keep that slow pace. Durfee admits to occasionally stopping and messing around with his phone, when he feels he’s starting to speed up. The patience of walking slow is a learned skill and you need to do whatever it takes to stay slow, even if it means stopping and drawing in the dirt for a while. It’s all about your clothing in the thick brush. The main source of noise through the brush is leaves and branches scraping across your clothes. It’s a very unnatural sound. Durfee suggests getting a soft material pullover to wear when traveling through the brush. Performance clothing, he said, are great and have excellent camo patterns, but those patterns won’t do any good if you’re too loud.