Getting to a stand or ground blind can be half the hunt. Some tree perches are dynamite, where deer feed throughout the wee hours of the morning, but how do you get there without spooking deer?
Wind direction is also a critical factor. You may have a great spot, but with the wind at your back, every animal for half a mile will smell your approach.
Bob Humphrey is a wildlife biologist by training and a prolific outdoor writer. Here, in this Whitetail Institute article, Humphrey lays out his strategy for stalking a stand without alerting game.
I’m meticulous about the way I hunt, particularly the stands I hunt from, leaving as little as possible to chance. That’s partly why I ask so many questions when on a guided hunt. I’m sure I’ve annoyed my fair share of guides and even offended a few. But I’ve experienced the good, the bad and the most emphatically ugly; and until I spend a little time with the guy, I don’t know which category he falls into.
“We’ve seen some good bucks in this field,” my Illinois guide said in the darkness of his truck cab on the first day of my hunt. The stand he’d described on the ride sounded like a winner. It was in the woods, just off the corner of a cut bean field. From it, I could cover the back corner of the field above as well as a wooded pinch point below… [continued]
