From First Light…

"A trophy is in the experience, and in the memories"

Often-all too often-overlooking or disregarding the most minute factor, the tiniest little detail, makes the difference in success or failure in the deer woods.  The more we take care of the potential for mistakes or errors, that much more often we can look forward to having the chore of dragging out a fresh kill, even that once-in-a-lifetime trophy.  I THINK I’ve learned from some do’s and don’ts, mostly the mistakes I’ve made in my over 50 years of stand-perching, “easing and slipping”, and stump-sitting.

Skirt the Stand   Many commercially available treestands, be they ladders, hang-ons or climbers have a rail around the front 3/4’s of them.  Hanging a cloth curtain or skirt in a flat-finished, dull-colored material will hide the hunter from view, or at least, partially obscure visibility from the ground.  Inexpensive burlap, camo netting, even a cut-to-fit old bedsheet hung from the armrest/shooting rail will do.  A bit of ingenuity with some galvanized, semi-stiff wire, and the material, for the stands without the rail may make all the difference in being seen, or staying hidden.

Put Out the Welcome Mat  A mat on the footrest or floor of a stand will deaden sounds from feet shifting, standing to get a better look, or to take a shot.  It also makes the footrest less slippery when damp from dew, frost or rain.  A rubber or vinyl mat makes a good sound deadener, but can be as slippery when wet/damp as the metal mesh so often used by stand manufacturers.  I use a cocoa fiber mat, the fuzzy, kinda strawish type readily available in home supply or variety stores.  

Face and Hands  When I’ve walked up on someone in the woods, the first things I see is the stark contrast of his exposed face and hands.  In cold weather, a face mask and gloves are pretty standard attire.  In warmer weather, tho, cheap brown matte jersey gloves and a net or “bug-out” face mask won’t cost an arm and a leg, and help hide the hunter from intruding, prying eyes.  Helps, too, to ward off skeeters and gnats so we don’t have to swat and shake while we sit and wait.

Old, Faded Camo  It’s been washed so many times that it has gotten a whitish cast, almost a glow.  Don’t throw it away and spend the hundred bucks or so for a new set until you try refreshing it with dye.  Use black-that’s right, BLACK-dye, but only use a small amount from the packet.  Follow the instructions for dying fabrics, or use a 5-gallon bucket outside, if the boss of the house objects to using the washer.  Trial and error on how much dye to use in the soak solution, the time to soak, may renew the tint.  If not, only the fractional cost of the dye and thirty minutes of time spent trying is all we’ve lost.  Remember:  we were about to throw it away anyway.

Short Shots  Wrap ladder stand rungs, or steps, with pipe insulation.  Deadens sound, and makes less slippery.

Hang outer layer clothing outside overnight or between hunts.  Keeps them from absorbing household odors.  If damp from dew or mositure condensation, go on, take’em in long enough to dry a few minutes in the dryer.

As leaves and sticks accumulate on your stand trail, rake ‘em off.  Takes only a few minutes and makes for a quieter trek to and from the stand.

Use one of the squeeze bottles filled with white dust-again, readily available and inexpensive-to detect thermal movement and wind/breeze drift.  This is especially important in calm or relative calm, when the wind is not blowing steadily.

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This is a synopsis, or summation, of a recent conversation, via email, I had recently…the content is self-explanatory, and maybe worth YOUR thought and consideration.

Question:

I’m looking at buying a pistol.

Assuming you don’t have an extra one you might wanna let me have.

If not, do you have any suggestions?

I’ve been looking at the Walther P22 and PPK

Thoughts?

Answer:

All I have left in handguns is Daddy’s little 5-shot Smith & Wesson, the .38 antique with the 1-3/8 in. barrel that the archivists  at Smith can’t identify as to year of manufacture, or any other details.  I had to sell my big .44 mag scoped wheelgun with the 2x-7x scope… my big, bad deer and varmint weapon…As in most firearms, the selection is based on the purpose or use intended….do you want a personal protection piece?  If so, the Walthers you are considering  are great… reliable… well made, quality firearms… if you want to go American, look at the Ruger line-up… or the S&W… all the Glocks are good, but a bit pricey….for this purpose, too, the Taurus line is also worth consideration… and, Charter Arms makes a decent couple of pieces as well, notably the short barreled Bullpup model in a “standard” .44, and the Bulldog model in .44 magnum.  These Taurus and Charter lines are also good, well-made, reliable pieces, and even if purchased new, very reasonably priced.  I HOPE, though, you are going with a second hand, maybe pawn item..?  Or, check out the Tradewinds or whatever your local shopper magazine may be named for private sale items.

Reply:

Yea i want it for personal protection.

I’ll check those.

And yes, i had planned to go pawn shopping to find one.

Gotta get a few other things squared away first, but I would feel safer with one.

Addendum from me:

One more bee for your bonnet….an inexpensive pump 20 gauge, with the barrel sawed off to the ATF legal minimum of 18.5 inches–maybe stay at 19 inches, just to be sure–and the stock sawed to the pistol grip, the magazine and chamber loaded with #3 buckshot — is probably the BEST home protection piece… another inexpensive choice would be a single shot 20 gauge or 12 gauge (the 12 ga. loaded with single or double “ought” buckshot), configured/modified the same way… almost impossible to miss a target even up close and offhand without aiming with the scattergun… and the load is devastating to any invader/intruder… easy for a female to “master” too… just point and shoot… DO NOT carry a loaded weapon in a vehicle.  If stopped and found by John-Law, it is considered a concealed weapon if loaded, and serious trouble, not to mention the danger to yourself/the driver and his passengers… if and when transporting a weapon, be sure it is unloaded, and the ammo and weapon are stored separately and locked away from each other…

Response:

Thanks for the advice. I’ll likely do both.

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Around 1965, during one of the first Bow Seasons in Mississippi, I was hunting a field edge on a private club “over the levee” in the Delta.  The field was known as the “Pea Vine Field”, as the club grew field peas there to attract and hold turkeys and deer, and provide extra nutrition.  We found and noted the afternoon wind direction, and skirted the field on foot and out of sight to get to the down wind side to hide and hunt.  I found a distinct, well-worn trail leading to and from the field, backed off 20 yards from the field edge, and set-up on the ground in a thicket of second growth saplings, the slight, failing breeze distinctly in my face.  I had a clear shot along 10-15 yards of the trail from my hide-out.  In a short while, deer, turkeys and a few feral hogs began to enter the 45 acre or so field.  Watching them closely as they fed and frolicked unconcerned in the pea vines, I noticed one of them was a huge bodied deer, noticeably larger even at the over two hundred yards distance.  The sun had set, leaving only about 30 minutes of available shooting light, till “last dark”.  The big deer bluffed and bulllied the smaller bucks, chased and smelled the does, and gradually worked closer to my spot.  His rack became visible in the failing light the closer to me he moved.  It was wide, with tall tines and heavy mass.  Minutes passed, and he was close enough to make out a perfectly symmetrical 6 x 6 set of antlers, a twelve-point!   He had to weigh nearly 300 pounds!  I shook and shivered, as much from adrenaline-stoked oncoming buck fever as from the falling temperature.  He edged closer.  Just as light was failing, he began to head onto the trail just in front of me, not spooked, just using the trail as his exit route.  The wind or gentle breeze had died to complete calm-or so I thought.  I came to full draw with my 53 lb. draw Bear semi-recurve bow, the 30 inch cedar arrow tipped with a deadly Bear Razor-head, slightly quivering from my anticipation of the coming shot, and the exertion of holding the full draw.  As the huge buck came into my shooting lane, he stopped, raised his head, and looked directly at me.  He snorted, wheeled and crashed away off the far side of the trail through the saplings.  “What happened?”, I wondered, and probably yelled-no, SCREAMED- aloud.  It dawned on me, then, with crystal clarity:  I had forgotten the thermals.  My scent, borne by the faint, nearly undetectable air movement of the down-falling late afternoon thermal had billowed out in all directions from my spot!  The air all around me had to be saturated with my human scent!   That buck was then the biggest I had ever seen, and now, all this hunting and observing deer time later, one of the biggest I have EVER  seen.   Is it little wonder, then, why I harp on thermal air movement, wind direction and speed, and “hunting into the wind?”

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• Scent Control (not “elimination”)
• Whitetails is the “kwaziest’ animals…

First thing to understand and accept is that human scent cannot be eliminated.  We breathe, have moist eyes and ear canals and other “openings” in our bodies that constantly exude scent.  The best we can do, therefore, is try to control or mask our “smell” to fool this number one whitetail sense.  A whitetail can differentiate scent particles as few as 2 or 3 parts per million.  To illustrate:  if a gallon of pure, 100% deer urine were poured into an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a deer smelling the water could determine the sex, age, general physical condition, probable date of a doe’s onset of estrous, what the deer from which the scent was extracted had to eat last, and many other individual characteristics.  Over 60% of a whitetail’s brain is devoted to scent detection.  They can smell over 10,000 times better than a human, and about 1000 times better than a bloodhound.  Considering that a bloodhound can pick up a lingering scent as long as 72 hours after it’s deposited, it seems futile to try to beat this sense, right?  Not necessarily.

The oldest-and truest-rule of deer hunting is “hunt into the wind.”  If the wind is felt on the back of our neck, or quartering or crossing from the rear, the deer will smell us.  Setting up two or more stands or blinds to allow for the most common prevailing winds in a given area is mandatory.  In my area, wind from the south is most common, while north wind quandrant is second.  Even in calm conditions, breezes and thermals will affect the selection of when and where to hunt a given area.  Another tip:  thermals generally rise in the morning, and fall in the afternoon and evening.  If the hunter is restricted by time and area constraints, a masking or cover scent must necessarily come into play.  Remember:  we can’t eliminate scent, or defeat the deer’s nose.  We can, tho, reduce the likelihood of being detected.

One year, I used a commercial scent killer.  It had a musty, damp leaf/forest floor scent.  It advertises being able to “eliminate up to 99% of REPLICATED human scent”:   key word being “replicated”.  What that means is that it COULD, possibly, eliminate UP TO that high percentile of scent that bacterial action in and on fabrics, textiles and exposed skin and leather or rubber may produce.  It COULD NOT eliminate the original production of the scent itself.  By experimentation, I found that by bruising and “barking” common red cedar limbs and leaves/needles, I did the same “elimination”, without the expense.  Another old-tyme varmint-type hunter  (kinda like me) used diesel fuel as a cover or masking scent.  He stated:  “there ain’t a deer alive that ain’t smelled diesel, and he ain’t afraid of it”.  He would dampen a new sponge with a tiny amount-very tiny-of diesel, tie the sponge on a cord or string five feet long or so, and use it for a drag behind him as he walked to a stand location.  Then, he’d wipe the sponge-using readily available, inexpensive rubber or plastic gloves on his hands-on the exposed surfaces of his blind or stand.  If a reader chooses to try this, use extreme caution, as diesel fuel is highly inflammable.  I’ve used this diesel-sponge and it works.  I carried it to and from hunting areas  in a well sealed, locking plastic bag.  Given, tho, the danger of the diesel sponge use, I use the bruised red cedar leaves and branches almost exclusively.  I’ve used other non-intrusive aromatics, too, like real, or “pure”-not artificial-vanilla flavoring, and fresh herbs like sage and rosemary.

Remember:  hunting into the wind is the only pretty near fool-proof way to insure a target deer won’t smell us.  If we can’t pick and choose when and where to hunt, try masking scents.  Just don’t depend on them to do more than mask or reduce our scent.

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Being already 13 days into the Mississippi Bow Season,  a lotta beasts have been stuck, downed, shucked, chopped-up and freezered.   Due to having to make an unexpected, long drawn-out residence move, I haven’t even been out into the woods yet.  Too much packing stuff, then moving the same stuff;   now, I’m faced/burdened with unpacking, settlin’ in, getting services and utilities switched over. The only way I’ll ever move again is due to an eviction notice, armed and hostile sheriff’s deputies at my heels, and/or the county coroner taking out my mortal remains!   Primary excuses aside, the extended rains here (Central Mississippi, 45 miles north of Jackson) have made gettin’ in and gettin’ out of hunting areas tough, if not impossible.  Still, tho, I’ve heard of some successes.  Stand and blind hunting in hardwoods where the acorns have begun to fall,  in and near standing and partially harvested crop fields, over food plots,and the tried and true “easing and slipping”  (aka “still hunting”) along and near well travelled game trails (catching ‘em going and coming) have worked.  It is still too early to hunt scrapes (natural, buck made ones and artificial scrapes created to lure and hold a buck in decent bow range).  We’ll get into the creation of artificial scrapes later when the older, more mature does begin to come into estrous.  In this area, that can begin as early as mid-November (usually with the full or “Harvest” moon), but is more likely to begin a month or so later, with the December full moon.   Besides this year’s moderate to skimpy acorn crop, abundant browse is all over, everywhere.  A few persimmons have ripened and dropped, green leafy forbs-watered by the unseasonal rains-are still actively growing all over,   as are honeysuckle,  greenbrier, blackberry and dewberry (favored by deer as much as the proverbial “mule eatin’ briars”).  Food is everywhere.  The deer folk don’t need to travel far to fill their paunches, then settle back down to bed and chew their cud.  My personal, all-time favorite bow hunting method is trail watching, along the most well-worn trails, between bedding and known feeding areas, often referred to as “staging areas”.  Deer seem less alert going and coming than when exposed in open food plots and fields, or when picking up acorns-requiring a lot of head down postures.   Other favorites are near mature soy bean fields, machine cut corn areas-before the exposed, unshucked corn kernels swell and mold.  I know, too, of a persimmon tree, that every time a ripe ’simmon plops to the ground, several deer race for it.  Colder weather will ripen them even more, but, this sweet-if often fairly bitter-fruit bounty won’t last much longer.  Wild pecans are another favored carb and protein source, as is your granny’s turnip and mustard patch!  In short, hunt ‘em where you find ‘em.  Ask rural mail carriers to clue you in if and when they see a particularly good buck or a concentration of does, yearlings and fawns-which they often do on their routes.  UPS and FED-EX deliverymen, too.  Heavy use, even by the does/yearling/fawn contingent may mean a good buck is nearby-or following “the crowd”.

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