Old-School Advice for Still-Hunting Whitetail Deer

This story, “Two Best Ways to Get Deer,” appeared in the November 1963 issue of Outdoor Life.

THE FIRST DEER I ever killed came to me, but I was in a good place, walking a few steps at a time and making frequent stops, and looking more than moving. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen him. That’s a method I still like.

I was with another hunter on Michigan’s Drummond Island at the north end of Lake Huron. That’s good whitetail country — cutover land with swamps and ridges, brush, and old logging roads. We’d gone a mile through fairly heavy cover, some 200 yards apart, working opposite borders of a long, narrow swamp and taking plenty of time. We reached the end of the evergreens, met on an open ridge 50 yards from a bigger swamp ahead, and stopped. We found out later that a well-used deer trail ran along the edge of the swamp, and this buck came trotting down that runway.

I really wanted that deer. When I was growing up on a farm in southeastern Michigan, there were no deer in our part of the state and few deer hunters in our neighborhood. Deer hunting involved a long trip then. A few lucky characters piled onto a train each November, traveled 200 or 300 miles to a mysterious place known as the North Woods, and came home with beards and sometimes with a buck. Unloaded from the baggage car, that deer instantly elevated its owner to the level of a hero. At that time I’d have vastly preferred going deer hunting to being elected president, and one seemed about as likely as the other. Deer hunting was a wonderful, unattainable affair, and as a kid I didn’t think I’d ever make it.

Then I grew up, and deer hunting and hunters became more commonplace, and one November I joined the crowd. I had a great time, and my partner killed a spike buck, but I came home empty-handed.

The same thing happened the next year and the next, and I was beginning to wonder whether something was lacking in my makeup. Then, that November day on Drummond Island, this buck came along, and I got my chance.

He was in thick brush, and Michigan had a buck law at that time. At first, neither Roland nor I could make out antlers. Then the animal came to a little open place and I saw the sun glint on his rack.

I waited for Roland to take the shot, giving him the deference due an older companion, but I didn’t drag things out too long. The deer stopped to look back, and I held off for about five seconds. When Roland’s rifle didn’t bellow, I glanced over my shoulder and realized that from where he was standing behind an upturned stump he could no longer see the deer. I decided I had delayed long enough.

At the shot from my .303 Savage, the deer flinched and humped, pivoted down a low ridge, and flashed out of sight in the swamp. I thought I’d missed, but when I told Roland what had happened he didn’t agree.

There was no blood at the spot, but my partner looked things over carefully and finally found a tuft of hair, cut away by my soft-nose bullet. At the foot of the ridge we found blood sprayed out on the weeds and brush like red paint. The heart-shot buck lay dead 30 yards out in the swamp.

That was almost 35 years ago. I’ve killed quite a few deer since, some that same way, when I was standing still and they came within range, others when they stayed in one place and I had to do the moving.

Except in places where dogs are used, a deer hunter has his choice of those two basic procedures. He can wait on a stand for a deer to come along, either of its own free will, because it’s moving away from other hunters, or because it has been pushed to him by drivers. Or he can go looking for the deer if there is snow, stalking if the country is open enough, or just still-hunting through likely territory.

Which is more likely to put venison on the table? That’s a matter on which the best hunters disagree. Some prefer to stand and watch, others think their chances are better if they move. Actually, most deer hunts are a combination of the two methods, and the wise hunter lets circumstance and terrain rule his actions.

At the outset of the season, for example, the hunter most likely to succeed quickly is the one who knows the location of a regularly used runway and reaches it before dawn. He stands or sits quietly in one spot for two or three hours, through the period when deer are moving back from their early morning feeding grounds to the places where they will bed down for the day.

Two or three mornings, or a week, later, when gunfire has scared every deer in the country, especially the full grown bucks, and most of the population has moved into the thickest places, the hunter is likely to do better if he carries the fight to the quarry.

Over most of the country now, deer are abundant and heavily hunted. Under these conditions, by far the bulk of the kill is made the first two or three days of the season. In fact, some states with modest deer herds and high human populations offer a season no longer than that, and their hunters make out all right.

In many cases, half the deer shot in a year are hanging by dark of the first day. Even in such top deer states as Michigan, which licensed 466,000 hunters last fall and had a kill of 96,000 deer in a season 16 days long, half to two thirds of the total are figured to have been downed in the first three days.

That makes it highly important for the hunter to be on location when the shooting starts and to look things over and plan ahead. The first day is sure to see the best hunting, unless bad weather interferes, and if he must spend part or all of that day scouting the country, the hunter puts himself under a severe handicap.

To make things worse, if the shooting is heavy by the second day, the hotspots he has found are likely to be deserted. He must start his search all over again.

There is a big advantage in hunting close to home, where you know the country. But if you don’t live in good deer range, or if you just prefer distant pastures, then be sure to arrive where you intend to hunt at least a day or so in advance. Put in that time sizing things up and getting ready.

Unhunted and undisturbed, deer don’t travel as far as most hunters believe. Except for long seasonal migrations or short migrations to winter yarding areas for food and shelter, their home range is not likely to cover more than a square mile or two. In that area they follow much the same routine day after day. They feed in the same places so as long as the food supply holds out, hole up in about the same bedding grounds, and use the same trails and crossing places. That means the hunter who looks the country over in advance has a good chance of discovering where his first-day chances will be best.

Search for feeding grounds – acorns or beechnuts, openings or meadows with fresh grass, areas of good browse, corn or alfalfa fields or other farm crops that deer like, abandoned orchards, or scattered wild-apple trees. Look for beds, rubbed brush, and small trees where bucks have polished their antlers. Above all, try to find freshly traveled trails where you can wait and waylay your quarry.

Even when the deer season is well along, runway watching in reasonable doses and used in conjunction with still-hunting is likely to pay off. No matter how nervous deer may be, they go on eating and moving from feeding areas to daytime hiding places. They may leave their beds later in the afternoon and hole up sooner after daylight, but they still do some traveling each 24 hours, and playing the waiting game is very likely to pay off. Even the hunter who wants a trophy rack has a good chance of downing it from a stand beside a runway, despite the fact that big bucks get warier as the season goes along. There’s always likely to be one that doesn’t make it back to his hideaway before daylight.

In heavily hunted country, deer are kept on the move much of the time. whether they like it or not. Where hunters are 30 to 50 to the square mile, a deer’s chances of lying undisturbed all day are not good. He’s almost sure to be jumped, and once that happens he’s going to change neighborhoods before he beds down again. Once his initial alarm fades, and he slows to a trot, he is likely to follow runways. When there are 25 or 30 deer in a square mile, and most of them are moving around, trail watching can be profitable.

I remember a buck my son Dave, a teenager at the time, killed because he was on a stand when the rules said he shouldn’t have been. We were hunting on Beaver Island, near the north end of Lake Michigan — Dave, an islander named Matt Melville, and I. The season was a week old, it was midday, and the deer were supposed to be holed up in the swamps.

But Dave tired of stillhunting, and when we crossed a good runway he sat down on a log and said he’d see us later. Matt and I were just over the next ridge when his shot rapped out. Ten minutes of waiting in the right spot had bought a six-pointer.
After deer have been hunted hard for several days, my own choice is to mix standing with stillhunting, the amount of each depending on the time of day, weather, and what the deer seem to be doing. And I confess I’d do more standing and less moving if I had more patience. I’ve never been able to endure long sessions of runway watching, especially in cold weather. Even if I’m dressed for it, I get chilly and impatient and itch to see what may be going on over the next ridge or across the canyon.

The most successful stander I ever knew was a hunter who carried a folding camp stool, blanket, and lantern into the woods with him. He’d find a runway where he felt sure deer would pass, perch on the stool, set the lighted lantern between his knees, and wrap himself in the blanket. He could sit that way from daylight to dark in comfort, and he’d stay in one spot day after day until he got the buck he wanted. In 10 years, I never knew him to draw a blank.

What I like to do, after the first day or two, is get out on a good runway by daylight, sit for an hour or so, and then start stillhunting. My rule is to stay in the woods all day if I can. With enough hunters out to keep deer moving, your chances are almost as good at noon as an hour before dark, and the hunter who wanders back to camp for lunch and loafs away two or three hours is cutting down his odds by just that much. I plan my travels so I’m in the vicinity of a good runway again by late afternoon, and there I settle down until the light grows too dim for shooting. That combination has paid off for me many times.

While waiting for a deer to blunder into you can be hard on patience, it obviously calls for less skill than going after that same deer. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can just go out in the woods, sit down, on any stump or rock, and expect to have deer blood on your hands in an hour.

The first rule is to pick a spot deer are most likely to pass. The second is to arrange your location so you’ll see them and get a shot before they know you’re there. Don’t take your place on the runway or too close to it. Get off to one side, and choose sides so the wind will blow from the deer to you. Remember that in early morning they’ll be moving from feeding place to hiding place, and in late afternoon the pattern will be reversed. But during the day, fleeing from something or somebody that has spooked them, they may be going either way. Wind direction is all important to the runway stander. Deer have noses as good as any game animal on earth, and if they get a whiff of man smell before they’re within range the rendezvous ends right then.

Choose a stand where nothing will interfere with your shooting. I remember one buck that got the best of me because I forgot that. I was sitting against a weathered stump 20 yards from a runway that angled across a logging road. Concentrating on the runway, I neglected to watch behind me. I heard a rustle, and when I twisted my head around I saw a handsome whitetail standing broadside in the road about 10 steps away. He’d seen my head move and was trying to make me out.

Poised in frost-killed ferns higher than his belly, head high and ears pointed, a tall, eight-point rack crowning his head, every inch of him alert and ready, he was a deer to remember, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t shoot from where I was, and I knew better than to move. We stared at each other for three or four seconds, and then the spell broke. He cleared a shoulder-high windfall in one soaring leap, and the brush swallowed him before I could wrench my rifle to my shoulder.

Some standers, especially bowhunters who must do their shooting at close range, like to build blinds near good runways. This has accounted for a lot of success, but under most circumstances I’ve never thought it necessary for the rifleman. If you lean against a tree, sit in front of a stump, or break your outline by getting behind a clump of juniper, sagebrush, or mountain mahogany, an approaching deer probably will not notice you.

A deer doesn’t rely on its eyesight to any great extent anyway, especially where things that are not moving are concerned, and a hunter on a stand is not likely to be seen if he takes ordinary precautions. Remember, however, that deer are more likely to pay attention to suspicious objects at their own level or below them than above their normal line of vision. They have no natural enemies from overhead and aren’t used to looking up for danger.

On a Montana hunt, I once sat on the edge of a small draw waiting for a partner on horseback to push out a big muley buck we suspected was in thick stuff at the foot of the hill. Instead, he pushed out three does and two small bucks, nothing I wanted. They came out, turned up the draw, and went past on a runway only 50 feet below me without ever bothering to look up toward the rim.

Some hunters take advantage of this trait by building platforms in trees, especially in country where the brush is so thick it’s difficult to see deer from ground level. In some states, however, hunting from trees or elevated platforms is prohibited.

I know many experienced standers who don’t smoke while on a stand. I’ve never thought it made much difference, since any deer that can smell your tobacco can also smell you, and of the two the tobacco will worry him less. I concede, however, that smoke drifting between trees might catch a deer’s attention even without his smelling it. On the other hand, I’ve known runway watchers who have built small fires at their stands and have killed deer from beside them. But I suppose the safest rule is to avoid anything that can alert an oncoming deer.

For example, it’s important not to make any motions you can avoid. A deer can materialize out of the brush 30 feet away and be in plain sight before you know he’s anywhere around. If you happen to be moving at the time, he can vanish just as fast as he appeared.

Many hunters fail at standing because they don’t stay put long enough. They get cold or restless, make a short circle into the brush to look for sign, or wander down the logging road to see how Joe is making out, and the deer they are waiting for goes through while they’re away.

One fall when I was hunting in the swamps behind Sleeping Bear dune, a big, shifting mountain of sand on the east shore of Lake Michigan north of Manistee, I found the tracks of a deer that I took to be a good buck. He was using a runway where the swamp ran up against the foot of the dune, and I settled down there at daybreak next morning to wait for him, picking a spot behind a clump of sand cherry 20 yards above the runway.

It was cold and windy and a little wet snow was in the air. I didn’t enjoy the waiting, but I stuck it out for two hours, then wandered into the swamp. I came back an hour later and saw those big tracks leading up over the dune within 100 feet of where I’d been sitting.

The hunter who undertakes still-hunting must keep in mind that he’s pitting wits, woodcraft, and know-how against ears and noses as good as any he will ever meet, and in country better known to the hunted than to the hunter. Stillhunting calls for all the skill, stealth, and caution a man can muster, and there are those who are just not cut out for it. The ones who do it best have a certain native craft that enables them to move with about as little commotion as a deer itself. They don’t rattle brush, break dead twigs, or set loose stones to rolling. They don’t even have to look where they put their feet. They move by instinct. They’re natural-born stillhunters, and it’s a joy to watch them at it.

Any time you start out to take trouble to the deer, your first concern must be the wind. You can hunt into it or across it, but if you move with it you’re wasting your time. Your second concern, and one many beginners forget, is not to hurry. Going for a walk in the woods is one thing, stillhunting is another. Above all, the hunter must stay alert. There may not be a deer within half a mile, or there may be one lying behind a windfall 50 feet ahead. You have no way of knowing which.

In stillhunting, I halt at least five minutes whenever I come to a place where there is any hope of seeing deer ahead. If I climb a ridge, I stop before I break over. At the edge of an open swale or small clearing, I make sure there’s nothing in sight before I show myself. Not every deer will bust out under a full head of steam the instant he hears a hunter approaching. He may try a sneak getaway instead, and those long stops and careful looks boost your chances of catching him at it.

It’s never happened to me, but a couple of times my partners have spotted deer in their beds, as a result of such slow and cautious proceedings, and walloped them before they got up. One of those bucks was a Minnesota whitetail. The hunter who collected him stopped in the shelter of a clump of jackpines for a hard look at four or five deer beds in light snow just ahead. He went on looking for maybe five minutes, taking in every stump, bush, hummock, and depression in sight, and suddenly realized he was staring at a very respectable rack. The deer was lying flat as a pancake, with its neck stretched out on the ground, not batting an eye.

In the other case, it was a mule deer that got caught napping. One of the hunters in our party pushed his horse very quietly to the top of a steep hill, saw a rack sticking up on the far side of a clump of scrub cedar, stepped out of the saddle, and killed the buck where it lay.

Weather has much to do with successful stillhunting. Wet days following rain, when the ground and brush are damp and the hunter can move noiselessly, are ideal. It’s also good after a wet snow but no good on dry or crusty snow. A light breeze helps to cover any sound the hunter makes, but on days of high wind deer are apt to be spooky. I’ve never scored on a really windy day, but once in northern Wisconsin I got the best of the weather man on another count. It was dry and sunny, with dead leaves crackling underfoot, and there didn’t seem much use to stillhunt. But I had done all the runway watching I felt up to, starting at daybreak, so in mid-morning I decided to go looking.

I knew I’d have to take it easy. I stepped from one tree to the next, waiting, listening, hoping to hear a deer before it heard me. I stood for five minutes leaning against a big beech, and just as I was ready to walk on I saw something move in the brush. It moved again, and I made out the legs of a deer. The undergrowth was thick, and that was all I could see, but they were coming my way.

The animal kept coming at a walk, one of those midday whitetails that some other hunter had disturbed, and it stopped now and then for a quick look at its backtrack. It was 50 yards away before I saw its body and half that when I got a look at its fair, six-point rack. About that time it stopped with its face behind a tree, and that was all I needed. That was one deer I never figured I deserved, not the way conditions were that morning.

For mule deer, I rate stillhunting the best method. The muley is a different animal from the whitetail, less wary and wise, living in more open country, easier to approach, more likely to show himself, and not as cunning in making a getaway. I have seen as many as 30 mule deer in a forenoon of hunting, maybe a third within range. That’s something that doesn’t happen when a man is after whitetails, and it goes far to explain why I’d rather hunt muleys. The mule deer’s natural habitat of arid foothills, timbered parks, brushy draws, isolated thickets along dry stream beds, makes him a stillhunter’s dream. A man can poke along in places like that, take plenty of time, and have a good chance of killing any deer he pushes out.

Even when he’s spooked, the muley is not too foxy. He’ll run across an open place where no thicket-loving whitetail would dream of going, and usually he’ll stop to look back. In country where the ranges of the two deer overlap and both are plentiful – a situation that exists in quite a few states – you can figure on about a dozen chances at mule deer to one at whitetails. The dry-hills character with the big ears is a natural for the hunter who wants to walk a little and look a lot.

Closely related to stillhunting is the small drive carried out by two or three men together. I’ve never cared for big organized drives in which 10 to 20 men take part, but when I’m hunting with one or two companions there’s nothing I like better than to pick promising areas of the right size, such as narrow swamps, isolated draws, wood lots, creek bottoms, or islands of cover in farming country, and let one man work through while his partners either keep pace with him along the edge or move ahead and wait on stands.

One big change has taken place in deer hunting in recent years wherever whitetails are found; the farmland herds are growing. Many states now have so many deer in their best agricultural counties that control measures are necessary. Those deer hang out in any patch of cover they can find, and hunting them is not like hunting wild-land deer. In South Dakota a couple of falls ago, I saw a whitetail with a magnificent rack go slamming out of a clump of brush hardly big enough to hide a rabbit. It was hard to believe that a buck of that size would lie up there, but I suppose he had no choice. There are few creek valleys in Iowa today without deer, and they don’t have to be wide or heavily timbered. I drove through the Sand Hills of Nebraska a year ago last summer and didn’t see enough shrubbery to make a brushpile, yet one county there yielded a kill of 650 deer in the fall.

In such places as those, hunting methods have to be adapted to conditions, and the two- or three-man drive is one of the best. It’s also likely to pay dividends in mule-deer country.

I recall one such drive a partner and I carried out in the White River district of western Colorado. It paid, but only 50 percent. We found a big canyon with a saddle at the head, and my buddy, an old hand with muleys, figured that any deer wanting to get out of the canyon would go up over the saddle. He sent me ahead to pick a stand, and 20 minutes later he came along one side of the canyon, halfway between the rim and the bottom, where he could cover any deer that tried to
go up the opposite slope.

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He jumped two bucks, a three-pointer and a five-pointer, Western count. The big fellow started up the canyon my way. The smaller one stopped at the edge of a thicket, and Fran floored him. I could hear the buck running through the timber, and I got one look at him that made me itch all over. But there was a belt of brush running from the canyon up the hill, 200 yards from where I sat. He took that way out and never showed a hair, proving that not all mule deer are dopes. It wasn’t the fault of anything we did. We’d just run into a deer too smart for us.

A lot of them are like that. Use the hunting method you like best, go looking for your venison or let it come to you, but don’t expect a deer to be a pushover. Few are.