walking through the woods with a rifle

[wooltie]

I'm still new to hunting; third year, bagged my first blacktail.

Many people comment about how it took time to learn the "difference" between hunting and "walking through the woods with a rifle".

As someone relatively new to hunting, would anyone be willing to share what they learned is "different"?

[tonymiller7]

SPEED!!  When you think you are moving too slow, slow down more.  pick apart the woods with your eyes and binos.  Every step or 2 the scenery changes.  How you cover ground is much more important than how much ground you cover.

[ghosthunter]

For me I do both.

When I am heading to camp, I am on a mission and not really doing much but covering ground. Walking.

But hunting is taking a step or two and stopping, looking around good before moving on the next step or two. Picking apart the shadows. Deer will often freeze and let you walk by.

But if you stop often it unnerves them enough to make them move.

I have seen the most game by finding a traffic area and just sitting quiet.

[Woodchuck]

 
I chuckle at guys who say things like "I covered 13 miles today, never saw a thing"

[Stickerbush]

This has probably been the hardest thing to learn for me. But I'm basically looking to involve my binoculars more and be away from other hunters

[PiNkPaNtHeR]

I can't tell you how many times I've been quietly sitting & watching (covered in orange) and see another hunter come past & never see me. I don't make any noise because I don't want that kind of hunter shooting at a noise without seeing what he's shooting at. There have been a couple of times another hunter has walked in, seen me, waved & kept going. But mostly, they just cruise on past and never see a thing.

[Curly]

; third 3 bagged my first blacktail.

Translation please. 

[Firedogg]

Couple steps at a time, scan the area, couple steps more. I even scan the brush often with low power binocs since everything is so close, it's surprising as heck when all of a sudden you spot an ear, eye ball, tail, or tine doing that.

[Skyvalhunter]

Cover 13 miles a day and hope you see something.

[luvmystang67]

For me, it completely depends on what your hunting and everyone has their own style.

If you think walking very small distances or sitting is a great idea, set up a trail cam in the areas you'd like to sit and see what happens to walk by during daylight hours during the hunting season.  My experience is that it has been pretty slim pickings. 

I've hunted places where sitting is rewarded, which are places with high densities of animals and places where they are skittish, that is nowhere in WA that I know of unless you're hunting whitetails (but mostly just due to being skittish).

If you're hunting blacktails and mule deer, one of my favorite strategies is to bump them and wait for them to stop.  If it isn't the rut, there's a pretty small chance that a buck is going to be up and moving around in the middle of the day.  Kind of hard to see one walk by if they're sleeping in the bushes.

Elk are somewhat similar to blacktails but it depends on where you hunt them.  If you hunt them on the west side and you're after cows, you can bump a herd and catch up to them if you're the athletic type.  Not very hard to track a herd of 10+ on wet trials.  Stand hunting on the east side might be a little more efficient as elk seem to move around more and are more visible when they do.  Also, herds are smaller and its harder to track 2 elk on dry ground if you do bump them.

If you're hunting bears, its nice because they're always on the move, but they seem to be more curious than deer and are less likely to spook immediately if you run across one.

Good luck sneaking up on a cougar, you'd be one bad mofo if you could tell a tale like that.

Obviously, archery will require a little more stealth and might be required to get a close and clean shot.

I prefer to cover 10 miles a day in most cases, but I like walking and being outside.  Sometimes I walk fast, others I walk slow.  I see plenty, shoot some.

[wooltie]

Thanks for all the advice.

Common theme seems to be to move slow.  And then move slower.

I spoke with another hunter who hunts alpine blacktails in large mature timber--the benchleg bucks.  He showed me cam pics....huge racks...Anyway, he basically picks an area and sits, moves very little.  He said he had to remain still otherwise the animals would see him.

[fastdam]

After a few days of walking hillsides, I might sit in a blind the next day or watch a valley with binocs. I might even do a huge road hunt and cover 30 miles of hillsides.  Then I might spend a day or two still hunting in the trees. Sometimes I mix up two styles in one day. Or even in one morning.    It's all hunting. I love to" take a walk  with my rifle"  down a mountain road or trail for a low pressure day. Especially after hunting hard for a few days.   The trick is to get out and enjoy it, whatever your style is

[Buddyk-9]

If you are walking backwards, you are walking too fast.

[Soady]

I'm still new to hunting; third year, bagged my first blacktail.

Many people comment about how it took time to learn the "difference" between hunting and "walking through the woods with a rifle".

As someone relatively new to hunting, would anyone be willing to share what they learned is "different"?

First deer in three years for a new hunter, keep doing what you are doing, you are far further up the curve than most.

[westsidehntr]

For me, the difference between hunting as I do now and just walking through the woods with a rifle came when I started scouting more. When you know how the animals use an area and the animals in an area, you hunt a lot differently than just aimlessly wandering hoping to run into a deer. You have a lot more confidence in an area which leads to going slower and more sitting and watching. You know the bucks are there so you will take the time to find them instead of just moving through looking for another spot. One of the biggest things that helps me in scouting is trail cameras.