Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Still hunting

My 14 year old is finally old/mature enough to take on a walkabout with greater intentions than to just 'enjoy the great outdoors'. He's becoming a pretty good outdoorsman and that clicked for me on one of our final still/stalk walks last season.

It was peak rut on one of those super cold Saturday mornings. We decided to sleep in and let the frost burn off a little and to move around a little rather than sit in the cold assed shooting house. There is a mile of big creek bottom that splits our land in two so we started on the far side with the goal of walking it, starting at the far end and slipping our way through. About 50 yards in we made our first stop. After about 10 minutes he gave me a 'psst. doe'. The doe came through and then a 5 pt, spike, another doe, and 2 8 points. He had to twist and shoot free hand to shoot one of the 8 pts. Was a fine shot in the woods at about 60 yards for anyone. He immediately jumped up and screams "I fvcking dropped it!!!" He then looked at me like I was going to be mad, but how could I be?. High fives and hugs all around.

I doubt I'll get many more hunts like that, if any. It sure was special.

This was just a long way to say- yes, still/stalk/whatever you want to call it does work. And it can also be 1000x more fun that stand hunting when things do work out.

I'd say 90% of the hunting I do is slippin through the woods. Hence my nickname slippinlip. Killed most of the biggerns by slippin. One of my favorite things to do is plot checking right before dark. During the rut, I'll slip around until I find some does, then stay put and wait on mr big to show up. I like to pattern where does bed. During the middle of the rut also, I'll slip into a doe's bedroom and see if she has a buck with her. More often than not, she does. My definition of slippin is going about 300 yards in an hour. I'll take a few steps and lean against a tree, stand there until I've scanned everything around to make sure nothing is around, then go about 10 yards further and repeat. A deer will always be moving something even when bedded. I'm looking for a tail or an ear twitching. Once you have a knack for seeing those two things from a long distance, you'll have a lot of success.

Got to keep the peace with the wrens

If it's a new area to me, I'm definitely slipping around. Wasted too much time sitting on all day on nothing. My luck is they will see me first, but I will pay attention, follow the trail and it will give me ideas of where i want to set up and sit still in the future.

Better you know the land the better off you are

I grew up with still hunting being slipping through the woods and stalk being up a tree or in a blind. I remembered it cause it was likely my first lesson in the awesome backwardness of goverment rules/regulations.

ONLY place I can be "still" enough to see deer is 30 ft up a tree... just never learned the patience for "slippin' " as my dad called it. He killed a lot of deer that way in the early 70'/80's.

Stalk hunting is about the way I’ve ever done with stopping for a couple hrs at times. I’ve done pretty fair at it over the years.

I’ve had success doing it quite a few times. I usually hunt til 9 or 10am, and then I’ll start creeping in creek bottoms or down dirt roads.

I’ve shot several does, one good buck and had my wife miss a really nice one a couple years back with it.

Tips:

-move on wet dirt, wet leaves, or pine straw (you’ll waste your time trying in dry leaves & rocks)
-move as slow as you can tolerate (You can’t be too slow)
-wear plenty of orange
-keep near trees (to use as a gun rest). You never know when you’ll have to make a 100yd shot. Staying close to a tree when you pause makes it easier to use as a leaning rest if one does pop out.

This is a weird thread

Not in AL, but in the SE. It can be more effective than sitting. An all day drizzle will load the truck. And when bucks are ripe but not yet chasing I have fair luck finding them by smell. The few really windy days late December take no skill whatsoever to make meat in a clear cut.

I was first taught still hunting( we’d sit ridges, pinch points, and draws.) With the wind in our favor we took lots of deer. After several yrs I was taught to stalk hunt especially after a rain or weather change during windy days. We took our share of deer that way also.When deer went into the lull period we would slip thru bottoms while dads and uncles would stand the ridge tops watching and took many a good buck that way to.

When I had access to flat land in Clarke County I loved slipping around. The place I hunt now it’s very difficult to do.

you can definitely smell those bucks on a misty morning where they have crossed a road