Got any tips to accomplish this? I was thinking hide behind a nice sized bush, small tree, whatever, and then on the other side of the trail, have a scent wick or something, to distract him while I drew and shot? Hows that sound?Got any other tips or anything?

If you know where you are going to be hunting from, build a man made blind out of brush that your have around. Give the deer a week and they wont recognize it anymore. If you build it big enough you can have a nice camo chair in there and they work great.

I thought of that, but I want the challenge of only having a bush/tree/whatever to my right/left side, and then nothing else. My whole body open, maybe a camo netting up around my waist or something, but for the most part Im wide open. I may never get even close to a deer this way, but I wanna try.

I used to bow hunt from the ground a good bit and have arrowed several deer that way. Just hiding behind a tree is difficult and I was usually busted like that. My favorite set up was to find a large log that that was lying up against a tree. If the tree and the log made a V, It was all good. Bigger the log, the better. I've shot 2 deer with that set up. Another easy way that I've killed a deer is to simply take about 7-8 dead limbs and criss cross them between to trees and get behind hit. I shot a small 8pt at 10 yds with that setup.

I plan to do alot more ground hunting this season. It's a rush like no other.

if your lucky enough like i am in my wood lots, you can find enough small cover like thatwhenscouting the pre season.jot it down and plot out a scout line with topo maps along deer activity.
then all you need to do is stalk the area looking for deer by moving from one blind to the next.
tree blow overs, thick swamp willows, tall water grass, fence lines, corn fields, boulders,
just look around you`ll have more to hide in then you think.

PT

Tree falls make a natural hideout

Yeah they're pretty cool to hunt from. Find yourself a big ole blowdown where a tree was uprooted and sit with your back to it...or behind...or on top of it...[:-][8D]or just somehow use it they make pretty good natural cover.

I just did that very thing over teh past couple weekends. I hunt from the ground quite a bit. I have 3 man made ground blinds and a "tree" blind. I made one this year in the top of a blown down pine (cut branches to get a place to sit and cut a couple shooting lanes. I also just made a "stand" (2 - 2x8 for deck and a makeshift seat out of treated lumber) on a uprooted hemlock. I st directly behing the root wad and i'm about 3 foot up and i put branches in front of me to break my outline. I am excited to use both this year.

Don't overlook your camo. Make sure you've got something that will breakup your outline. It becomes even more important when not in a treestand or a blind.

One of the gentleman that works with me down at the shop hunts almost exclusively from the ground and without the use of any type of blind. His approach is quite simple actually. He sits facing a tree wide enough to break up his outline and about 20 yards off of the trail he is watching. He sits just enough to be able to see past the tree to the trail. When a deer approaches he draws behind the tree and then slowly leans over to get the shot. It works quite well for him as he has shot a deer the past three years running.