rrb259

Honestly, I probably have had deer walk by me because I was sleeping. I have seriously considered getting one of the bow hunting stickers for the back window of my jeep ( you know the one were the hunter is standing w/ the bow at full draw) yeah accept mine the bow hunter is slumped over foward sleeping.

seriously though I was tapping a stick on my tree stand ( out of bordem). looking around something caught my eye like straight down. There was a button buck standing there. I have no idea where he came from or how long he was there.

bottom line just enjoy your time away from it all.....deer or no deer.


YES I WEAR A HARNESS!!!!!!!

brang05

It is hard to stay focused, but it seems like when you are not concentrating really hard that the deer seem to step out or appear. That is the magical thing to me, how they seem to just appear so silently. One second they are not there and the next they are. Once my mind starts to wander something catches me by surprise. I also never fail to hear a new sound in the wild either. It seems that every time I am out I hear something that I have never heard before.

MountainHunter

This isn't so much to stay alert, but to stay awake. It's something I learned drivingmy long (500 mile) road trips back home from school in Texas. It's pretty much impossible to fall asleep with food in your mouth. I think it's soem kind of survival response, since falling asleep with food in your mouth could be deadly. Doesn't matter what food it is (although gum doesn't work very well for me...it seems to need to be actual food). To a lesser degree it also keeps me alert. Something like an everlasting gobstopper might work in a stand...

JESUS loves archers

92 was my first year bowhunting and I rember falling asleep at the base of this big ceder tree that year and waking up thinking- oh no -and sure enough there was a doe at 30 yards looking at me,thats how you miss alot of deer

NavyDeerHunter

Guilty! Even after a good nights sleep I can get set up in my stand an hour before leagal shooting light and easily doze off. I really enjoy being awake to watch the woods come alive, but I know I doze off. I don't know if I "sleep", but I sure do doze.

c_str

mobow,

One trick that I learned when I was heavy into waterfowl hunting was to turn your head back and forth ALL THE TIME. I've applied this to deer hunting and I never get surprised by a deer appearing anymore, unless they come from behind me. I can't tell you how many times I have been totally zoned out daydreaming about some odd thing or other, and then catch that shadow passing between trees that is a deer. Talk about a bucket of water thrown in your face - you are instantly backtotally focused on that movement. I've never been busted by a deer moving like that either, they are always spotted a long distance off. It's just a matter of putting yourself in the habit of constantly moving your head right and left. In fact I let myself daydream as much as I want, as long as my head is moving, because you will never miss that movement that any animal makes, no matter what problem you are working out in your mind at the time.

Just my opinion,

MountainHunter

Yahtzee!! You play Yahtzee? You must have tame deer.

I sleep on the stand once in a while (including lightly dozing a couple of times STANDING on the stand and leaning on my tree), and I’ve woken to deer in under 10 yards a couple of times. I hunt in the forest, and usually the best places to hunt are where it’s fairly thick, so my visual range is usually fairly limited. My first clue as to deer approaching is my ears 80+% of the time, unless it’s windy, raining or has just rained and is really wet. Bad thing is, there are also a LOT of squirrels and a fair amount of turkeys where I hunt, so I get a lot of false signals from their noise.

Because of a neighbor that poaches deer (20 to 40 per year, according to his kin) year-round (not just in season), the deer where I hunt are pretty paranoid, even early in the bow season (although much more so after rifle season starts). I have to be very careful about turning my head too much. The deer love to come up to the edge of the thickets or tops of ridges and peek over for a while, looking for motion. If I’m swinging my head back and forth, they can bust me (and I’m sure they have!).

I agree that, while I don’t like to sleep in the stand, it’s about being in the woods, IMO, so it’s OK if I doze once in a while. Listening/looking for deer is so very different from what I do for a living (which is very focused, tunnelvision kind of analytical work), that I find it very refreshing to open my senses, rather than focus them. Because it’s so different than what I usually do, I find using my “splattervision” (you know what I mean if you’ve read Tom Brown’s tracking and nature observation guide) stimulating, so sleeping isn’t as much of a problem as it otherwise would be. Hunting is one of the few things I don’t get tired of easily!

mobow

That's it buddy..you're ridin in the trailor from now on!!!