Spot and Stalk

[Farmer bill]

Muzzleloader season is open here in North Dakota and this will be my first crack at it. I have hunted regular rifel season before. For that I would drive around till I saw some deer eating in a field that I had permission to hunt on, then wake up early the next morning and lay along a fence line or weed patch and wait for a deer to come back to feed. This has always worked well although some mornings they don't come back and it is almost always a long shot.

I was talking to some friends over Thanksgiving and he said what they do is similar. They climb the biggest hill in the area and find deer in a cattail slough with a spotting scope then try to sneak up on them. He said they can find deer up to a mile and a half away! I was wondering if anyone here has tried this method of hunting. If so what is the success rate? I'm assuming that you wait till the deer bed down before trying to get close to them, but is there anything else that would make sneaking up on the more successful? Is it possible to get close enough to shoot them with a muzzleloader? (I know they have good range but as it is my first hunt I'd like to keep it under 100 yards). I will probably try this next weekend just to see what will happen. Any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

 

[deermanok]

I've never hunted open country, always in the woods.
I'd say to use whatever cover there is and keep the wind in your face.
Stay low as you try to sneak in for a shot.

 

[Bushfire]

Stalking or spot and stalk is about the only way we hunt in this part of the world. Treestands are almost non existent.

There's no success rate as like anything it depends on a lot of variables from weather to how good you are as a hunter/spotter. I would say spotting deer from a long way is possible, we do it in big country. But you have to have decent glass and a set up so that your binos/spotter aren't moving about the place.

I've waited for animals to bed up and then stalked in, I've also waited for them to do that and had them disappear. You have to judge it based on the scenario, sometimes for whatever reason the clear decision to make is cut them off before they bed up.

I just say give it a go and see what you think, just stick at the glassing is all I can recommend.

 

[Widude]

I’ve done mostly MI hunting, no stands, some in WI. In IL on the farm, it’s just about 100% tree stands, though you can ‘hunt’ your way into & out of your stand.

I like elevation, any wind direction is always a key factor. You don’t have to go straight upwind, at least some cross towards a harmless direction.

When moving, walking, or ‘still hunting’ emphasis is on still. Depending on the cover, I may move so slow, it’s almost like being on a stand. I may sit against a tree & watch for 30 minutes, from a vantage point. The type of ground cover factors in, wet quiet ground, dry leaves, or snow. Most of the time game is noticed with slight movement, on their part.

Just this last season I was watching a far hillside in IL, just an ear flick or turning head was enough to exposed a buck partially hidden by a tree. In that example I was in a tree stand, turned to watch opposite direction.

Scent, movement, & noise are what will alert any nearby deer.

 

[MrTom]

I prefer to stay in the stand all day, but my old bones need to move around a little too so at noonish I get out of the stand and take a real slow walk for 2 or 3 hundred yards along the ridge. By slow I mean it takes me about an hour to hit 250 yards and all of that to return to the stand. The wind on the hill is always blowing and swirling so I pay little attention to it as the woods are fairly open. Any deer I see are either bedded or they are moving along the ridge with me. I've shot a couple on the ridge top sleeping. I've taken more by taking ten steps and stopping for a couple minutes to study the surroundings with the binocs. From up high on the ridge, almost to the very crown but not quite, I often find bucks laying down along rock outcroppings, but they are hard to spot if I'm in a hurry. I've shot as many bucks doing this slow walk/stop/study as I have from the stand.

As Bushfire has alluded to, binoculars are your friend. Even though this woods is relatively clean there's enough change in elevation and small thick areas offers plenty of places deer can move without being seen from the stand. One slope is almost entirely cedar thicket with buckthorn and is just a ***** to walk so we've pretty much decided to leave this stuff undisturbed all the time. We see does and fawns go into this crap and not come out for several hours so obviously they are using it to rest during the day. That's fine because at dusk they come out to hit the fields at the very top of this ridgeline and the bucks during the day like to check out the edges of this thick crap to see if they can scent any does so getting shooting is not a problem. Since I can see quite a bit of the woods from the stand, I use the glass to keep tabs on the stuff out there a ways and spend a lot of the stand time glassing. It's amazing how things seem to change with the passing of the hours: shadows move, and perceptions play games. The glass just helps to keep things clear. And when on a walk each step will change how things look and again the binocs help to clarify what I am seeing. I'd rather hunt with a dull knife than without binoculars.

 

[idahoron]

Spot and stalk is about the only way I hunt. If your friends are seeing animals a mile and a half they are not trying hard enough. I'm going to show two pictures. One is the original that I took with my phone through my spotting scope. I'm looking for elk at 18 miles away.

 

[idahoron]

This picture is of 3 bulls I blew up from the picture above.

 

[idahoron]

I sit on top of a mountain in another state! I sit there with binoculars and a spotting scope. I will sit there all day if I have to. If I see animals I go after them. The big thing with this method is you have to have a very good working knowledge of the roads and the surrounding topography.
I have never seen anyone spotting from that hill. I don't know if it is because they can't see that far or what.
In the picture of the bulls. I could not see antlers at 18 miles. If I do they are HUGE. What I am relying on is intimate knowledge of elk and their movements to lead me to make an educated guess at the sex of the animals. Also in the late season like right now. Small herds are almost always bulls. Singles are almost always bulls. Bigger herds like 20 animals can all be bulls. I have been fooled before. But at 18 miles and if I am after cows, if I see a herd of 20 or more I go after them. If I am looking for bulls I don't go after them unless the herd is small like 1 to 10.

I hunt deer the same way in the desert. The only difference is I can only reliably see deer out to about 5 miles. Much farther than that and it is very tough. It is doable like in snow or in grass or on a ridge line.
Spot and stalk is my preferred method. I might have to wait days to make a stalk it just depends.

 

[yoyodoc]

In the 80s I hunted antelope with spot and stalk, and found that with knee and elbow pads I could almost always get closer than 100 yards. You would not believe how much cover there is in "open country." That method didn't work well for NM Barbary Sheep, which tend to bed down in places where all you can see is sky. For the same reason that I don't hunt barbary sheep any more I don't hunt antelope: the taste. Spot and stalk has not done well for me with deer as the hearing and sense of smell is way better than deer.

 

[bandicoot]

Spot and stalk is about the only way I hunt. If your friends are seeing animals a mile and a half they are not trying hard enough. I'm going to show two pictures. One is the original that I took with my phone through my spotting scope. I'm looking for elk at 18 miles away.

Looks like you're at the beach.

 

[FredB]

I do a combo of still hunt and spot and stalk, and carry a 16-45x spotting scope. No tripod, as I don't want to carry one. 16-20x is generally enough for me to find the deer or elk out to a couple miles, then brace it to a tree, or kind of make a bipod of my knee and rifle to zoom in and field judge if I want to pursue. Much more than 2 or 3 miles away, in the terrain I hunt, can mean it's probably not a practical stalk for me anyway.