Creating a Silent Approach to Stands
Filed under: Ask Grant, Hunting Tactics
First and foremost, I love the show. I wish more hunting shows were as informational as yours. Watching someone squeeze a trigger on a monster buck in a food plot does nothing to improve my hunting, so thank you for everything you have taught me. I hunt in Central Texas. The area is covered with multiple types of oak, cedar, yaupon and briars. With the forest floor covered in dry leaves and acorns, how can one access a stand with the least amount of noise and detection from whitetails? Chance
Chance,
Thank you for the kind words! I face the same problem at The Proving Grounds, especially after leaf fall. I wait until most of the leaves have fallen, then use a backpack blower during midday to create a trail by blowing the leaves from a path to my stand. This creates several advantages for the hunter.
It allows the hunter to walk on bare ground and move without making hardly a sound! Bare ground doesn’t hold scent as much as vegetation. Deer rarely detect where I’ve walked when I approach a stand using a path prepared as described above. The leaf free path makes finding my stand before daylight very simple and I only have to use a very small light. The minimal disturbance entry (M.D.E.) possible by using this technique is well worth the effort to create the path!!
A potential negative of using the tactic is that deer will often walk the leaf free path. That’s not a problem as long as they are not walking the same time as the hunter. Another potential problem is that a stand pirate may follow the path to your stand! If you’re worried about stand pirates (friends that aren’t really friends), then don’t blow a path all the way to the road. Begin blowing the path when it is not visible from the road.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
