What's your routine when you go hunting?

T

teumessian_fox

New member
Like, you wake up at 3 AM, eat breakfast, drive 1.5 hours to your designated area, etc.

Or, you book a room at the Motel 6, get up at 5, eat breakfast, etc.

What's your routine?
 
lucky man's routine

I am fortunate in that a friend of mine bought 35 acres of woods in S IL and put his house on it.

We get up around 5am, he cooks breakfast, we chat, drink coffee, then take our time walking to the far end of his property to wait for the rising sun.

Very comfortable pace. Even better, his property is a perfect funnel between adjacent pieces of property with woods.
 
I first wake up too late since we were up drinking and playing cards all night, hit the autostart to warm up the truck, then grab a cup of bad coffee to dunk my ham sandwich in, and run out the door of the cabin to make it to the stand in the nick of time to catch the sunrise, and repeat.
 
Couple cups of coffee, bowl of oatmeal, drop a duece, and head to the woods.


I'm just a regular guy.......pun intended.
 
GOT IT MADE

I really got it made; being the old fart that I am, I deserve it.

I hunt my friends farm. 18 acres, mostly field, with a couple of fingers of maybe 200 yards wide, fields on both sides.

I have been hunting this place now for a long, long time.

My SOP:

Wake up at 4:30 with the other guys;

They hit the woods around 5:30.

I stay back, drinking coffee and waiting for the necessary constitutional.

I head out r---i---g---h---t about sun-up.

Walk about 2-300 yards from the house to my all too familiar blow-down, which has really eroded over the years.

Spray fox urine on trees north, south, east, and west about 40 yards from me.

Sit on a log.

For the last several years (unless it is extremely windy) it has not failed that between 8 and 9:30 a family (Momma doe and her yearlings) come from either side of the finger in which I am situated.

I am about 25 yards off the well-worn deer trail.

Ain't particularly a trophy hunter, so I pop Momma.

Every year, weather permitting, this is how it goes.

I hunt for the meat.

Rmocarsky
 
It depends on where I'm hunting, and where/how I think I can get a shot.

I might watch a water hole if I'm feeling lazy.

I might hike to a high vantage point and glass if I'm feeling adventurous. Find a suitable deer, stalk it, and hopefully get a shot.

Or I might sneak slowly through thicker cover to get a close shot.

My techniques are as varied as the days I hunt, and I'll try anything at least once.

Daryl
 
here goes

I'm fortunate in that I live VERY close to a WMA and can be on portions of it mere minutes drive from the house. It has limited gun hunts for deer, but bow hunting stays in all season (100 + days) I am also on good terms w/ a neighbor who has 300 acres or so that I can hunt freely. I can walk to the neighbors land to hunt. I try to respect his place and not hunt it to much, but it is a nice option when time is REALLY short.

I can usually squeeze in hunts on the WMA in the late PM after work, and catch the last 1-2 hrs of daylight. When working night shift, I used to be able to hunt regularly in the AM and then go into to work on 2nd shift. That is a bit hard on me now that I'm past 50, but I can still pull it off a couple times a week before it gets tiring.

On AM hunts, I try to hit the ground just as things gray up, but have started many mornings a good bit later. I like to walk in w/ some natural light and not have to search in the dark or w/ a light for the tree to climb w/ climbing stand, or into a put-up. Getting there w/ natural light allows me to see how high I should climb as well for good shooting lanes, etc.

On days off I will hunt AM and PM if possible, usually coming down to scout for an hour or so around 10:30-11:00. I'll return home, eat a bite or nap, and go back out for the evening hunt about 2:00 PM, but have started later than that plenty as well.

In the days before kids, and lots of 30 yr old vitality, I'd make 50+ hunts a season. (100 plus day season) Now its 30 some hunts and I'm usually glad to see it end. In those pre family days, I'd get 10-15 shots a year and see 50-75 deer from the tree a season. With me not hunting as much, and our deer numbers down, its not even half that these days.

This is all for deer hunting. Turkey hunting is a whole different story.
 
Leave the day/night before the hunt opens (we have incredibly short seasons for big game).

Arrive at camp.

Set up camp.

Start fire.

Throw random edible items in dutch oven.

Make sure firearms are legally unloaded.

Crack a few beers, and sit around the fire.

Eat delicious dutch oven energy supplement for tomorrow's hunting energy.

Continue sitting around fire, until everyone is tired.

Urinate.

Go to bed.

Wake up at 2:30 am to urinate (I didn't drink THAT much, did I?).

Wake up at 10:30 am with an incredible urge that requires locating the toilet paper - quickly!

Spend a couple hours using multiple rolls of toilet paper... wondering if it was the beer, the food, the altitude, or something else.

Chug water, in feeble attempt to rehydrate.

Attempt hike into "deep, dark, nasty" spot on mountain.

Return to camp in short time - it really was the beer...

Sit in camp, trying to rehydrate for rest of day.

Start fire.

Throw random edible items in dutch oven.

Make sure firearms are legally unloaded.

Crack a few beers..............



The Great American Sportsman, that abuses alcohol, destroys mother nature, and throws beer cans everywhere (while hunting) really angers me. But... I enjoy the hunt and the time in the mountains more than the actual killing and the work that comes after a kill. I'm generally content relaxing and enjoying a few beers, once I'm done hunting for the day (the areas I hunt have "not a drop" laws for alcohol consumption, and my party adheres to that strictly -- not a drop, until the hunting is done, and the firearms are legally unloaded).

On the days that there isn't some kind of gastrointestinal distress, I still don't get out of bed early. I have scientifically proven (to myself), that I have just as good of a chance filling my tags at 11 am, as I do 30 minutes before sunrise. I sleep in, and enjoy it.
 
Growing up, I hunted behind the house, so I was usually in my stand and ready to go within about 10 minutes of leaving the house. Now my routine includes either driving to my parents' house the night before, or their cabin the night before, so that I can cut my drive time down, and buy me a few more minutes of shut eye.
 
Hunting routine

My hunting routine is hit the woods,get cold and or wet,fall a few times and see nothing.I do this a few times and usually catch a cold that developes into bronchitis.You would think by now I would have smartened up?:)
 
Get up at 430am. My buddy shows up around 515am. We stop and grab breakfast at McDonalds and then drive 1 hour to his in-law's farm. Unload gear, head to spots. Hunt till lunch time. Take a couple hours break. Return to woods. Hunt till dark. Repeat.

We usually follow this routinue until both of us have taken a deer.
 
This was the camp routine on my first hunt many years ago:

- Arrive the day before the opener, early enough for some daylight to site-in at a nearby sand hill.
- Head to the chosen piece of woods to build a ground blind with brush and debris. By then the cold has drained any enthusiasm for preparing dinner, so head into town for a burger and beer.
- Check belt knives and handguns at the bar and try to find a place to sit.
- Inhale a way too-raw and greasy burger and a few Stroh's beers.
- Return to the cabin, fill the woodstove, and make some coffee because it might help us warm-up.
- Spend a restless night due to too much coffee, freezing cold, and anticipation of the morning hunt.
- Get up very early and very groggy to burning bacon and terrible coffee (grounds from the night before were re-used).
- Gear-up quickly so I'm sweating and nausious and just want to quit.
- Decide to puke and go back to bed, then try again in the afternoon.
- See lots of deer moving at a distance, but no shooters. Exciting stuff!
- Repeat for the next 3 days.
 
Shooting near a water hole is NOT hunting

I might watch a water hole if I'm feeling lazy.
Click to expand...

Daryl, never heard of ethics in hunting have you?
Shooting anywhere near a waterhole or on paths leading to one is just that, shooting. Hunting is very different.

Rgds,

Danny
 
Dannyl,

Seriously? Who are you to decide what is ethical or not? Is it not ethical to hunt in an oak woods where deer are feeding? What about watching a game trail? Should I not go to a marsh to hunt ducks? That's a water hole. Maybe I should leave my scope at home and use iron sights. Or hell, should I just start hunting with my bare hands? Damn... Spare us your preaching and your judgment. I bet I could find things unethical about the way you hunt. I don't pretend to be the judge, though. Ethics are personal. Come down from your altar.
 
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bamaranger said:
On the days that there isn't some kind of gastrointestinal distress, I still don't get out of bed early. I have scientifically proven (to myself), that I have just as good of a chance filling my tags at 11 am, as I do 30 minutes before sunrise. I sleep in, and enjoy it.
Click to expand...

Ha! Same here brother! I used to do all the super early, walk a mile in the dark, freeze your butt off stuff, until I realized - I just didn't enjoy it.

Now I hunt on my own terms, when I want, and I enjoy it much, much more. I see more deer because I want to be there and can stay focused.

Additionally, I hunt public land, so getting there later is the best way to ensure not walking in on someone or someone walking in on me.
 
James H +1
I see no problem with hunting over a waterhole.


Now I head up to PA on a Sunday to my grandparents' place. Wake up Monday morning and shower. Usually hitting the snooze as many times as possible. Finally get out of bed late and rush to get out of the house. Take something for heartburn since we were up having a few beers at the local VFW the night before. If my buddy has off work up there we meet at his place. Stop at WaWa or 7-11 for some iced tea. Takes us 10-15 minutes to get to our spots (private property) depending on which one of the two we go to. Get to the hunting spot and put on our hunting cloths. In stands usually 30 minutes before legal shooting time.

We walk into our stands by moonlight if there is any. I can see good enough in the dark that I can get to and up into all the stands in the dark. Chat on radios complaining that our guts hurt and the heartburn sucks.

Get down out of stands about 10 and go have breakfast. Goof off for a few hours and then back to the woods. Depending on sunset.....no later than 3 if it sets at 7 and so on. Sit until dark unless there are deer around then we wait til about 20 minutes after dark so we don't blow them out of the area and give away our stand locations.

Repeat for 3 days. Drive back to VA after 3rd night hunting, get home about midnight.
 
Dannyl said:
Shooting near a water hole is NOT hunting

Daryl said:
I might watch a water hole if I'm feeling lazy.
Click to expand...
Daryl, never heard of ethics in hunting have you?
Shooting anywhere near a waterhole or on paths leading to one is just that, shooting. Hunting is very different.

Rgds,

Danny
Click to expand...

Water holes have different purposes, and are used differently in different parts of the world.

Hunting over a water hole in, say, New Hampshire, is far different than some one hunting over a water hole in South Africa. Calling some one unethical for using a hunting method in an area you have never seen is an ignorant insult.


Back to the real topic...
 
The best hunting days are when I get enough sleep to wake up crisp and clear at least an hour before I need to start driving to a spot or hiking if I'm out camping. Gives me time to get dosed on a good 16oz. of coffee, eat some breakfast and make sure I've got everything for the day. I try to maintain this. A few days in I'll probably drink a few more beers at night and sleep in an extra hour or so since everything's gotten sorted out and ready to go in my vest or pack in the morning. And somehow I feel like I'm not really hunting unless I get going before morning light...I do have my share of late morning starts, though.
 
Get up 6am make thermas of coffee 2 backstrap cathead biscuits go to the
old deserted mine put my lounge chair in the blind set up the tripod & rifle
lookin down 500yrds.of power line with the lake at the other end.
20year pines on one side white oaks on the other.The sun comes up over my
left shoulder have my coffee & biscuit.ENJOY the pretty morning GOD allows
me to see. IF it gets any better than that who cares.:D:D
 
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