I have had some bad mornings on the way out to my deer stand before and made way too much noise. Over the years I have compiled some tips to help you out. If you apply just one or two of these tips to your early morning walk you can reduce your risk of getting notice (in the dark).


1. Use a head lamp instead of a flash light. This way you always have light where ever you look and you also have your hands free to move branches out of your way. Don’t forget about climbing you don’t have to put the flash light in your mouth to have light.

2. If you have the option of using a red light it on your head lamp or flash light use it. Using red light makes it harder for the deer to see the light. (Remember they are color blind.)

3. Ware cloth clothing most any other type of clothing will make noise when you walk.

4. Make sure you have gotten rid of any branches or brush that may be in the way of your ladder or path to your ladder. (Or tree if you have a climber).


5. Before climbing into your deer stand make sure your ladder/pegs are all secure if not the may cause unwanted noise when climbing your tree. Not to mention you may fall.

6. Put your safety harness on before you go out into the woods to avoid getting noticed by putting it on at your deer stand.

7. Avoid clothes with Velcro they can be bad news out in the woods. Instead use clothes with buttons or magnets.

8. The best thing to do is know the area you are walking to get to your deer stand.


9. If you don’t know the area well, make sure to go over the walk in your head. If you visualize it, it will help you avoid braches or holes that can make noise when you run into them (this goes for #8 also). I’ve actually fell in a hole one morning and I made a ton of noise when I gasped. If I would have just mapped the rout out in my head prior I wouldn’t have tried to take a short cut.



10. Just remember sometimes going the long way will help you from being noticed.

You know you are doing a good job when you almost step on a sleeping deer in the dark. One morning about five years ago when I was walking out to my deer stand a deer jumped up off the ground no more than five feet in front of me. Needless to say I almost had to go change my pants.

Feel free to lend me some advice for my Hunt this Saturday



~ Ben G.
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10 Tips for Picking the Best Place for you stand & Setting it up for success.
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1. A few nights before you go out hunting it’s not a bad idea to hang your hunting clothes outside for a night or two to air out. (weather permitting of course)

2. The night before or even the morning you go deer hunting it is good to spray all of your clothes even down to you under garments with a scent mask or scent eliminator product. I typically will spray my under clothes the night before so they have time to dry out.


3. Make sure to wake up early and are out to/in your stand well before the sun rises. I usually like to be in stand at least an hour if not a bit more before legal shooting time.


4. If you have to drive to your hunting spot in the morning it makes sense to again spray your hat, boots and coat before you go out in the field. Don’t for get to spray again after lunch.


5. Walk very quietly out to your stand especially if your stand is close to a bedding area.


6. A good thing to do is to hang scent wicks with doe in estrus on them around your stand. For gun hunting any where from 30 to 50 yards form your stand. For bow hunting I would stay more in the 30 yard range. I typically use at least two wicks.


7. Ok do you remember those scraps you found on the ground? This is a great opportunity to spray some dominate buck urine on the existing scrapes. Doing this will piss off the buck that made the scrapes in the fist place and he will want to go investigate to see who is in his territory.


8. After you spray the dominate buck urine on the existing scrapes it is a good idea to make one or two of your own scraps close to the existing ones. The best way to do it is to use a pair of rattling antlers and scuff up the ground, but if you don’t have any your boot will work just fine. Don’t forget to spray these with the dominate buck urine as well.


9. A little trick I like to use is to hang a scent wick up in the tree with me to help mask any scent that I might have missed with my spray.


10. After you get in your stand load your gun ASAP take every thing out of your pockets you can and hang them form the tree or your deer stand so you can grab them easily. Doing this will allow you to be more stealth when getting your range finder, binoculars, deer grunt, or what ever else you may need to use during your hunt.


11. Now you sit and await the sun rise and legal shooting hours. You can blow on your deer call every once and a while to see if you can attract any deer. Make sure you don’t over do it because you don’t want to scare the deer off. How to use a Deer call



If you do all of these things you will signigantly increase your chance of shooting a deer this season or any season in the future.



I would love to hear more tips form you leave me a comment and let me know what has worked for you in the past.


~ Ben G.

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Ten Steps for a successful Whitetail scouting trip.
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