![]() I killed my second archery buck this way and didn’t have the advantage of snow however, the frost had slicked the ground enough that I slipped any time I went too fast, so I was basically stopping every other step to plan my next when I looked up to see the 8-point buck moseying my way. I started still-hunting in my 20s and quickly learned that whenever I thought I was going slowly, it meant I should probably throttle it down even more. Obviously any time you can see deer before they see you, it gives you a chance to plan a careful approach, keeping critical factors like the wind and cover in your favor. The snow with typically muffle your approach, and it makes deer more visible. Still-hunting might seem a tactic reserved for rifle hunters, but when snow blankets the landscape, it’s actually a perfect time to slip close enough to deer to kill them with a bow or, of course, a muzzleloader. The trick is being patient enough to wait for you opportunity. Typically your target deer will eventually look away, or go behind an obstruction, or walk far enough past you for you to make your move. It’s surprising how close you can get to whitetails this way, and the greatest challenge is often moving a gun or drawing a bow at eye-level deer in easy range. And while I rarely use a face covering in a tree stand, I almost always wear one when hunting from the ground. If you’ve not done a lot of ground hunting, my experience has been that back cover to break up your silhouette is more important than having lots of cover in front of you. So your only job is to mind the wind and minimize movement. The beauty of using existing cover for a ground blind is that, in addition to not having to tote in a stand or pop-up blind, is that deer are accustomed to seeing the tree or brush pile or clump of grass you decide to hide in. When I arrived, it was late enough in the afternoon that I literally had minutes to scout entry trails and decide where and how to set up. The willow grew at the edge of a DNR food plot on a section of a WMA that took me almost an hour to hike to from the nearest parking lot. I shot the largest whitetail doe of my bowhunting life at a distance of 8 yards while I was kneeling in the snow, my silhouette hidden by the trunk and branches of an Iowa willow tree. Here are four proven methods for getting on winter whitetails while keeping your boots on terra firma. ![]() In fact, the late season may actually be the best time of the year to go to ground. ![]() The good news is that you don’t need a tree stand to kill a deer now. This is especially true if your late-season stand lacks cover, like most do, once the trees are bare. And deer-particularly matriarch does-are so used to looking up by now that the height advantage of a stand is almost negligible. Winter stands can be creaky, and slippery. I’ve been in enough late-season tree stands to know a few truths about them: they are cold, they seem smaller than they did a month ago, they are a pain to crawl into and out of in winter. ![]()
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