Western Hunting Journal, Premiere Issue whj001_premiere | Page 85

Author John Childs with a tall
and narrow whitetail buck he
found while still-hunting heavy
cover in Northern Idaho.
ther. As I stood there scanning
the area I caught movement in
one of the openings in front of
me. I watched as a nice 8-point
buck came trotting up a trail,
obviously cruising for does. He
was exactly what I’d been look-
ing for. I slowly raised my rifle
and he stopped at the edge of
the cover and I dropped him
right there. What a way to rein-
force the idea that moving slow
really does work.
When using this technique
remember slow is key. Never
take more than two or three
steps at a time, and always
pause at least a minute before
moving again. I’ve stood in one
spot as long as five minutes be-
fore, just letting my eyes break
the cover apart. It’s amazing,
but deer often start popping
out of the woodwork.
Also, when using this tech-
nique, make sure your body
motion are just as slow and flu-
id as your steps. Prey animals
like deer are attuned to spotting
movement. Any quick move-
ment on your part, like swing-
ing your binoculars up to your
face is an instant give away. If
you slowly raise your binocu-
lars to your eyes, you’re much
less likely to frighten any deer
that may be close by. I always
think it is akin to moving like a
tortoise.
Spot and Stalk Hunting
Spot and stalk hunting can be
a little different in this country.
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of
this country is fairly dense with
vegetation, but it’s also tim-
ber country, so there are a lot
of clear-cuts around. The nice
thing about clear-cuts is they
can create the optimal habitat
for whitetails, as long as there is
some cover nearby.
The technique I use for spot
and stalk is primarily glassing
any cuts I find. You can often
find vantage points that let you
look at more than one cut. The
cuts I find the most deer in are
the ones that have some cover
themselves like small to medi-
um size Christmas trees, but
especially if timber or heavy
re-prod borders these cuts. This
doesn’t mean I don’t find deer
in some of the brand new open
cuts. It’s surprising to see deer
completely in the open when
hunting such dense country,
but they’re there. It’s certainly
worth always looking the coun-
try over with your binoculars
because you will be surprised
sometimes where you actually
see deer.
This last season my hunting
partner and I were looking over
one of these fairly new cuts.
So new it hadn’t even been
planted yet, but at 2:00 in the
afternoon on a cold clear day,
we found a nice 10-point buck
courting a doe in the absolute
middle. This particular spot
had timber growing all the way
around the perimeter, but was
completely clear in the cut it-
self. We spotted them from the
bottom of the cut, and made a
nice stalk to within 120 yards,
and my partner Don was able
to connect with this respect-
able Idaho whitetail.
In some parts of these moun-
tains you’ll find some slopes
that are a bit more open, espe-
cially on south facing slopes.
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