Thursday, November 6, 2008 9:22 PM CST
Still hunters leave tree stands to stalk game
GREENFIELD, N.Y. (AP) — James Bruchac, dressed in camouflage and carrying a compound bow, walked quietly, blending into the hardwood forest gone to yellow, burnt orange and brown. He stopped and scanned slowly for odd shapes, tracks or movement, listened, then took another precise, silent step.
An author of books on tracking, Bruchac is among those hunters who forsake tree stands and blinds to stalk deer through the woods in what’s called still hunting. For outdoorsmen, it presents a stiffer challenge. Doing it with a bow, where you have to come within 20 to 30 yards of the animal, is an ancient art, practiced by a relatively small group.
“A tracker to me is the ultimate woodsman, and a still hunter is not far behind him,” said Dan Ladd, author of a book on Adirondack deer hunting. He mentioned a half-dozen names of top Northeast trackers and said Bruchac is among them.
Bruchac has gone out almost daily in this private nature preserve near his home since the season for big game started in New York’s Northern Zone a few weeks ago, first for bows and then muzzle loaders. He twice came within shooting distance, but once it was a doe with a young fawn, and another time it was a small doe, which he pursued for an hour and saw five separate times. He didn’t shoot at either and often doesn’t.
The 100 acres of maples, beeches, oaks and pines 35 miles north of Albany has a couple packs of coyotes, red and gray foxes, porcupines, raccoons, fishers, skunks, squirrels, bear and deer. Bruchac, who has co-authored three tracking guides with Yellowstone naturalist Dr. James Halfpenny, uses the area to teach children how to move quietly and slowly through nature, to see wildlife before they are seen.
For still hunters, Ladd said the biggest mistake, one he’s often guilty of himself, is to move too fast. He sits in a tree stand mornings and late afternoons, when deer are moving, and in the middle of the day takes his bow for a walk.
Ladd bought a recurve bow, lighter than his compound bow, for still hunting. He tries to stay in the shadows, stay downwind, go from tree to tree, stop and slowly scan. Deer in the forest can appear and disappear “like a ghost” he said, and the hunter has to try to do the same.
Most hunters have to track animals they’ve wounded, following the blood trail and other signs. But even that requires patience, first waiting up to half an hour, so the animal won’t startle and run too far, before proceeding slowly and quietly. Bruchac believes many wounded deer have run from noisy and impatient hunters.
New York has about 550,000 licensed big-game hunters, and through last week sold 191,713 bow hunting stamps this year.
The 40-year-old Bruchac, who learned from his father and later worked for tracker John Stokes in New Mexico, said the most important thing is staying calm, patient, focused and attentive to everything around you.
He sometimes goes out in lightweight hiking shoes, but prefers soft-soled leather moccasins for stalking, taking “short, natural steps,” keeping his weight on his back foot while stepping lightly with the front of the front foot, feeling what’s underneath before shifting his weight forward. He keeps his arms close, bow held to one side and sometimes ready with an arrow nocked.
He prefers bad weather, a light or recent rain quieting the carpet of dead leaves. With an animal in view, he goes even slower. “If you see them twitch, freeze,” he said.
Camouflage clothing helps the 6-foot-5-inch hunter blend in. Storing clothes in a plastic bag with dirt and leaves from the forest can mask the human scent. Some blaze orange during rifle season on public or shared land offers protection from other hunters.
“A good nature photographer uses the same skills as a good hunter because you’ve got to be listening and looking,” Bruchac said.
Knowledge of the game and the particular forest are parts of the skill set, as are understanding of the food sources, water, weather and behaviors.
“Anybody can drive game. Anybody can watch. Anybody can sit in a tree stand,” Lake Placid guide Joe Hackett said. “But a guy who goes in the woods, who goes one on one with an animal ...”
One of the best times to start hunting is two hours before the end of an early snowfall.
“We call it a dumb snow,” Hackett said. “It’s your first snow of the fall. It makes the deer a lot dumber. You can track them, and their dark coat stands out against the white background.”
As a boy, Bruchac first learned the skills of still hunting for fun, hiding from and finding other people in woodland outings with his father, author and Abenaki storyteller Joseph Bruchac, “a master at just disappearing.”
Bruchac won’t hunt bear, an animal that is important to him. He says both his Slovak grandfather and Abenaki great-grandfather were skilled woodsmen, rejecting as stereotype the idea that his ability comes simply from his Indian forebears. He recounted with pride getting within 30 yards of a gray fox.
“Predators can be harder to stalk,” he said. He recalled sitting quietly in a tree stand when another gray fox looked up and saw him. He made a kissing sound, and the fox disappeared.
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