Been a little while since i've been on here posting but i need some help. Im writing a report for college and looking for some more information as to how hunters who are Deaf/ HoH, cope and adapt to the challenges of hunting. Ive looked online and while there is some information out there, (Deaf news now had a good interview with a female hunter) im looking for more. My girlfriend has aslo informed me that she is interested in picking up the lifestyle. She is Deaf and im looking to help get her started but since im hearing, i dont know what the differences are. Anything will help. If you are Deaf/ HoH please help. If your hearing and have a Deaf friend who hunts please help.
Hey there, I wear 2 hearing aids all the time since I am hard of hearing and hunt and do alot of sports also. The only thing I can say from my experience is you will use your eyes for somethings that will make it easy to look around and pay attention. the main thing is to just watch your surroundings and keep your eyes focused to what is going on in the woods. And in most places you have to wear orange blaze when hunting. But being deaf you will have to rely on your vision more since you wont hear much or anything out there.
I'm SSD on my right and HOH on my left. My biggist issue while I still had decent hearing one one side was figuring out where the sound was coming from. I spent half an hour looking in the brush for the deer sneaking through only to finally figure out the sound I was hearing was a squirrel in the tree above me making a nest. Like Jamie71 says, you have to rely on your eyes much more than a hearing person does. It's the only sense that will somewhat make up for poor or no hearing. If there were any way to lessen the affect of not hearing on bowhunting, those with perfect hearing would already be doing it too. Bowhunting is a challenge to begin with. Deafness or hearing loss just turns it up a notch. It wouldn't be as much fun if it were easy.
Im HOH both ears. When its really quiet the ringing in my ears drowns everything out. Something I have noticed is a deers uncanny ability to sneak right up on hunters with full hearing within 5-10 yards before seeing them. We hear a squrriel move and your attention is directed at that. Her's wont be. Im sure her eagle eyes will spot one with the quickness. I would though treat this like I have friends and family hunting morel mushrooms. They would walk right over them step on them ect until you point one out in their enviroment. Then they pick them out everytime. If you see one she doesnt pointing it out so she sees how they slither through the woods will help her. Good luck to both of you.
I'm looking forward to reading the responses. I'm very HOH and wear hearing aids in both ears. This will be my first season ever hunting. I have really good eyes so I will be paying special attention to what I can see. Once I have more experience I can hopefully offer more to this but for now I will just read what others are posting and take the advise to the woods with me! Thanks for starting a thread like this!!
One thing that will help is to set up facing the direction you MOST expect deer/game to come from. It is tough enough trying to figure out where sounds are coming from when you are HoH so setting your stand or blind up facing the direction deer most often come from will be a huge help. You'll miss some deer but you'll increase your odds. Good luck!
I wear bilateral hearing aids and have for some time, problem with hearing aids is that they only amplify what you can still hear. They sure as heck don't restore your hearing. I had a childhood friend who was deaf and even though he could speak and read lips, there were times he could not tell with any accuracy how loud he was talking so we signed when in the field. Have her teach you to sign if ya don't know, bet she will be thrilled to teach you. We would go to the field in the off season just to practice spotting animals that were not on the move, like bedded or feeding. Learning to spot things whos form and color were slightly out of place. It really helped. Good Luck to both of you.
