Since I started bow hunting 2 years ago. I've always worn my Realtree Giants hat. (The one in my avatar) Unless it's early spring turkey and it's just too darn cold. I think humans are more prone to routine rather than superstition. Like a batter entering a batters box or a golfer approaching a shot. We perform well with muscle memory or doing the same things over and over so we don't forget steps. (I has a flashback of high school algebra for a second there) Gonna end on that note.
I have 2 hats I wear hunting.. A camo Chevy hat that I wear on morning hunts and a camo #8 dale Jr. hat I wear on evening hunts.. I think I'm breaking that tradition this year because Oddly enough every deer I have ever harvested has been in the evening.. Maybe it's just the hat :p
I wear old pair of grey Carolina Panthers sweat pants and long sleeve buckingham mfg tee shirt and Jim Morrison beaded-necklace under my regular camo
I don't have any superstitions.......but I do have a pretty precise mental routine in order to remember all my gear at the vehicle. In the early season I hunted with a pack that had my hunting quiver attached, so I got used to that. As the weather got colder and I changed my setup a bit, I packed my arrows in the long pouch of my case and forgot them twice last season. Once at the base of my tree and the other about half way to a different stand with a half mile walk. Both times I was grumping the whole way back to the vehicle......8^/
I don't know, the deer don't seem to mind. I've killed a pile of them while wearing those socks. Unfortunately, this past season the blue one developed a giant hole so they got thrown away.
Well this isn't mine but Ive used it. I used to go out and sit with a friend of mine when I started bow hunting. I swear he has IBS. Anyways at some point he would have to climb out of the tree and go take a dump. if it was early enough in the hunt then he would climb back up the tree and continue hunting. Never fails within 10-15 minutes after getting back in the tree a nice shooter would walk up and he would make a shot on it. I have to admit one time I was hunting on a relatives property I've never hunted before and about an hour into the morning hunt my gut was rollin. I couldn't take it any more so I slipped out of the blind, did my business and hurried back in. With in 10 minutes the largest buck killed on the place walked out at about 85 yds. Maybe they're making the wrong attractant scents.
When I first starting hunting my Dad told me to always pick up your whistle (empty cartridge from my 30-30) after I shot. I have carried that spend cartridge from my first buck with me for close to 40 years of hunting. It even made 5 trips to Alaska. This fall I plan to remind my 91 year old Dad the same thing when he hunts. It is NOT all about big horns or even getting a deer.
I have a pair of Browning boxers that have to be 20 years old. I break them out and wear them when a few times each year. When I hit a slow stretch and not seeing much it is usually time to wear them for good luck.
I have a small polished rock with a silhouette of a buck engraved in it that I picked up as a kid before I was even old enough to hunt. I carry in my bag on every hunt.
My ritual or "superstition" is that before I hunt I have to scout a lot and shoot my bow for months and sharpen my broadheads and pour over every detail of my gear and then the wind and the approach and exist to stands. Then when in my stands, I move very little and stay on constant watch. Every year, the same ritual. I cant seem to get passed this. I do it every year.
I have to pull my bow back when I get in the stand, done it since I was a kid I can't think unless do it
