I have been doing it for about 15 yrs and I always called it " off the hip"....sound good to ya buckeye??
To me, running and gunning is something you do on foot. You can run and gun turkeys, elk, mule deer, whitetails whatever... but to me, the term "Run and gun" means absolutely nothing when referring to hunting from a treestand. IMO it's a phrase that some million dollar hunter misused and the overwhelmingly soft general public accepted it. Kinda like when people say, "I could care less" about something they don't care about... Shouldn't that be, "I couldn't care less"?
I agree with Jeff.. I hate the rut. Yep, I said it, I hate it.. it sucks b/c where I am there are way too many does it's way out of balance and it throws a wrench in my machine. A buck around here doesn't even have to get up a roam 100 yds before he comes into a hot doe after doe after doe.
From an economical standpoint, I hope you are joking. You give credit to two of your buck kills being directly due to moving 40 yards from a previous setup. I am curious, was it a random "feels right" move? Or was it a move based on a previous sighting (hey theres a good buck traveling over there, maybe I should go hunt right over there). If it was by shear luck that he went by your new setup, how can switching it up be attributed to the success? And if you moved based on a prior sighting (the 40 yard switch), what would keep ANY hunter from shifting and tweaking a spot based on deer behavior? I don't think ANYONE in their right mind would mindlessly sit in one location day in and day out, even if they see deer moving just out of range. Even the stationary hunters tweak their positions around, I would think. Keep in mind, I hunt SMALL pieces here and there. My favorite place? 20 acres right smack dab in the best rut travel corridor I can think of on the fringe of a huge swampy thicket used for bedding. I wouldn't trade it for 500 acres to dabble in when it comes to November. I picked back up a 140 acre piece for this year that I am stoked about from prior years of scouting this place. Good cover, GREAT food, water in several creeks...I think it will be the type of place I can get on a buck OUTSIDE of the rut. But as you mentioned hunting OUTSIDE of the rut, having more room to roam (or simply more room to be more likely to access the core area of a buck rather than catch one traveling through during rut) would have HUGE benefits. I'll admit, I mainly hunt the rut, and during the rut I like to focus on travel corridors for deer in general..with the more secluded or hidden (from the deers point of view) being more likely to have a good buck passing through. It really upped my sightings of mature deer for the past year, and nearly helped me seal the deal on a P&Y.
Thanks, I sure hope I do. I don't bait. I set mine based on deer movements of the area, and if something looks off or I see the grass is greener 50 yards that way, I move my setup. I guess I just wrongly assumed that anyone with a brain would do the same, why the heck would they ignore the movements they see with their own two eyes? lol Maybe the way I hunt and the mobile hunter isn't so far apart after all, although most of my stands are set by the time hunting rolls around. On a few, I wait until my first hunt there to set it, to avoid a wasted trip in the area earlier to set it. Any buck 100-110" this year dies for me, going to gradually work my way back up to the standard I foolishly started out bowhunting with. This benchmark isn't too hard of a feat to manage around here, so I like my odds of atleast getting a chance, regardless of what month it comes in. One thing is for sure, it cant come soon enough.
WGAS? It's all hunting. These fancy new terms are nothing more than new names for hunting methods that are as old as hunting itself. All it takes is for one TV "celebrity" to use it on his show while posing with a big buck. Before long, everyone will be using it. The bottom line is..... you have to do what it takes to get what you're after. You could crowd a bedding area, hunt a food source, rely on rut tactics, hang to kill (upside down like a bat if you have to), stalk and shoot, run and gun........ what ever. They are all hunting tactics and older than all of us. So, if anyone feels inclined to rename an old hunting tactic and try to make it sound cool, go right ahead. Because..... WGAS
Well I read through this entire thread.. What I learned was... loads of peeps who are totally misunderstanding the term 'run and gun'.. or 'hang to kill'. 'Run and gun' is NOT setting a treestand then moving it 50 yards cause deer are over there. 'Run and gun' is a hunter constantly on the move.. going from HOT sign to hot sign... but not necessarily (I hope) hunting just the sign. It has nothing to do with moving just 50 yards and sitting for a week.. its almost a constant moving where the element of surprise becomes the ultimate intention. Yes.. it's an old tactic.. but it was then and still is now.. used by only a handful of peeps.. most guys just wanna sit in the same old spot and wait for the deer to find them. Nothing wrong with that either.. in fact in some places and spots.. if hunted wisely enough you can still take down a good deer this way. 'Hang to kill'.. is just a philosophy in which the hunter is NOT content with seeing a buck.. he/she wants to kill it.. so they hang in the most appropriate tree to get a shot THAT DAY... NOT tomorrow. It's a way to teach the mind and the body NOT to get lazy and take the easy way out cause you 'could' kill a deer here.. it's KILL a deer here... or 'hang to kill'. Very few I've ever seen or met have this ability. This is not a tactic.. but rather a mindset that just becomes a tactic to the individual. As far as Buckeye's Q.. I think you worry to much... who cares what anyone calls anything. Or has been already said.. WGAS?
Not worried about it at all. Not sure how you got that impression. Anyhow... I have decided to call digging for gold... Pick'n & Get'n. Now it has a cool name to
So moving stands or hunting different locations is supposedly some type of NEW hunting strategy??? I think the first year I ever bowhunted (15 years ago) I must have sat in 20 different trees even though I only owned 2 lock-on stands at that time.
I think I stated I was trying a new approach(for me it is on the farm), buckeye has his g-string all in a not about the phrase "Run & Gun". BTW if i make the GTG I will be returning your hoodie, it has bad vibes.
I like the "In and Out". "Honey, I am going to do a little in and out on Monday. Then I am going to camp out Monday night and do the in and out all day Tuesday".
I have hunted this way ever since I was young... We always called it being "Mobile" Its the main ingredient in both of the Whitetail strategy DVD's we released. I rarely hunt the same tree twice. Moving a stand after 5 or 10 hunts is not being "mobile" or "run and gun" it just means you had one great chance ( the 1st day ) and 4 or 9 poor quality hunts.. No matter what anyone does, ( or thinks )deer will pick up some of your human scent around your tree and on your ground scent trail to and from the tree for up to several days. This don't have near the effect on young deer that it does on mature bucks... Which lulls some hunters into thinking there tactics are working. Also, these bucks are on feeding and bedding patterns. If he don't come by on wednesday what makes you think he will wander by thursday? Its certainly NOT a new tactic. People have been hunting mobile as long as people have been hunting. I have over 30 bucks over 100 inches. With a couple exceptions, most were killed the very 1st time I hunted a spot.
Even when I do hunt an area that I have hunted some time in the past, I usually end up in a different tree. Not only does that make it tougher for a buck to pattern me, but it also allows me to pick the very best tree for the wind that exact day.
