I'll be the first to admit I am no mule deer expert. However, mule deer are very stupid animals compared to whitetails from my experiences in western KS/ CO. I am sure their are some die hard mule deer hunters that will disagree.
Our ancestors may not have used treestands while hunting, but surely they must have used ambush hunting tactics and vantage points which is essentially what treestand hunting is.
What if, I being a tree stand hunter, started to spot and stalk, I'd starve to death. I don't have the patience for that type of hunting. I'm totally impressed by the guys/gals that do it. The terrain on our place would make it a bear to do it. IMO.
If I go out and sit on a stump where the deer are observed to travel, or set up a ground blind isn't that still spot and stalk?
Technically no, that's just ambush hunting. Plop down on a spot you hope an animal will pass by without seeing the animal first. Spot and stalk is an entirely different animal. In the woods and tall fields, the closest thing stylistically to spot and stalk that would actually work with any frequency would be "still hunting." Take a slow walk, stop for a bit, look around, wait, look around some more, slow walk, repeat. You see something that peaks your interest, you try to creep close enough for a shot or intercept the animal's anticipated travel path. I've been successful at still hunting a few times with a gun. Gotten close enough once or twice with a bow but decided the animal wasn't one I wanted to take. The woods and tall vegetation take the "spot" part out of a traditional spot and stalk equation pretty quick.
At least for me being out west I have done both. Tree for whitetail and S&S on mulies. Gonna give bear a shot. But it's not a difficult transition because I try and put in equal work and prep for all
Have seen deer in a field and tried a stock twice got to around 55 yards the first time. The second time I couldnt even get my stand and pack off befor they busted me. Its definitely fun to try when it presents itself.
Stalking? Maybe. It could be done under the right conditions. Spotting? Not a chance where I'm at. Hard to put a stalk on a deer that would have to be at 30 yards for me to see. Still hunting is a possibility. Essentially a combination of stalking and Sota's stump sitting. Again, you'd have to be patient enough to stalk through 100's of acres without being about to see past 30 yards. Could be a deer there? Could not? No, hunter success rates would not increase. ... of course at my current rate, it couldn't hurt me.
sota, I think if you chose to sit on the ground next to the stump you would be in the same category. in any spot and stalk for mulies I seen on tv they are always hunkered down in the grass waiting in an ambush type of position right before shooting. not much different then sitting on a stump trying to ambush.
There's a lot of different point of views and opinions here. I was curious for the fact that at some point in time whitetails had to be hunted like mulies. I feel it can be done with the right mind set and patience.
I know there was talk about the tall grass out west.I know there are places like that but the places i've been you have 20 ft tall mountain sides of manzanita and scrub oak then there's the sage brush,and in timber you have a lot of dead and down trees and that makes for some tough stalking. Sorry if I rambled on with no periods typing on my phone.
The only thing I hate walking thru more than manzanita is chared manzanita. I would rather walk thru an alder swamp bare footed.
Come out and try then. In my experience, I have been out west twice, eastern whitetails are much more jumpy and nervous than mulies. The hunting pressure is higher also (we have more bowhunters in PA than some states have total hunters). I know mule deer are not easy to hunt but they are not the same animal. If all you want to do is kill a deer sure you can spot and stalk them. In my trad archery days I shot quite a few on the ground. But if your goal is to kill big mature deer, plan on a lot of years of unfilled tags.
This brings up a point worth discussing. Most whitetail hunters are very predicable. Take them off there little 40 aces they been hunting for years, take a way their there stands....and they are pretty well lost. there are lot of one property wonders out there and lucky for them whitetail follow a script pretty well. That said all of us would be better off if we think out side the box a bit a shed some our self imposed constants.
Not necessarily. It's more about the terrain than the animal. There are more ways to skin a cat- is all mulie/western hunting spot and stalk? No. Got my Idaho elk by ambush over a water hole after a solid week of failed spotting. Didn't even get a chance to try and stalk, as we didn't "spot" anything closer than 2 mountains over. We got lucky finding a watering hole in the dark timber with lots of recent tracks and just brushed in a blind under a nearby pine tree, which was probably the equivalent of a 20' tree stand once the grade was factored in. I'm pretty sure Indians and settlers did plenty of ambush hunts at water points and feeding areas, and surely they also ambushed along game paths from bedding areas to those basic needs. I've read many accounts of game trails so defined that they were as wide as a two track. Don't forget that historically buffalo and elk habitats ranged coast to coast, even into the deep eastern woods. Also, that was before commercial logging, so the forests were virgin with little undergrowth, so you could see much further into them. Indians and settlers both often conducted drives as well. They also used fire to drive animals off cliffs or into choke points to shoot them down by the dozens. For them, it wasn't sport, it was survival. It was a different world. The fact there are hundreds of thousands more whitetails now than when Colombus arrived is proof of that. Sure, given the right terrain a spot and stalk would be the way to go and I'm sure over the centuries it has been tried and accomplished many, many times. But I'm also guessing the percentage of successful spot and stalks in any era on a whitetail with archery equipment is pretty low.
My days of cutting manzanita is done, I assign that work to the crews on my clipboard. I will say this if you are spiked out and have the old 5 gallon coffee pot manzanita will get that water boiling faster than any other wood.
