Where to sit while hunting

[JeffreyAustin]

I hunt in Central ca, only bow hunt public land. Are others building a blind to sit in on public land? Where do you guys sit while waiting on a game trail? Dig out a spot in the dirt? Carry a stool? Seems like a simple thing, but standing for hours against a tree then trying to draw a bow is tough. What do others do in the woods?


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[Rob5589]

A quick pop up blind would work well. I usually just use the surroundings of I plan to sit a while.

 

[Bubblehide]

I generally pick a slope in which my pack supports me nicely in a fashion in which I can easily shoot.

 

[TheGDog]

(did a more in-depth post below)

 

[MeatBuck]

It’s pretty simple, make yourself comfortable and keep your movements as hidden as possible.
If your not comfortable you’re going to be moving a lot.
Pack a small saw or snips to build a small hole in the brush or find some deadfall to sit behind. Basically you just want a small obstruction between you and wherever you’re planning on the deer coming from. That way as it approaches your shooting lane you can maneuver yourself to a shooting position and get drawn without being detected. I use a small short roll up turkey blind and set it up then I pile a bit of brush in front to break up the outline and shine from fabric blowing in wind. When I leave I take the blind but leave the brush pile so I can slip in and set the blind back up next time out and not have to worry about someone swiping it.

I’ve also set a hub style ground blind and covered it in brush. One to help hide it but two to keep it shaded because it can get extra bakey in them things. Set it in shade and make sure it stays in shade for the time period in which you plan on sitting inside it. A quiet Folding chair is your best friend here as you can get it out of your way to shoot if animal doesn’t come to the window you’re set up to shoot out of. A back on the chair is crucial for comfort on long sits. Trouble with this setup is flat ground is pretty much a must and there aren’t many flat spots where deer live. Also hard to hide from other hunters.

I’ve also found other spots where guys have cut and piled brush at water sources, tree stands and found a hub style ground blind one time too.

 

[Blue Dudley]

I bring a lightweight seat

 

[TheGDog]

Which kind of chair you bring is dependent upon the terrain. It's wise when first going into an area to begin by bringing both a predator/turkey hunter back-supported seat cushion (the Beard Buster one is nice and thick and well made, btw) and along with that I bring along a REI Flexlite MACRO chair. It's basically a Helinox knock off but significantly larger in size and beefier and thicker feet on it. You have to practice setting them up quietly, what with all their shock-corded legs, but the comfort they provide, especially in hot, is unparalleled. And the fabric you sit upon is a mesh so you don't cook your backside. When it's more chilly and breeze is coming thru you sometimes need to put a jacket on it to sit upon to shut out that wind flow when you choose.

There's almost always deadfall around. Drag a bunch over to the shady spot you've found for setting up the chair at. Build it up to about knee height. Also sit down in that chair where you intend for it to reside and take a good moment to look around the FOV (Field of View) to see if the surrounding vegetation is blocking your view. Where needed, and judiciously, go cut down juuust enough of the growth which is disallowing you to view or make a shot towards a location/path-way you know/believe they will come along at.

Then... with your 3D Leafy suit, or Mesh Ghillie Suit on.. sit and wait and try not to move. Don't sniff.. Don't cough. Look first with your eyes, then if need be rotate your head.., SLOWLY!!! If you do it slowly enough... they won't see you. (Think 7 seconds to turn your head 90 degrees, I've tested this in the field btw).

I am just sitting at the base of the trunk of a large tree, which has a small area of Poison Oak growing up all around it, I carved out an area thru the Poison Oak to allow me to setup at the buse of that large Oak, with the Deadfall built up around in front me where needed, typically with the 3D Leafy on. I routinely have Does and fawns passing by me at less than 20yds. And Bobcats and Coyotes. Crucial thing is ya gotta be in the shade! And the wind current of that spot must blow your scent NOT in the direction of the pathway they'll be coming along at.

Plan a day where you're going in there specifically to do some "Gardening" where you bring some loppers with you and clear out a nice sized chunk of area all around your feet when on the sit. Make it be free of the dried oak leaves aka "The potato chips" so on the day of, you're not making noise accidentally.

When you take your sit when you first get there... be sure to take out all the things you believe you will need to grab for throughout the day. Binos, Rangefinder, shooting sticks, your water/drink, windchecker powder, your snacks pouch, your ziploc to receive your trash food wrappers. And figure out where you will place them near to you around your chair. You want to place them such that you can reach for them WITHOUT needing to turn your head to look for them.

At this time at the beginning of your sit, take a moment to rangefind all the various landmarks around you that are near to where you expect the deer to enter into the scene. While on the sit, when you look at these objects, repeat to yourself their range (this is more of an importance when using bow and pistol, with rifle ya just gotta remember that 25yds and under... ya gotta hold your point of aim about 1.5" higher than where reticle falls upon the animal).

Pay attention to the path of the shadows and how they change throughout the day while you're on the sit. Usually the first time you go there... you pick a spot... then realize ya gotta move it over a little more later on in the day as the sun moves and you're starting to cook and heat up in the light. This observation may influence how/where you clear-away the floor of "potato chips" so that you can adapt to the changing light. The goal being to find the primo spot where you'll be good to go without moving your sit the whole time you're there. Not always possible though, so you may need to come up with another location nearby this one that you can transfer over to at ??:??pm in the day. Movement sticks out like a sore thumb when you're not in the shade. And sometimes to help "break-up your outline" you may also need to build up some deadfall BEHIND where your sit is located. And make that build-up be up to your head-height when on the sit. This is usually not needed though if you pick the location well to begin with.

When placing your cams on your new spot, in general, ya wanna place your cams so they are facing North-Bound so the images don't get all backlit. And ya want the cam to not be pointing in the direction of nearby brush or tall grass that will sway when the wind blows on hot days. Otherwise... you come back to a cam that took like 4096 pics of nothing in just 2 days flats. If that happens sometimes you can experiment with mounting it a lil higher, or pruning some branches that are hanging into the frame if need be.

Also... you may need to consider clearing a small pathway to where, nearby, further out of their direction in terms of wind, you will go to in order to piss or #2 during the day. And everytime you have to take a leak, do so uber quietly with the thought in mind that this is exactly when luck is gonna have that animal you want pass-by. When returning back to your sit, have that weapon at the ready! Slow quiet stalking footsteps when returning! And look out as far as you can to ensure you don't see an incoming critter! This has helped me more than a few times.

 

[Bubblehide]

God Gary, look at you go. I said it before, I'll say it again, you are a sponge. You soak everything up. But damn, it can also be squeezed out.

 

[TheGDog]

The big thing there is practice in conveying details via email. I have had to do that for more than two decades a lot for work such as when I'm using a 3rd Party Products API for some functionality w/in our system. Gotta give as much detail as ya can, in most concise way you can, to cut down on the back-and-forth emails so they don't have to waste time asking you for clarification on something. Also from lots of online first person shooter gameplay as a younger man, and riding DirtBikes at ludicrous speed in the desert, my ability to retain huge amounts of 3D visual memory is very high. So when recanting the story I can visually see it all in my head.

Audio memorization is more difficult for me though. For example you tell me something, if I want to remember it I have to envision it as words typed on a page. If I read a book, In memory I can visualize the page, and where on the page the words were. Song I like and memorize.. I see them graphically in my head. Hard to explain I suppose.

Also... before getting into development I was tech support on the phones. At the worst part of that era... I was taking up to 60 calls a day. (Which is insanely high!) And this is intricate stuff too. Problems they were running into or created for themselves in the Time and Billing product we had back then. So you're essentially giving them a complex series of steps to execute then asking them to call you back afterward, so you could move on to calling back the next client. And... this is their billing... so it's like everything you say WILL be used against you etc. So you had to be precise. And it was frustrating too because they heard a younger mans voice and thus didn't initially have confidence and trust in your solution recommendation. And they wouldn't take their claws back outta ya and they'd keep ya on the line with 'em.. which made me stress cause boss man was trippin' over the huge phone time it was rackin' up on his 800 line for them. But i'll tell ya this though... by the end of that call they respected my @$$, I'll tell ya that. And and trip off this... they already had a sales guy named Gary, so they told me to pick another name to use while on the phones in support! I was like "What!? This is like Bill and Teds' Bogus Journey." So I said "F*ck it... Ted it is!" And so I went by Ted on the phones. It's a trip too.. because you get used to people referring to you as that. I 'm sure I could have passed a lie detector test regarding that. Because you just "become" that name. Cause I mean... we aren't born with names, somebody has to teach us that this is what they want us to respond to.

And then.... after seeing my proficiency... boss man gives me a coding project to re-tool our calls logging system, that apparently somebody started to do, but then got pulled off of. So I"m over here coding this thing... while at the same time providing support on the software systems we sold. He says I have a talent, so decides to offer me a chance to switch into programming. I'm like Heck Yeah!

First task? Make a utility that would read data files produced by these machines Legal offices have on their copiers and phones to track which client to bill it to. Needed to grind thro those files... and create batch entries into Great Plains Accounting Software! So I bust my ass in my off time and get that done. To show and prove, ya know. Then we start selling Great Plains, so we gotta support it too! Oh f*ck man... he walks up with, I sh*t you not, a9" high stack of manuals for Great Plains stuff, and says we're gonna start supporting this. F-M-L! So go from zero accounting experience to supporting it! Thankfully the boss man had a degree in accounting so he was good at breaking it down for me so I could digest it rapidly. And like in the blink of an eye I'm helping people setup like their Profit and Loss statements and sh*t at 23yo. Phew!

So yeah... the number of concurrent thought streams I might have running in my mind at any one time would just like cause the average dudes face to just melt right off. Hehe!

EDIT: one of the reasons I like Hunting is because it forces me to focus on that one activity. Which allows me to tune-out all those other thoughts.

 

[Elkhntr08]

First bear I shot was over bait in Canada. I was on the ground, tucked in beside a root wad. Shot was 15 yards.
Now I carry a piece of camo netting. Easy to drape over brush or prop up with sticks. Carry a 3 legged stool, but looking for something more adjustable. Play the wind and be quiet.