Bowhunting At Eye Level

Using a saddle and being a mobile hunter is extremely popular right now. Hunting from a tree saddle has many advantages over hunting from a traditional treestand. A saddle is lightweight, often offers better shot opportunities and since a saddle is so lightweight, bowhunters can walk deep into the backwoods and hunt unpressured areas that often don’t get hunted very hard.

For those who are intimidated by hunting from a saddle or don’t want to learn how to use one, there is a way of being an extremely mobile bowhunter without buying a saddle. A bowhunting option that can be as much fun as hunting from a saddle is bowhunting from the ground without a blind. 

Many bowhunters never try this method. I have cerebral palsy and have never been a fan of treestands so early on in my teens, I started bowhunting from the ground. I became successful at it quickly and realized bowhunting whitetails from the ground isn’t as difficult as many may think it is. 

Over the last couple of years, I have encouraged my son to try bowhunting from the ground on public land. At first he didn’t want to try it.  Eventually I won him over and he started to see the advantages of bowhunting from the ground. When he spotted a beat down runway or a fresh scrape instead of looking for the perfect tree to hang a stand, he would look for a big tree he could sit against, build a brush blind, or look for a downed tree nearby that he could hide in. 

In our part of the country, finding a big buck on public land is extremely difficult so I told my son to shoot the first buck he got a good shot it while ground hunting. We are meat hunters for the most part and I didn’t want to tell my teenager he had to pass up certain bucks. 

Last fall, there was a large wind storm on some public land that caused several large trees to come down. The storm took place days before the opening day of our archery season so there were many trees on the ground that still had lots of leaves on the branches. There were lots of places to hunt where he could easily slip into the middle of a blow down and go undetected. 

On opening day of archery season, my son started scouting near a creek where a lot of deer drink and cross a small bottleneck between an open field and some thick timber. He found a well-traveled runway and sat in a blowdown shortly after discovering the well-used runway. That night, a couple young bucks walked within bow range as they crossed the creek but neither buck gave him a shot opportunity. The next day he sat the same location and was able to kill a 6-point buck with his bow. 

I have had many similar hunts. The main reason I like bowhunting from the ground is because I like scouting a location and being able to hunt that location the same day. By doing this, the area is undisturbed. There isn’t a ton of human odor, cut branches etc. Hunting in a spot that is completely fresh makes overcoming the senses of a whitetail much easier. They aren’t suspecting anything when they pass through the area. 

I would suggest always spraying down in scent killer, having as much cover as possible and moving as little as possible. That said, I have noticed getting away with drawing a bow on the first or second sit isn’t as hard as you would think if the deer haven’t been hunted hard in the area. I prefer trying the ground hunting tactic two times during deer season. The first week of season when deer are somewhat clueless and during the rut when bucks are chasing does.

Bowhunting deer at eye level can be extremely challenging and extremely rewarding. Give it a try this fall if you need to be extremely mobile and are up to the challenge of hunting from the ground without a blind.