Hunting Whitetail From the Ground

By Coltin Gresser

When you hear of Whitetail deer hunting in the Midwest, what pops into your mind? My guess is either climber stands, tree saddles, or the traditional tree stand. Hell, maybe if you’re a fancy pants hunter you have one of them huge box blind stands, where you can put a heater in there so your little feet and hands don’t get cold. If you can’t tell I’m just jealous of those nice box blinds.

Yes, you are correct. Those are many ways that deer hunters in the Midwest chose to pursue those corn and soybean munchers. I am not here to tell you that those are wrong or not as challenging as what we are about to talk about. I am going to be telling you about the main way I was raised to deer hunt. Hopefully after reading this article, instead of being 18-20 feet up in a tree, you will be sitting in some tall grass or a homemade brush blind in a ghillie suit on the ground.

Before rambling on how to hunt these tasty four-legged critters. Let’s take a step back and realize it’s not as crazy as some people make it out to be. The main way hunters pursue the wild turkey is on the ground. Elk and moose hunters chase them on the ground on stalk hunts or still hunts. Just because these Whitetails have been chased from up in a tree for centuries. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong to even the playing fields and chase them on the ground.

The Set Up/ Tactics

Now that I have brought you to the ground side. Here is some of the setups and tactics that we have done in the past and worked in our favor. If you hunt mostly agriculture fields, like I do in Indiana, this is going to be one for you. If the land you are hunting has hills, you are going to set your self up on one of the slopes of that hill. It not only gives you the chance to see more for being elevated from the rest of the field, but the slope behind you will conceal you. From a deer’s perspective, you are just another blob of grass or clump of dirt. I will say this works extremely well with rifles or muzzleloaders. I have killed deer with my compound and crossbow using this tactic as well. Just because you are in the open don’t count out archery just yet.

If you have a property line with taller grass or even a hardwood tree line on it. It’s going to be a money spot. Do your research and your scouting. Do not just see a tree line or property line and be like, oh yeah Colt told me to sit there I’m going to sit there. Pattern the movement of the deer. Depending on the deer sometimes they love traveling the tree lines that run east and west, whereas other deer will travel tree lines that go more north and south. Once you have the best guess, choose that tree line and ghillie suit-up. The majority of the deer we have harvested comes from sitting on and in property lines and tree lines. MAKE SURE that you are not sitting on a property or tree line that is budding up next to the neighbor that you have had problems with. Or a neighbor that doesn’t like hunting on his or her land. Make sure that the field edge your area sitting on is either your own property or a parcel of land on which you have full clearance to hunt and retrieve game.

Calling and decoying will help you bring curious deer into range. I have had many hunts. Where there are deer 300-400 yards away. He or she was too far away for me to hail marry a call and get their attention. The silhouette decoys I had standing out in front of me, helped my sorryass out. Those deer saw those decoys and were so curious it brought them into 55-65 yards.

Deer are most of the time a curious creature. If they see other deer sometimes, they want to be by them for safety, want to investigate why deer are over there, or if it is the rut they want to breed or fight. Remember the old saying “Curiosity is what killed the cat”. Well, for us deer hunters just replace cats with deer!

Calling is a whole topic that I can yap about till my face turns purple or the cows come home. To make a long story short for the sake of your sanity. Too much calling could hurt, but not calling at all could hurt as well. The number one thing I can promise you is that with more and more field time and experience, you will learn when to call or not. Failure is okay, just because you spooked a deer by calling (which usually never happens for me at least), or you see a deer and you’re too nervous to call and it walks away from you. Every little experience will craft you into that hardened deer-hunting veteran you are looking to become.

Hunting North America’s most money-making wild game species on the ground is addicting. I like to compare hunting from a tree to hunting on the ground. To fishing with conventional gear and comparing that with fly-fishing. Hunting on the ground is more rewarding and takes just some more skills and different skills than sitting up in a tree. The same thing to fly-fishing it takes different and more skills, than chucking a deep-diving crankbait on a bait caster. Both forms of hunting are fun, but when you harvest a deer, you shoot on the ground with a bow especially since people tend to not believe you!

Hopefully your still awake by this time because here is the most important information, I could give you. No matter how warm that bed feels on a cold morning or if you wake up and see the wind coming from the opposite way you want it to. Get up get dressed and choose a different spot to hunt. You can’t kill them from the couch!

Good luck this deer hunting season and as always STAY DEGENERATE.