When sixteen and knowing little or nothing about deer hunting 
(nor deer habits for that matter), I first stalked whitetails in 1955 along Carroll County Missouri’s Grand River shoreline. The only weapon I could finance then was a straight-limb bamboo bow armed with hickory shafts purchased through Montgomery Ward’s catalogue.
With that same bow five years later, and mentored by a 3/4 Cherokee, I arrowed the first deer taken in modern times in Carroll County on North Grand’s Mohee Bluff. Thirty-two years later, during Missouri’s 50th deer season (since reopening legal deer hunting in 1944), 1994 registered a fork-horn taken by firearms from an Ozark tree stand after a one hour hunt.
Between those two animals, a herd of venison passed through the freezer to our table. Whitetail lore gained through years of mentoring from one old timer and then another uncovered ancient deer hunting schemes. Deer articles sprouted like grass from outdoor magazines as burgeoning deer populations rekindled links to ancestral hunters dating back to the last ice age.
Today, at least in Missouri, Odocoileus virginianus is the sole surviving wild ungulate sprung from ice age roots. Its habits and physical characteristics insured survival through calamitous natural disasters and, though but narrowly, man’s indiscriminate hunting.
Primarily, deer have two priorities - eating and reproduction. To survive what nature and man have contrived against them since glacial meltdown spawned the Missouri and Mississippi River, genetic imprinting programmed whitetails’ internal security to insure that they address both.
Understanding how that security system works (and knowing its weaknesses) helps determine whether to hunt from stands, still hunt or drive when hunting deer. Ice age hunters successfully took big game with spears and atlatls (spear throwing devices). Using their hunting techniques, modern man using modern weapons should do the job more efficiently.
However, the quarry still must be virtually in the grasp before a trigger squeeze or bow release downs one with certainty. Stands, drives and still hunting techniques continue to place modern hunters in the right places at the right times just as they did through antiquity. These strategies were first plotted around ice age camp fires - if not before.
STAND HUNTING
Stands may be located on the ground or elevated vertically. Each has a place.
Vertical stands place hunters above deer’s usual line of sight and permit rising air currents to disperse human scent away from the immediate area. They can be entirely mechanical with seating perched atop telescopic metal legs, the more common portable tree stands or permanent tree stands.
The surrounding area below the Grand’s bluffs and between the river’s banks and its levees was, and is, swampy. Acres once cleared for farming sprouted impenetrable thickets of saplings and brush when the Grand’s annual flooding reclaimed them.
Harry Frock was the 3/4-Cherokee guru coaching me to that first deer taken off Grand River’s Mohee Bluff those many years ago. After years of unsuccessfully stalking deer through the Grand’s swamps, Frock took pity and suggested I elevate my odiferous undisciplined carcass up out of harm’s way. The results were electrifying.
Whitetails bedding in the Grand’s dense thickets and swamps fed in adjacent fields protected by levees and bluffs. Strategic tree stands overlooking well worn travel lanes and crossings put venison on our table season after season thanks to Frock’s enlightenment. For years it was not just a favorite method to hunt deer, it was the only way I hunted them. (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!)
Originally, I favored permanent tree stands built from treated lumber. Taking a herd of Ozark deer from two such stands over the last ten years, has, in some fashion, conveyed a threat to current whitetail residents. Last year, on two separate occasions, deer either spooked at a slight sound incurred while I positioned for a shot or suddenly, and apparently without cause, looked up at the blind’s occupant. That never used to happen.
A portable stand with removable steps camouflages the hunter’s presence more effectively. It is easily moved if necessary, and erecting one is less invasive to a tree than the damage a permanent stand’s construction causes.
In North Missouri’s agricultural areas, stands (tree and ground) are placed on travel routes such as windbreaks, creeks or wooded draws.
Riverine systems, such as the Missouri and Mississippi River drainages, offer unique topographical structure. Rugged bluffs and watery fens provide shelter and travel corridors to nearby fields. Often, ground stands are more effective here especially when hunting along steep bluffs.
Creative ground stands are made from a variety of materials. The simplest are stacked bales of straw. They help contain human scent, break the wind and hide a hunter’s outline. Then, there are portable and permanent wooden deer stands resembling everything from outhouses to duck blinds on stilts stationed in the woods.
Dave Ely, Carrollton, Missouri, crafted such a spacious-roofed-”deer blind.” It strongly resembled an elevated
duck blind. Adjustable pipe legs lifted it eight feet off the ground. They easily accommodated uneven terrain. A trap door functioning as a drop ladder and a three point hitch welded to the exterior metal frame rounded out its features. The latter permited moving the stand to other locations if desired. A small heater in the blind warmed coffee and occupant. A portable potty occupied a corner.
One of the last years Dave hunted from this blind, his 30′06 downed an eight point buck scant minutes after the first day’s legal opening. Twenty-six minutes later, it filled his bonus tag with a doe.
Dave was either an adopted father or I was an adopted son. Wherever he hunts now, I pray he keeps a spot reserved for me near his current campfire.
In the Ozarks, look for funnels. They are hollows fed by low gaps (a depression in a ridge) that funnel deer through from another drainage.
While cultivated crops are scarce in the Ozarks, deer still seek seasonal feeding areas from one season to the next. Determining the travel routes between feeding and bedding sites quickly unmasks well traveled “funnels.”
The most productive area of a funnel may be the low gap itself. However, if several hollows drain into a single major one, the latter is the ideal place to set up - especially for the firearms opener. If a strategic tree is not convenient, try locating a ground stand on one side of the hollow with a clear view of its corridor.
Of two deer stands I hunted regularly from in the Ozarks, each is modeled after one of the above examples.
One looks over a broad, rather open hollow funnelling deer through from a maze of drainages entering from above. The stand rests in a white oak 41-feet up the climbing side. Its crown shades a dry creek bed on the back side with the stand’s platform towering more than 60-feet above the creek’s exposed bedrock.
The “Skyscraper,” to my knowledge, has produced a deer every season since we constructed it. Others took deer from it too - after they conquered altitude sickness incurred from climbing it. Over the years, my score from that lofty aerie reached 13 - a good round number.
The other Ozark tree stand I covet stands in the saddle of a low gap several hundred yards below a house I once owned deep in the woods near Lake of the Ozarks. It channels deer crossing from one rugged major drainage to another. In addition, it affords proximity to an abundance of maturing white oaks on nearby slopes. (White oak acorns are like ice cream to whitetails.)
In past years, I doubled out of it twice using bonus permits. In the first 5 years, it produced 7 deer. After 14 years, the stand produced more than twenty deer for processing into venison.
Archery deer hunters routinely use portable deer stands. Firearms hunters could (should) take a lesson from archery manuals and use them more often.
When placed properly, well located stands capitalize on hordes of opening weekend hunters. The massive invasion panics deer indiscriminately through random travel corridors, particularly on opening day.
Getting to and from a stand, one should never walk the game paths leading to it. Approach the stand at a 90-degree angle to the animal corridor it guards. This eliminates depositing human scent that warns wary whitetails not to use that path.
Permanent tree stands should be built from treated lumber and thoroughly checked before each use. Hunters should avoid all risk that courts the widowing of their mates by using safety belts. In addition to the belt, I placed a straddle board in the “Skyscraper” for further comfort and security.
DRIVES
A mentor, Roy Holst of Versailles, Missouri (now deceased), finally broke my addiction to tree stands. He was so good at driving deer, I used to think that, somehow, he conditioned them to lead. Yet, he did it while legally blind.
Holst grew up near the mouth of Proctor Creek on what is now Lake of the Ozarks. He guided hunters and anglers through that area long before Bagnell Dam impounded a meandering Osage River into Lake of the Ozarks.
Seventy plus years farming and hunting this rugged terrain allowed him to navigate it while compassing over dimmed but familiar ridges etched against the sky. Memory and instincts piloted him across the landscape, and even out to his trotline, by triangulating between the more recognized landmarks he could see with his limited vision silhouetted against the horizon.
Holst posted the acreage he hunted to prevent undisciplined hunters from disrupting his deer drives and to protect the drivers. He positioned a line of standers at a strategic location (such as down “Skyscraper’s” hollow). Then he carefully, methodically and without haste strolled across ridge-tops leading to the funnel or hollow harboring the standers. Firing lanes extended no more than 45-degrees to each stander’s right or left. (There were no exceptions!)
Holst pointed out that after most deer openers, weekend warriors returned home. Deer tended to lay tight during the rest of firearms deer season. He argued, “The only way to move ‘em, is root ‘em out! Otherwise, they go strictly nocturnal.” (More genetic programming of their security system.)
Eventually, I joined him as a driver so we could improve the drive’s production. Since he is legally blind and unable to carry a firearm, many times deer doubling back escaped. We decided I would parallel his route and trail slightly behind.
I recall our first experiment at this while carrying his lever action, buckhorn, iron-sighted, .30-30 Winchester. My 7 mm Ruger magnum’s scope had hopelessly fogged. Holst rammed two does by me. Shooting a rifle I had never fired before, I treated the lead animal as if it wore flight feathers and fired instinctively as if firing a shotgun on a flushing shot. I never rolled a rabbit more cleanly or as many times. The experience added new dimensions to deer hunting.
When trailing a driver behind another, we found deer often lay tight till the first two legged critter passes. They then might sneak into the next driver or panic and flush with the added pressure.
Driving deer requires strict hunter disciplines. Anyone breaking firing line rules in Holst’s camp, risked automatic expulsion from future deer hunts. Taking a deer, while desirable, is not the most important priority here. Protecting campmates takes precedence over filling tags. A designated range or field safety officer supervised all Holst’s deer drives. And, that person’s judgement was law.
Drivers carry the heaviest responsibility. They must know the lay of land intimately. After jumping deer, they must know, with certainty, where the other drivers are, as well as standers, before firing at game. Good shots invariably get passed up. It is no place for unrestrained egos.
STILL-HUNTING
While tree stands insured venison’s presence in our freezer, bonus permits and special hunts inspire the most rewarding hunt of all. Still-hunting pits hunters one on one with the prey. Holst’s deer drives proved the technique’s feasibility.
Whitetails use smell, hearing and sight to scan an area for danger. They rely on smell and hearing more than sight. That is basic data - documented countless times. However, how deer employ those senses to their ultimate advantage is subtle and often over looked by the majority.
Besides survival and reproduction, a deer’s priority most of the year is simply to eat. Whitetails even eat as they travel. They venture forth a step - maybe two. Then, they pause and snuff up an acorn, snip off a bud or grab a mouthful of something. Suddenly, they throw their head up and stand stationary. Masticating a mouthful, they meticulously scan 360-degrees for danger. Eyes and nose test one direction as ears rotate straining to hear anything attempting blind side approaches.
Occasionally, they visually lock on to an object, real or fancied. Their body language conveys they assume it might be a possible threat. This often activates a rather comic head bobbing that attempts to catch some critter red-handed in the act of stalking them. As their head descends to feed, it snaps immediately back up trying to uncloak a potential predator. Repeated several times in rapid out-of-synch succession, the act sometimes lends a Chaplinesque appearance to the routine.
Sometimes as the head descends as if to feed, closer inspection reveals an eyeball peering through structure at ground level. While the deer remains absolutely motionless, it wires every muscle to spring it clear if it identifies danger.
After an interminable time spent acting out this charade, it leisurely takes another step or two forward, vacuums up yet another mouthful - and tediously repeats the performance.
Over the millennia, nature genetically programmed whitetails to assimilate this walk-about method. Their ancestors hastened into predators’ maws often enough that nature genetically imprinted their future progeny with this ambling trait to insure the species’ survival.
When still-hunting whitetails, travel into the wind or across it. If you sprint more than a hundred yards in an hour, take the track shoes off. Turtles win this race.
Take a step. Stop. Eyes should scan ahead and to the sides without moving the head unduly. Head movement must be minimal and calculated. After assuring the coast is clear, ease into the next step. Repeat the process. The objective is to see movement (deer) before revealing yourself.
A still hunter looks for rotating ears, twitching flags, hocks shifting position at ground level, head movement associated with feeding or chewing a cud while bedded. Any unexplained movement is potential venison until proven otherwise.
While still hunting, I have had squirrels follow along burrowing in leaf litter for nuts. The gait is non-threatening and they occasionally tag along foraging noisily.
Such a stalk spaces steps, even in dry-noisy-leaves, so far apart that wild prey does not associate it with the most lethal of predators – two-leggers. And, when squirrels forage nearby, all the better. Their commotion effectively camouflages a hunter’s stalk.
Though maddeningly challenging when properly applied, still hunting is deadly. Its disadvantages over tree stands centers on vagrant breezes and impatience, or other causes that reveal the hunter’s presence too soon. Unquestionably, the advantage is to the prey - as nature intended.
The intensity that a hunter must use to focus on the business at hand while still hunting deer can strain nerves to the point of pain. Until actually performing this technique, one cannot fully appreciate how intensely a whitetail lives every moment of its waking life.
Mastering the art of still hunting big game truly marries hunters to their environment. Hearts throb to age old rhythms while claiming an inheritance bequeathed across a millennia where human camp-fires warmed shelters in the shadows of North America’s last glaciers.