Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Go straight at 'em

How many here have had success walking straight at game while in plain sight? Over the years I've found myself in the situation where there's no cover but a lot of distance between me and an animal, or time is running out on shooting light and no time remains for a proper stalk. I've found that walking directly at an animal in a hunched posture - arms not moving at my sides with rifle held low and ball cap brim down over my face, and legs together moving mostly below the knee - seems to confuse them and even out in the open I can get close enough for a good shot, even when there are many animals in a group. This has worked several times for deer, both muley and whitetail, as well as antelope and even elk. Anyone else use this approach? I've done it as a last resort when there is an animal too good to pass up but no other way to play it other than walk away.

I've done it on whitetail archery hunting. It can really work.
This year at last light I did it to a little buck in the middle of an alfalfa field. It was last light and I was mainly just messing around. I walked straight at him from about 300 yards, and he didn't bust until I drew on him at 38 yards. Plain view, and he watched me the whole time.

At last light, near every game animal seems almost blind. Even pronghorn that are famous for their eyesight. I've had them nearly run me over in an alkali flat at dusk when something else spooked them.

Simply sit in the shade during daylight and it's almost as effective as being in blind for deer, elk, sheep, and pronghorn.

I've always had a little better luck quartering to -- and not directly looking at -- the animal. Idea is to let your posture and heading say: "See? I'm not really a threat." All the while closing the range...

Sometimes it works, and I seem to have a little knack at knowing when I might get away with it.
I went right at a young blacktail this year, closing from 125 to 30 yards (most of the last 35 I was hidden by the curve of the hilltop), simply stopping when he looked at me.
Earlier, I went with, and urged and coached, a friend at another buck lying in a pasture. He watched us most of the way (since we'd tried to stand him up with our predator calls, bring us to his attention), didn't get up until my buddy was scrunching up to the Shooting Stump. But boy, did he leave then!
I've done it elsewhere and elsewhen. It's amazing what can be done with a bit of brazenness. Sometimes.

Once in Wyoming I had a bunch of antelope with a good buck way out on the flats near the Bow River..getting close to them was all but impossible....I spent the better part of an afternoon deliberately quartering at them (moving them like you do cattle)from far off,by walking opposite the way I wanted them to go.

It took a couple hours so I didn't freak them out, but I finally maneuvered them into broken hill country adjacent to the flats,where I had enough screening cover to get within 300 yards or so.

I got the buck, and later filled a doe tag as well from that bunch.

That is about 30 yards distance; I'm wearing a white shirt.

I've done that scores of times.

Once I was walking the RR tracks while a buck was meandering along the tracks a few hundred yards beyond So I decided to see if I could touch it. I walked toward it pausing every time it looked up. I got to about 50 yards away when a train started coming up from behind me. So I had to move off the tracks hoping to guess the same side the deer would choose. I choose the proper side at first, so I hid in a tuff of grass waiting to pounce on it. When it got 10 feet away it crossed the tracks just before the train passed by.

If you freeze when the deer looks your way, they don't know what you are.


Here is when I was a bit closer.

I've done it many times with whitetails in open, harvested crop fields. I never go right at them however. I quarter at them, tacking like a sailboat working into the wind. Whitetails aren't all that smart sometimes.

I read an article some years ago about an outfitter who had a really obnoxious goat hunter in tow. He was trying to think of a way to get even with the guy when they found some goats bedded on a flat way out of range. There was a nice billy in the bunch but it was apparently unapproachable.
He thought of a get-even plan. It was cold, windy, and spitting snow, one of those miserable type days. He had the hunter strip down to his white long johns, then crawl slowly toward the goats while he stayed hidden and laughed at the guy's miserable crawl. His revenge plan worked perfectly. The goats just laid there and watched while hunter crawled to within easy range and popped the big one.

I've done it many times. Deer, elk, and pronghorn can all be stalked that way.
But I do use a couple of tricks. One is that I don't approach in a standing position. Pronghorn taught me that approaching as close to the ground as possible works where an upright hunter will spook them at at least 500 yds. So, I use a sort of bent over duck walk. A whole lot easier on the hunter than crawling prone.
The other is that I watch the animal. I don't move if he's looking directly at me or if he becomes tense. In fact, if they become tense, the stalk is just about over. They are getting ready to move.
It depends alot on the animal(s) too. Odviously a group is alot harder to approach than a single individual. Older, more experienced animals are much harder than young ones, etc.
I think it works because the closer to the ground hunter doesn't resemble a human. That and their eyes are on the side of their heads, so they can't judge distances as well as we can. E

Lateral movement is rarely stealthy and almost always a bad idea if you wish to maintain concealment when within line of sight with your intended target. For hunting, disciplined movement in a straight line stalk is very commonplace for those who hunt with archery tackle, especially those who ground hunt much with a stickbow. I don't think it is as commonplace with the average rifle hunter.

As for maintaining a non-threatening outline, one of the old methods to close distance on game in an open areas is to use a but crawl where you walk on your hands and feet while you scoot your butt while in a sitting position. You maintian this sitting position with your rifle or bow across your lap and it is about as non-threatening as it gets if you use disciplined movement. A famous group of WWII snipers used a variation of this position to develop a shooting position to use when in plain site of the enemey where they could slowly stalk and obtain a raised shooting position while not appearing to have a human outline from afar.

Best

I was just thinking of some yaho attempting that knee together, ball cap over the face, walk through the Adirondacks. Does anyone remember Jerry Lewis? What a great home video that would make. I can just imagine the local boys back at camp talking about seeing someone doing it in the woods and then demonstrating what they saw. Could be fun.

Two years ago I was hunting a creek bottom in eastern MT for whitetails. I'd passed a group of muleys on the way in and seen a small buck but the wind was wrong so I passed them by for the fields. There was nothing doing but about 15 minutes before end of shooting I glassed the muleys again and saw a wide buck had appeared. I figured what the heck and started making tracks hunched over head down straight at him. The does were looking right at me the whole way, easy 500 yards in plain sight, but they didn't move. I got to within 150 yards of the buck before he stood and made like he was gonna run so I shot him. Nicest muley I ever got.

Last year I had a late elk damage tag near Ennis on a big ranch. All the elk were bunched up in two groups, one of about 300 and another around 75 mostly cows and some small bulls. The smaller bunch was out in the open sage and short grass in a fence corner of the property I could hunt, mostly bedded but some feeding. The ranch road was about 500 yards from them at the closest but it was a spooky spot to stop so we drove up the hill to a spot about 1000 yards away where the truck dropped over a low ridge, then stopped to glass them. There was no cover and very little terrain, just a shallow coulee and one tree about 500 yards out. They weren't moving although poised to push off the ranch, but they were close enough to make a try before turning to the larger bunch so I went straight at them hunched over, again with my face below my hat brim and arms close to my sides. I went about 300 yards before they even started watching me and they didn't move and most stayed feeding or bedded. By the time I got to the tree a bunch of cows were watching me but they still hadn't moved. I had my shooting sticks in one hand and my rifle in the other, and figured I'd keep going until they started moving. I got to 250 yards before they all stood up and a couple started walking toward the fence so I sat and lined up on the sticks. Sure enough they strung out as they headed off the property and I got a nice cow out of the bunch. My buddy who stayed near the truck couldn't believe it, he'd watched the whole thing. It took about 20 minutes. I could hardly believe they didn't bolt but I think they just couldn't figure out what I was I must have looked like a fence post that kept getting bigger.