Tired of lying in the hammock, fighting the summer bugs?
How about some low-impact aerobics?
As in deer stalking.
You heard me right, and I’m not talking about poaching or spotlighting.
It’s not about hunting at all.
Rather, it’s about searching out wild deer on their own turf and getting really, close to them.
It’s a demanding sport but requires no equipment.
Just watchfulness and patience.
Especially patience.
And with the incredible proliferation of deer in virtually every town and suburb, you can go deer stalking just about anywhere.
There’s no secret to the technique.
Native Americans perfected the routine ages ago, and it is widely practiced today by modern hunters, photographers, biologists, and other wildlife watchers.
It’s a game of human wits versus the fine-tuned senses of one of the world’s most alert animals.
I first learned about it while reading a North Carolina newspaper. City slickers are especially keen on the idea. Deer stalking is gaining popularity at public parks around the country.
It can be played by anyone who can watch closely, step carefully and stand quietly.
A six-year-old can master it. So can a grown-up in his/her 80s.
If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like much exercise, try it.
Standing truly still for long periods requires such demanding muscle control that it regularly makes soldiers faint when standing in ranks.
The aerobic part is the heart-pounding, breath-stopping, knee-quavering tension of trying to approach an animal whose whole being is attuned to maintaining awareness of everything around it.
At the faintest whiff of human scent or the sound of a broken twig, this animal may explode into the spectacular tail-flashing flight that made “high-tailing it” part of the American vocabulary.
Keeping still is at least half the game.
And while deer can’t tell unmoving humans from fence posts unless they hear or smell them, their eyes are acutely sensitive to movement.
Go ahead, scratch your nose or slap at a mosquito.
Old Odocoileus virginianus is outta there.
Hunters—me included—tend to wear elaborate camouflage and use all sorts of cover scents and attractants designed to fool deer into thinking we’re trees, bushes or hot-to-trot does.
But we’re just overgrown kids playing dress-up.
Except for the floppy shoes, you could go into the woods costumed like Bozo the clown and stalk deer just as effectively as some nut wearing $200 worth of camo drenched in doe scent.
I’ve heard guys tell of wild deer and wilder turkeys strolling within an arm’s length when they were dressed head to toe in blaze orange and looked like a popsicle.
Deer can see some color, and they can make out patterns, but it all means nothing to them without factors of movement, sound, or smell.
Whether you’re an outlaw biker or Venus risen pure from the sea makes no difference.
To deer, all humans smell like the armpit of hell.
But let’s cut to the chase.
Where is the best place to walk up to deer?
Probably a sizable, wooded public park, where they’ll be more accustomed to people.
That way, they’re less likely to flee if you spook them.
Even if you startle one of these animals into full flight, don’t give up.
Whitetails seldom scamper farther than the nearest patch of cover. They’re curious creatures, and often circle back to check out intruders.
If you can move slowly enough, you can advance on deer in an open field.
Sometimes, you can get within spitting distance of them before a swirl of wind gives your scent away.
Deer tends to become paralyzed in close encounters, say within 25 feet.
A deer’s nervous system is tightly wound. Getting trapped in high-stress situations tends to put the zap on their head, and they commonly die of nervous exhaustion.
Deer stalking, however, is easier to describe than do.
My closest encounter with a deer so far last summer was about 50 yards at a local golf course.
On at least one other occasion I was betrayed by a flock of buttinsky crows that followed me all over the park and tipped off the deer.
Once a stool pigeon was a blue jay.
More often, though, I betrayed myself.
By moving carelessly or impatiently…
But I still had a great workout.
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Top o’ the morning!