“If Hitler had ever spent a fall…watching the bucks go by on our running boards, he never would have dared reoccupy the Rhineland.”

– E.B. White

Soon we will be out in the deer woods. Depending upon our personal hunting styles, we will be spending long hours in a tree stand waiting for a big buck to make a foolish mistake, or we will be still-hunting our way through a beech ridge or a dark cedar swamp.

Maine deer hunting, or more specifically Maine deer hunters, have changed, I think. More and more deer hunters, spurred by the popular outdoor media and modern marketing razzle dazzle, will spend hours in comfortable tree stands, some equipped with heaters and camo umbrellas that help fend off the elements.

This is a far cry from the Maine deer hunters of my, or my late father’s, generation. In the 1940s through the early 1960s, most deer hunters that I knew, still-hunted deer. Still-hunting, or course, is a bit of a misnomer. Still-hunters move in the deer woods, but move ever so slowly, at least the most skillful ones do. And they stop a lot, to listen in hopes of hearing or seeing a moving whitetail before it detects their presence.

As a youthful, wet-behind-the-ears hunter, the most skillful deer hunter that I knew was my Uncle Bud. He always got his deer and, it can be told now, sometimes more than one. From my observations, he was, as a hunter, more of a stalker than a still-hunter. He was blessed with keen eyesight, lots of patience, and had that 6th sense about deer movements during any time of day. It is said that in Maine, year after year, there is a certain group of hunters who almost always get their deer. Like most of the other keen-eyed huntsmen of this special fraternity, Uncle Bud spent long hours in the woods, too. You know the type, they grab a sandwich at deer camp, head into the woods at first light and stay until dark, rain or shine.

Wanting to improve my hunting skills, I often studied these successful deer stalkers. On a few occasions, I watched them move like ghosts through the woods, when they were unaware of my presence.

The memory of one such stalker stands out. We’ll call him Jack. Tall and lean as a bean pole, and ravaged by too much strong drink, Jack, when sober, was without question the most “finished” deer stalker in all of Piscataquis County. That’s the funny thing. Like a big fat man, who dances with the easy grace of Fred Astaire, Jack was an incongruity. He just didn’t fit the image of a kick-ass deer hunter. At least, he didn’t conform to my perception of an intrepid big buck hunter. He hunted in old sneakers and grease-covered, blue work pants, and a faded old blue checkered woolen jackshirt. His 30-30 rifle was almost a joke. The blue finish was gone, the action was shot, and the barrel sported pits of rust. In those days, hunter orange was still on the drawing board. In the evening at deer camp, Jack, who rarely put a cork back in any bourbon bottle, was always the last to turn down the lamp before slumping to sleep in the camp rocking chair.

But he loved the hunt, and he always left his rocking chair perch willingly at first light to join us on the ridges and in the swamps.

The first time I saw him stalk his quarry at Little Buttermilk Pond I couldn’t believe my eyes. Later that day, he killed a nice buck. I was leaning against a tree in the shadows close to a deer run. Never making a sound, he tip toed in the morning mist from tree-to-tree like a night burglar . He didn’t see me. I watched him pick his way meticulously, not in a straight line, but zig zagging from one big tree to another, always working the shadows. It probably took him 15 minutes to travel 50 yards.

The point, of course, is that there are still-hunters and then there are still-hunters. The best of the lot are in truth deer stalkers. Uncle Bud and Long Jack were both deer stalkers of the first order.

The man who wrote the bible on still-hunting deer, T.S. Van Dyke, offered tips like these in his book, “The Still Hunter:”

 1. Avoid noise by selecting trails, easing off brush with your hands, going around it, crawling through, etc.

 2. Positively no hurrying, for in still-hunting, Hurry is the parent of Flurry.

 3. In still-hunting, you never have an advantage to spare.

 4. If patience ever brings reward it is to the still-hunter.

Van Dyke’s central theme to all still-hunters is not novel: see the deer before it sees you. “There is scarcely anything else so hard to do,” he writes. “In this more than in almost any other thing lies the secret of the old and practical still-hunter’s success.”

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM-FM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected] and his new book is “A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook.”