With the myriad of equipment to choose from these days, Jerry Kiesow asks, “How do you hunt whitetails?”

How do you hunt whitetail deer? Do you use a bow or gun? Do you hunt from a tree stand or ground blind? These are all questions that must be answered before you go into the woods—or you will be going unprepared.

Let’s first consider the weapon you will be using. Many of you now hunt deer with a crossbow and a gun. Each is “supposed” to be deadly at 100 yards or more. The gun may be, but are you? Do you shoot often enough to be able to take an offhand shot at a running buck at 100-plus yards? Most of the people I hunt with are not. Oh, they sight in their guns all right, but that’s it. No other shooting. They go into the woods and to their blinds and sit and wait.

Let’s talk about those blinds

Where I hunt, we have platforms built about two feet off the ground. They are about three or four feet square. They have sides but no top. One of the sides is removable so the hunter can get in when he or she steps up on the attached step and then into the platform. It is all made of wood and has a few boards here and there that need, from time to time, when required, to have camo painted on them. Inside are a chair to sit on and a place to set your hot cup of tea, coffee or soup. From one of these, the hunter will wait for a whitetail to come along one of the trails he is watching.

We hunt in an area that allows us to take a doe or two, so for some, if it is brown, it is down.

We also have several tree stands. These are mostly used by the bowhunter, but not exclusively. They are not the kind that “climbs” up the tree. They lean against the trunk of the tree, have steps to climb to the top, where there is a small seat. They are about 15 feet off the ground.

Some I know, but do not “hunt” with, have a barbeque stove on the porch of their “blind.” I also know of one set of blinds that is carpeted, including the walls, so the noise is not projected out. It has a chair that rolls from window to window and can be heated so one can “hunt” in shirt sleeves if they want to. (Almost like some of the ice “shacks” we see today, and yes, they call this hunting.)

So? How do you hunt deer? Are you a modern-day hunter who hunts from a tree with a powerful crossbow and/or scoped gun? Or maybe you hunt with both. One way or another, you probably wait for a deer to come by close enough to try a shot. You then shoot and hope for a hit. Or do you hunt the old way—still-hunting, continually on the move, slowly, sitting, occasionally, the entire day?

If you want to learn more about the tools and gear that can help improve your hunting this fall, read the fall issues of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.