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Contributed by Backcountry Commando
Traditional spot and stalk hunting is a challenging and rewarding way to hunt big game. While it is often associated with Africa or the Western States in the US, it is also possible to experience the joys of spot and stalk hunting in Texas.
In Texas, spot and stalk hunting is typically relegated to far West Texas and the Panhandle while chasing mule deer, and pronghorn antelope. Spot and stalk hunting usually conjures up images of glassing from mountainsides and scenic vistas overlooking big country. But spot and stalk hunting doesn’t have to be isolated to those areas.
As a kid I remember countless hours with an old rickety Bear bow sneaking around playing hide and seek with whitetail deer on friends and employer’s private ranches in the Hill Country of Texas. Snooping around on foot, playing the wind game and using the concealment of low trees and shrubs makes spot and stalk hunting in the Hill Country an extra challenging endeavor. The stalking and tracking skills those (most times unsuccessful) experiences burned into me formed my outlook and behavior as a hunter that lasts to this day. It’s a manner of hunting that supercharges attention to the details of patience, silence, concealment, scent, wind, moon, weather and planning that all hunters in some way need to draw on.
As a community, we hunters often get into passionate conversations about method of take. Bowhunting gives us a big field to wrestle with from self bows to crossbows and every permutation in between. Few things are more sure to bring us to the brink of war than an argument about what tools should be allowed during an ‘archery’ season.
Same goes for firearms. From black powder flintlocks to the latest ELR super guns wearing ballistic compensating computer sights. Wading into debates about what constitutes ‘traditional’ or ‘primitive’ firearms for those particular seasons is another great melee.
There’s a whole other side of the coin which is manner of pursuit. Bait, no bait, blinds, backpack hunting, horsepacking, trapping, treestands, tree saddles, dogs, nightvision, blinds, decoys, even helicopters and more. Within all of these manners of take there are even more sub-segments.
If a hunter can extract themselves from the fray and put aside the typical lens of comparet infigo facta, he or she ought to be amazed by the incredible riches of available experience afforded by this combinatorial explosion of method and manner.
For just about any legal, logistical, self-imposed or cultural restrictions and constraints there is likely a combination of method and manner that at the end of the hunting day can result in an effective take and satisfying experience.
All legal means of hunting have their place and the experienced and well rounded sportsman will not shy from trying them all. Supporting hunters of all sort, regardless of method or manner, is more important than ever these days as we, the hunting community, continue to decline as a percentage of the population.
We often see differences when we are inside the bubble of our own community, with some going so far as to cast aspersions or moral judgements on some groups' chosen methods or manners. Meanwhile the 95.3% rest of the US population that does not hunt, just sees all of us as one small camouflage blob. No argument citing Pittman-Robertson or Dingell-Johnson will hold back the indifference or hostility of a non-hunting US population when the hunting community itself targets a method or manner of taking game.
Hopefully you understand that, going forward, in this forum, any discussion around a method or manner will be characterized by its virtues as they relate to the experience. We are mature enough now as a sport to understand that if it is legal it can be effective with the right training and equipment. There are methods and manners that are illegal that are very effective. For sheer effectiveness, spotlighting deer on the side of the road with a 22 rifle would be hard to beat. Simply describing that illegal combination of method and manner however feels as if we are conjuring black helicopters and angry mobs, and for good reason.
As a small community we have decided that it’s not just when or what you kill (method of take and seasons) but also how you kill (manner of pursuit) that gives meaning to the experience. Every hunter gets to have the experience of defining what is a meaningful experience. Generally, over the years, the hunter defines these experiences in a more and more nuanced way.
As a hunting guide you want to tailor the manner to the client’s wishes for a method to help them have the best experience regardless of that chosen method. There are always constraints when doing this but I’ve found that the best way to make this happen is to try to help them experience what I was blessed to experience as that kid playing hide and seek with the quarry in the rough scrubby terrain of the Hill Country. Spotting and stalking your prey turns on all the primal hunting machinery in our heads. There are trade offs though. Time and territory. More of these variables are generally needed in order to be as effective as most other manners.
When it’s available as an option, spot and stalk hunting offers an exhilarating and engaging manner of pursuit in which both the novice and the experienced get to sharpen the skills d'être un chasseur.
Spot and Stalk Gear: