Where do I "Stand"?
One of the reasons we got into knives was because we love being outside and found that the one tool that we needed for every outdoor activity was a knife. We started collecting knives and using different styles of knives and that’s how we found our love for switchblades, a.k.a automatic knives, a.k.a out the front knives. As we jump on here and tell you the ins and outs of OTF knives, we thought we should tell you the ins and outs of the activities that lead us to the love of OTF knives.
For starters, hunting. This weekend we went to deer camp. Gun season started and we have spent all of bow season in the same stands and blinds. Bow season was not a super successful season. Two Bucks between seven of us. This weekend we took long hikes over our hunting property to find new places for our blinds and stands. Here is a guide on what we look for when finding a place to hunt.
Buck Rub. If you don’t know what Buck Rub is, Buck Rub is a spot on a tree where Bucks have rubbed their antlers on.
These marks tell us where Bucks have been, where they might frequent, or paths they may travel. Bucks have a velvety like texture that grows on their antlers as the antlers grow. Antlers, in their growing stage, are flexible and soft. As a Buck’s testosterone levels raise, the antlers become hard and bone-like. This is when the velvety like texture on the antlers start to shed. Buck rubs are the deer’s way of speeding up that process. As we look around for places to set up blinds or stands, we look for this mark.
Stands. When choosing a tree for a deer stand, we at deer camp don’t agree. Deer are smart creatures and can sense us, smell us, and hear us. We all know that being high up gives us the (literal) upper hand on a deer. Where we disagree is what should be around us. Half of us believe that we should be looking for spots in the trees with lots of foliage for better camouflage. Half of us believe being high in the tree is good enough and want a more open space for shooting.
Pictured is a view from a stand that is eighteen feet up and we consider more open space. Not a lot of branches and more opportunity for ‘having a shot’. This theory applies to both bow and gun season. Both places have pros and cons. High foliage area means more to have to shoot ‘around’. It is far easier to not be able to take a shot when a branch is in your way, and you don’t have a good view of the deer. While sitting in a more open space gives you more clearance to shoot but also leaves you completely visible if a deer looks up.
Blinds. When it comes to blinds, we all agree that it should be heavily camouflaged. This is where the knives first came into play as we would use our knives to cut off small branches from trees to cover and camouflage our blinds. Pictured below is the view from one of our blinds.
We are completely covered and surrounded by a camouflaged blind as well as different twigs, sticks and leaves. We chose a high foliage area, maybe with fallen trees or bent over branches, that has a clearance or open area in front of it. This way we are not only hidden but will have an open area to shoot.
Anywhere we see fit, we sit. When we do all day hunts, the kind of hunts where we don’t go to the cabin for lunch, sometimes we just sit wherever the signs take us. It is nice to have blinds and stands and all the fancy tools in your hunting arsenal, but it isn’t always necessary. As hunting vets, we still use an old beach chair from time to time.
