Hunt Your Buck Deer Indian Style for Success with Bowhunter Larry Norton
Day 5: Larry Norton’s Secret to Success When Stalk-Hunting Deer
Editor’s Note: Stalk-hunting deer with a bow was the way of the early Americans. Indians were deadly effective at taking game by using a bow. However, today, because of our hurry-up society, most hunters can’t refrain from walking too fast to stalk successfully.
 Once you’ve mastered this stalk-hunting tactic, you must locate an area to hunt deer utilizing this method. “The more hunting pressure a deer feels, the more nervous the animal will be and the less likely you’ll be able to stalk it,” Larry Norton of Butler, Alabama, a longtime bowhunter and guide and part owner of The Shed Hunting Lodge, reports. “That’s why I try to get as far away from hunting pressure as possible. I’ll often slip-out in the middle of clear cuts that may only be 2- or 3-years old and use this stalk-hunting strategy. I may move deep back into the woods where most hunters won’t go to get away from the pressure that makes deer nervous. ” According to Norton, you even can stalk-hunt deer successfully over green fields. “If a green field is hunted often, the deer know where to expect the hunter – usually in a tree stand or a shooting house. However, if you get on the side of a green field where the deer never have seen a hunter, you may be able to move along the edges of the wood line and stalk within bow range of the deer feeding on the green field. Deer on hunted green fields often are oriented to look for danger coming from one particular spot. If the deer are nervous or fidgety, they constantly will be watching a tree stand or a shooting house, expecting danger. By understanding this, you can remain on the downwind side of the field, move slowly, and get-in close enough to take a shot with a bow. This technique often is deadly after gun season has begun, and the gun hunters have started setting-up on green fields.  However, if you plan to stalk a green field, make sure gun hunters won’t be hunting this region on the day you hunt and that everyone who hunts this area knows you’ll be on the edge of that green field. Only utilize this method of stalking on private lands where the hunting is strictly controlled.”
Indians learned to stalk slowly and patiently and used however much time they needed to get-in close-enough for shots with their bow. An Indian brave’s success meant the reward of food for his family. Norton enjoys the stalk because of the excitement and the challenge presented by his moving-in close enough, 30 yards or less, to take a bow shot at a deer. As Norton explains, “Stalking a deer with a bow is the most intense form of hunting for me, because all my skills as an archer and as a woodsman are tested.” To learn more about The Shed Hunting Lodge, go to www.theshedhuntinglodge.com; call (334) 341-1415, (334) 247-2444 or (205) 459-2614; or write: The Shed Hunting Lodge, 253 Pleasant Hill Road, Gilbertown, AL 36908.
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