Two years ago, I was ready to throw hands at the next person to tell me to go mobile. I had only recently ditched ladder stands for climbing stands, which I considered mobile enough. The last thing I wanted to do was learn a new hunting system.
I put up a brave fight against peer pressure, but ultimately caved. I’m in my second season of stacking up deer from saddles and ultralight hang-on stands while my climbing stands collect dust. I hate to admit it, but the masses were right. Mobile hunting is undeniably deadly for whitetails, but it can be an enormous pain in the ass. Literally.
Comfortable…Enough
The saddle movement is the wildest trend I’ve seen so far in my hunting career. It put the entire whitetail world in a chokehold overnight. Saddles are unbeatable for dialing in on deer movement, especially on public land when you just need to cover ground efficiently and adjust your setup on the fly.
I love my saddle for the strategic advantage it gives me–I just don’t love how it feels. Even in a perfect tree, I often find myself fidgeting after an hour or two in an attempt to shift weight off of an aching hip, knee, or ankle. And in mobile hunting, the trees are rarely perfect.
Lightweight stands offer some relief for longer-duration sits or volume hunting a hot location, but even the best mobile hang-ons sacrifice comfort for packability. Tiny platforms and seats don’t leave much room for movement if you need a good stretch during an all-day sit, and standard seat cushions can leave a lot to be desired.
Investing in a more adjustable saddle and a larger platform made saddle hunting much more tolerable for me. Knee pads are a popular solution for periodically relieving your leg joints. Although I prefer my redneck life hack of strapping my turkey hunting seat cushion to my tree to rest my knees on. I add that same cushion to the rock-hard factor- issue seat on my hang-on stand, and it makes a world of difference. There are plenty of adjustments you can make to improve your mobile experience, but you have to accept that you won’t be box-blind-with-an-office-chair comfortable while you punch your tags.
Too Much Freedom
Box blinds and ladder stands aren’t just easier on your butt—they’re easier on your brain. When I started mobile hunting, I found myself yearning for the old days when I could just run on autopilot because once my stands were set, they were set for the season. All I had to do was show up.
Adjusting to constant decision-making was the hardest part of going mobile for me. It’s a struggle to make the right choice and not second-guess yourself when you have so many options available to you. And it’s especially tough to sit tight when you have the power to move.
I often have the urge to move 50 yards down to the next creek crossing, or bail on a property after one quiet sit. The ability to make quick adjustments is a net benefit of mobile hunting, but bouncing around too much is guaranteed to cost you deer.
Uncertainty is uncomfortable when you’re waiting on a whitetail. But, to be consistently successful as a mobile hunter, you have to learn to ignore your wandering eye and let every setup play out before you make a new plan.
Setting Up Will Wear You Down
If potentially blowing out a good spot isn’t enough encouragement for you to stay put, you’ll eventually find yourself burned out on playing musical trees. Mobile hunting gives you the freedom to move around, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.
Every setup is a significant investment of time and energy, and few things will wear you down quite like pulling everything in the dark for the fifth night in a row. Even the lightest platforms and climbing sticks on the market start to feel heavy two miles in, and there’s so much more a mobile hunter needs to account for.
All the things that are set-it-and-forget-it for the non-mobile crowd–like bow hangers, backpack hooks, haul lines, and lineman belts–have to be top-of-mind with every move. I can’t tell you how much profanity I whispered the first time I pulled my climbing sticks and looked up to see my bow hanger stranded 20 feet overhead. Or the frustration I’ve felt digging around for my haul line because I got lazy and didn’t put it back in its designated backpack pocket.
The gear management side of mobile hunting comes with a significant learning curve. A lot of it requires trial and error. But, if you stay organized and develop a good system, you’ll save yourself a lot of headache and learn that it might just be worth all the trouble.
Read the full article here