The best thing you can do to increase hunting success is be in your stand.
Growing up hunting public land in the mountains of Pennsylvania, I’ve spent many a long, cold day in the deer woods. My father was a stump-sitter. His favorite way to hunt was to choose a low spot along a gas line opening and sit all day, dark to dark. It’s hard to argue with his success.
By picking spots where he could see several heavy crossings, Dad was the most consistent and productive hunter I’ve ever known, especially on public land.
The secret, he said, was to spend as much time as possible in a high-traffic area. Sooner or later, a buck would show up. I believe my father’s notion of sitting all day in a good location is the best way to hunt. Put your stand in a high-traffic area, take care with the setup and scent control, and stay put.
The only problem with Dad’s hunting philosophy was late November in Pennsylvania is usually cold, especially for a skinny 12-year-old. I froze sitting on those gas line openings and tried some really imaginative things to stay warm.
Thanks to those experiences, some knowledge about how our bodies work and today’s high-tech fabrics, I don’t have as much trouble staying warm in a deer stand these days.
What follows is some information that can help you be comfortable and still in the cold, and hopefully shoot more deer.
THE HUMAN FURNACE
If you’re warm and comfortable, sitting in a stand from dark to dark is a pleasant outdoors experience. If you’re cold, it’s a second-watching, teeth-chattering, muscle-clenching torture session. If misery doesn’t drive you from the stand, it can still ruin your hunt by causing you to fidget constantly. It also affects your ability to concentrate and make a calm, steady shot.
The human body is like a furnace. Three-quarters of every calorie we burn goes to producing heat, and feeding your furnace with quality fuel is the first step to staying warm.
Whole grains are excellent for producing heat, so a breakfast with oatmeal before you head out makes a good start. Once settled in your stand, snack often on foods that are high in calories and good fats. Nuts like pistachios and almonds are good choices.
Hot foods like soup, coffee or hot chocolate are beneficial, and energy bars and snack bars, especially those with whole grains, are good, too.
The candy bars so many of us stuff in our packs are high in calories, but the amount of sugar they contain can cause a glucose crash, leading to fatigue and difficulty concentrating. It’s okay to have a candy bar, but avoid them as the sole means of fueling your furnace.
Finally, drink lots of water. On really cold days, carry warm water in a thermos. Cold liquids rob your core of heat and waste energy as your body attempts to counter the chill from within.
THE FABRICS
If you’re confident your body has the fuel it needs to produce heat, the next step is to retain as much of that warmth near your body as possible.
Sticking with the furnace analogy, the more insulation you have, and the higher its quality, the more efficient and warm your house will be. It’s the same for hunting clothes.
We’re fortunate to have some amazing, high-tech clothing available today, but getting the most from that technology means layering properly and incorporating the right fabrics.
”We’ve been making the best scent-control clothing for more than a decade, but we also focus on using the right fabrics,” said Alex Gyllstrom, marketing manager for ScentLok. ”Staying warm is all about layering. We use synthetics and membranes that make our clothing work together as a system.”
Gyllstrom not only works for ScentLok, but he’s also an avid whitetail hunter.
”My Kansas hunt last year is a perfect example,” he said. ”It was 7 degrees with a nasty wind. I couldn’t have stayed in the stand without a good layering system.”
He wore a thin moisture-wicking base layer under a microfleece-lined heavy base layer and a ScentLok windproof fleece jacket. He added a softshell jacket as the outermost layer.
Gyllstrom said a good clothing system traps layers of warm air near your body. Because air doesn’t transfer heat well, it makes a great insulator.
But that’s only part of the story.
”It goes back to the house concept,” said Dennis Zuck, whitetail category leader for Sitka Gear, makers of top-end hunting clothing. ”The quality of the air layers is what provides insulation. Each of those layers is a microclimate, and you don’t want to have a humid environment. If moisture doesn’t flow out, it will eventually get cold and create a chilling effect.”
THE BASE LAYER
While air doesn’t transfer heat well, water (sweat) does. Just like jumping in a swimming pool, an insulation layer with lots of water vapor pulls heat from your body at an alarming rate. The tricky part is getting that water vapor out of your insulating air layer, Zuck explained.
”The human body constantly gives off water vapor — sweat,” he said. ”You need to move the sweat away from the skin and up and out of the garment. Some fabrics are designed to be conductive — they literally transport moisture up and away from the skin.”
Conductive fabrics that make great base layers include merino wool, polyester and silk. Polyester blends include nylon, polypropylene, spandex and rayon. Avoid cotton at all cost. Cotton is a great summer fabric because it holds moisture and makes you feel cool. It’s also why just one cotton T-shirt can ruin your entire layering system in winter.
Which base layer you choose should depend on the particulars of your hunt. Zuck said he wears a polyester base layer topped with merino wool if he has a long walk to his stand. The polyester does a better job of wicking sweat away from the skin. If the walk is short and/or the temperature is really cold, he wears a merino wool base layer next to his skin for the extra warmth.
THE OUTSIDE
If moisture is the No. 1 enemy of staying warm, wind is No. 1-A. Wicking fabrics like polyester and wool are great for base layers, but they’re not windproof.
”You can wear all the warm layers you want, but if the wind is getting through, you’re going to get cold,” Gyllstrom said. ”That’s why we offer windproof membranes in so many of our systems. They’re still quiet and comfortable, and they stop the wind, which allows you to keep your insulating air layer intact.”
Gore-Tex and Windstopper are two of the more popular windproof fabrics. Some, like Gore-Tex, are also waterproof, but the real magic is their ability to allow moisture to escape.
How they work includes complex properties of surface tension and the physics of gasses (water vapor is a gas) and temperature, but the key is the size of the pores that make up the fabric. They’re 20,000 times smaller than a water droplet, and 700 times larger than a water vapor molecule. The tiny holes (9 billion per square inch) are too small for water and wind to pass through from the outside, but big enough to allow water vapor to escape from the inside.
THE MIDDLE
The middle layer needs to provide room for an air barrier. It should be light, insulating and breathable. Again, if the material hinders the process of moving moisture from the skin to the outside layer, it will ruin your entire layering system.
The best mid layer choices include wool, down, fleece, chemically treated down and man-made insulators like Thinsulate and PrimaLoft.
Down has the best warmth-to-weight ratio of all insulators but loses its insulating properties when wet. It also requires special care for washing.
Man-made insulators are heavier but continue to perform when wet. They’re also machine-washable and durable.
Wool and fleece don’t provide as much warmth but can be used as middle layers, especially for less cold days or times you won’t be sitting all day.
When putting together a layering system, the middle layer is the best place to make adjustments for temperature ranges. The thicker and more efficient the middle layer, the more you can withstand cold temperatures.
THE SYSTEM
If you talk to four cold-weather hunters about layering, you’ll get four different philosophies on the best approach.
I believe it’s best to have a thinner Gore-Tex or Windstopper outer layer that stays on the outside. If you get too hot, shed a middle layer and put the outer layer back on.
When you understand the way each of the fabrics and layers work, it doesn’t make sense to shed your wind-blocking layer. Nor does it make sense to wear it inside an insulating layer.
ScentLok and Sitka offer great choices for each layer, including many outer jackets that include a windproof membrane over an insulating layer — basically a middle layer and the outer layer built into one garment.
I’ve found such jackets are best when temperatures are steadily cold and I’ll be sitting all day. For days that start cold, warm up in the middle and then get cold again, it’s better to be able to remove and add middle layers as the temperature dictates.
”The reason we offer so many pieces is everybody hunts differently and has different needs,” Zuck said. ”No single garment is perfect for every situation.”
How you layer also can affect the sizes required. Thicker, all-in-one jackets can be worn true-to-size because the middle layer is already built in. For systems that need the flexibility of adding multiple middle layers, it’s often helpful to go bigger for the outer jacket.
”It’s not a bad idea to go up a size when you start to talk about multiple layers,” Gyllstrom said. ”We use the right fabrics, but you still need room.”
Using too many layers, or an outer layer that’s too small, has several negative effects. If your insulating layers are compressed, they can’t hold as much air. Wearing too many clothes also restricts movement and hinders circulation.
”Staying warm is about how well your layers work together, not how many clothes you put on,” Gyllstrom said. ”Layer with a few key pieces to stay warm longer.”
OTHER FACTORS
We can’t have a discussion about staying warm without mentioning the feet, hands and head.
The reason our feet and hands get cold is our bodies actually begin to shut them off as core body temperature drops. Our natural defenses try to protect vital organs, deeming hands and feet as non-essentials – at least in comparison to the heart, lungs and liver.
The best way to keep your hands and feet warm is to keep your core warm with a good layering system.
Of course, quality boots and gloves help. Because warm air is still the key, loose is better than tight. Extra socks do more harm than good if they restrict circulation and compress the insulation in your boots. Most often, one thick pair of merino wool socks is the ticket.
For your hands, avoid touching cold metal objects. Holding your gun or bow might help you be ready quicker, but it will quickly leech the warmth from your hands. Also, thinner gloves used with a hand muff stuffed with a disposable warmer make a great system.
There are many reasons we lose so much heat through our heads, not the least of which is we can’t completely cover our heads and still hunt effectively.
As with your core, wear something that blocks wind and allows moisture to escape.
Last, but not least, it’s no coincidence we lose so much heat from our feet, hands and head.
”Those areas have some of the highest concentrations of sweat glands in the body, and they release a lot of heat,” Zuck said. ”When we designed the Fanatic jacket [it has a built-in hand muff], the first thing we wanted to solve was the cold hands problem. It’s amazing how the design features of a jacket can help make your hands warmer, but that’s the kind of thing we do.”
FINALLY
While I’d much rather fill tags during the relative comfort of bowhunting, I usually find myself stump-sitting in the cold at least once every deer season.
Thanks to high-tech fabrics and clothing manufacturers who understand how to take advantage of them, those long vigils no longer have to be so uncomfortable.
Knowing how these fabrics work, and which ones are best for a given task, will help you get the most out of your hunting clothing dollars.
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This article was published in the November 2015 edition of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine. Subscribe today to have Buckmasters delivered to your home.