An Hunting Article from the New York Times

It is from 1989, but I find myself surprised that the NYT would cover hunting. Anyway, the article discusses "still hunting"--what I've always called stalking:

The ability to pick out some portion of a deer's anatomy, or perhaps its silhouette, when it is partly obscured by trees or bushes, is all-important when you are still-hunting. Still-hunting, the most challenging way to go after deer, involves pussyfooting through the woods, hoping to spot an animal before it realizes that danger is approaching. 

In practice, the typical still-hunter stops and takes a stand from time to time. He may do this because he has reached a vantage point that provides him a relatively unobstructed view of a large area. Or he may have realized that he was moving too fast and making too much noise, and simply decided to halt to simmer down, to remind himself that the speed at which he was traveling was excessive. 

The proper outer clothing is important when still-hunting. I favor the traditional wool trousers and a wool jacket, because branches and twigs scraping against them make no noise. If you are hunting in the rain, you will, of course, have to eschew silence in favor of keeping dry. 

A deer's hearing and sense of smell are superb. Its eyesight has often been called mediocre, but I suspect that it at least equals that of the average nimrod. Nonetheless, if a deer doesn't smell or hear you, it will usually stay put for a few seconds, even if you are in full view of it. 

When still-hunting, one should be moving into the wind, or, at the very least, at right angles to it. This cannot be done all the time, particularly in mountainous areas when vagrant breezes often come from every direction, but it is a ritual that should be followed whenever possible. 

If there is very little wind and the weather is stable, you should also remember that, in hilly country, air currents tend to rise during the day and flow downslope from evening until early morning. 

Still-hunting is best done when the temperature is above freezing and the leaves are soft and wet underfoot, or when there is soft, newly fallen snow. If the leaves or snow are frozen, your crunching passage will scatter the animals before you. In such a situation, it's best to spend most of your day motionless on various stands. 

And if the cover through which you are traveling is too thick for you to negotiate without a snapping and cracking of branches, you should move into more open territory, or stick to trails or logging roads. 

The pace you set when still-hunting will vary according to conditions, but it should never exceed a slow walk, punctuated with many pauses. It might take you 20 minutes to cover 100 yards. 

You have to glance at the ground in front of you to avoid stepping on a dry twig or branch or slipping on a rock, and you have to scan the woods systematically before and beside you. 

If motion or an unusual shape catch your eye, spend a minute or so studying the spot. A branch might turn out to be an antler. When trees don't allow a shot at the deer's vital chest area, you'll have to play a waiting game. 

One exception to this would be an opportunity for a head or neck shot. If such a shot presents itself, and you are sure of yourself and your gun, take it.

 On a related note is this article from Outdoor Hub entitled "Getting the Most from Your Walk in the Woods." Among other things, it gives some pointers on moving quietly:

I grew up on Grosse Ile, a cigar-shaped Michigan island that bisects the Detroit River as it empties into Lake Erie, the Great Lake the Chippewa say has the spirit of a panther. Fifty feet from the front door of the house there was a canal that held rock bass, yellow perch, bluegills, and northern pike–and a boat for exploring Lake Erie. 

One of my earliest memories is going out duck hunting with my father. It was a spectacular fall afternoon with a crisp blue sky, cool breezes, and the sun was a glowing golden ball hanging low in the western sky. I was four or five. As the sun set, waves of dark chocolate brown black ducks with silvery underwings and bright red legs came streaming out of Lake Erie and into the marsh to feed for the night. When my father brought one down with his shotgun, it was an act of magic. 

I was hooked. My father saw this and began to take me on walks in the woods in the evening after he finished work. One night when we got to the woods he told me to stop, close my eyes and listen. In the distance, the leaves rustled. “What animal is that?” he asked me. 

I can’t remember what I guessed, but I was wrong. 

He pointed out a sound like someone stepping on a pile of leaves, then another, and another. He explained: “That’s a squirrel, feeding. They hop and land on all four feet and are noisy when they land. They can get away with being so noisy because they can run up a tree to get away. A rabbit is quieter when he is feeding, because their legs are longer, their feet are covered with fur and their stride is different. If they run, the sounds will be faster than a squirrel. 

“Deer walk quietly. You don’t hear every footstep, but they are heavy enough to break twigs and branches. If you jump one he runs off, making a loud racket as they crash through brush. The dog makes the most noise. He gets his food from a dish and has forgotten how to hunt for food, so every step he takes is noisy and he does not care. Except for man, of course, unless he knows better. And that’s what I want to teach you, how to walk silently like the wind.” 

A few weeks later we went to the woods. He blindfolded me and said to walk on the dirt road that ran through the woods, which was a two-rut dirt trail with a grassy, raised median in the middle. At first, I kept getting off the road.

“You’ve got learn to have eyes in the bottom of your feet if you want to walk quietly,” my dad told me. 

“You’ve got learn to have eyes in the bottom of your feet if you want to walk quietly,” he said. “Concentrate on the soles of your feet. Feel the ground. It’s bare, there are a few stones, and there is hump in the middle of the road.” 

I found that I could keep on the road by feeling the slight rise in the middle of the dirt road. When I reported this awareness he replied that I now understood what “eyes on the bottom of your feet” meant. 

In addition, closing my eyes forced me to use my sense of hearing more, and I began to learn a whole new language of woods sounds. 

Next, we moved off the road. With my eyes closed, my assignment became to learn to feel the ground underfoot as I put each foot down gently. It quickly became obvious why moccasins make for quiet walking the woods because you can feel everything underfoot. After I began to get a little better at moving quietly, my father challenged me to see who could walk more quietly. 

I could barely hear him. I sounded like a squirrel. 

The key to silent walking, my father taught me was to walk planting the outside ball of the foot first, carefully putting one foot ahead and testing out the ground before putting your weight on it. If you walk on your heels, like most people do, you don’t feel out the ground first before putting your weight down and you are much more likely to make noise crunching something like a branch and may not be able to avoid doing so. After a while, I found that taking a walk in the woods with some woodsmarts enabled me to find more animals and get closer to them, which has benefits for hunting as well as enjoying nature.

 The author also links to a video demonstrating silent walking.