I'm a big snacker when im in the stand. I know it is bad for hunting, but it passes the time:
Huh?
OK maybe the wrapper sound is bad, but I thought the point was to get you visually above the predominant sight-line of the deer, and to get your scent above the nose of the deer. ???
I find that I'm a bit sharper when a bit hungry, but if I get the shivers then some sort of calories are needed to stop.
I carry dried, parched corn,
home made venison jerky,
raisins,
and maybe a few pieces of taffy (Bit-O'-Honey or Mary Janes).
Tobacco and my pipe
Water
In the car I will have a few water bottles and a little pot with a cup, and little alcohol stove. I will make tea when I'm done dressing and dragging the deer and have reached the car..., especially in damp weather.
The parched corn is dried, then parched in a dry, iron pan. The local chipmunks like it too. When I get bored I can toss a few kernels out and watch them find them among the leaf debris.
Parched corn when well chewed, when you then take some water, it swells a bit in your tummy, and keeps the growling down.
The jerky doesn't have the same amount of salt that the commercial stuff does and I use sea salt and potassium salt substitute (reduces lower leg cramp risk, as do the raisins)
Raisins give a good energy boost when you're tired at the end of the day's hunting or when you're draggin' out that deer you just harvested. Also good for stopping the shivers and lower leg cramp (potassium you know).
The taffy (
which was a candy known in the era of the flintlock rifle ) has even more sugar, in case I really get a bad case of shivers from the cold, but that's seldom. The two brands that I use are honey flavored or peanut/molasses flavored. I like those over things like Banana/Strawberry/Apple Laffy Taffy, but one of my hunting buddies thinks honey or peanuts/molasses are better for scent too.
Yes, I've been known to fire up my pipe when hunting, and I hunt from a ground blind when not still hunting. The wind is generally blowing West, and there is a horse boarding business to the West of where I hunt so I'm not going to shoot that direction anyway, so better that any deer over that way avoids me and doesn't "tempt" me, eh? Normally the smoking is done after I make a shot, and I smoke the clay pipe to fill the time between shooting the deer and going to collect the deer, as like an archer, it's good when using a single shot rifle like my flintlock to give the deer time to go down and expire IF you didn't see it go down and can't see it from where you shot.
LD
