Good tips Sunray, and I've hunted those woods kd7nqb as we share the same back yard if you will. I'm from here, so this advoce is a long winded. I recall you moving here from the East a while back via this nice forum here.
1. Cat stalking, I think that's the best stalking advice ever, unless the cat's awake. I remember scaring the daylights out of a cat as a kid, he jumped 2 feet in the air.
2. Clothing - Polar fleece will also keep you warm when wet and can be wrung out more thoroughly than wool and is strongly suggested over wool. My brother in Alaska doesn't use wool at all. Columbia brand fleece is the best w/o the Polarfleece logo price point. And it doesn't have the laundering characteristics of wool.....D'oH, that used to fit!!! It's also lighter for the pack, but pretty bulky.
The only quiet rain gear out there I've been able to find has a camo print. In the Portland area, a Sportsman's Warehouse, Joe's or Bi-mart are good place to start. In the PNW rainforests, waterproof breathable is your only choice for exterior shell clothing. You'll still overheat in the steep coast mountains if you hike a lot. Go thinner layers this way. A thin skin tight base layer, a thin fleece mid layer, and an alternating thicker fleece for midlayers or 2 midlayer, 'damn it's cold' days. That high humidity really penetrates, so a tight underlayer is really key to overall comfort in my experience. A waterproof breathable outfit with a mesh liner will add a lot on insulative value purely by keeping that cold outer layer off your thinnest undergarment. By much more than you'd expect.
3. no milsurp experience here.
Rain is good, it keeps you quieter because it makes quite a bit of background noise and softens twigs to your advantage. Game will also stay out in the open longer with overcast rainy skies. Tillamook forest is thick and steep, it's probably best to find some high use game trails and follow them to a good opening, hunker down, and wait before sunrise and near dark. Use the between hours to wander around the trails and hunt and find a promising spot for sundown.
couple more Oregon/PNW coast/Cascade mountain specific things I've learned
- you cannot move quietly through salaal bushes, period.
- a lot of the coast mountain hills are STEEP and wet.
- 100 years or so of logging roads offers a huge network of roads with lots of landings to glass the hills.
- The animals usually head down hill when the weather turns sour.
- Butler creek scope covers are a good investment at $12 or so. They will also spook a deer at 50 yards when snapped open instantly.
hope this helps, happy hunting.
Coyote hunting an excellent year round hunting refresher.
All that said, I missed a nice big buck this year due to buck fever and improper 1-2 second thinking. Any varmint hunting you can do in the 'tween times will keep your skills honed. SE Oregon is a good territory