Spot & stalk in Texas

Give me all your secrets when it comes to targeting whitetail and hogs. Specifically geared toward north central TX & hill country terrain (lots of mesquite, prickly pear, some thick brush, and minimal elevation change).

spot and stalk whitetail is hard. You need certain types of terrain imo to pull off a successful spot and stalk ( real spot and stalk not stumbling up on one in the woods ).

Wind is the main factor and past that being able to use the terrain to your advantage to hide without it being a hinderance.


Hogs ime are much easier to sneak up on. I just find a vantage point where i can glass them or slowly creep thru an area i know they will be feeding in like a flat along a creek bottom. Killed alot of hogs that way.

You can only do so much with wind. Minimalizing noise and a slow (very slow) gait are essential. no patience and there will be no consistent success.

My recommendation would be get a range finder, shooting sticks/bipod etc. and start practicing shooting at various/extended distances.

Granted it is south Texas and not central, but I sometimes scratch my head when I think about trying to hunt our place without senderos, road feeders, corn feeders etc. There are few if any trees that would support a tree stand, thick brush with few natural openings, and the openings that do exist are covered in grass 3-5 foot tall. Good luck hunting it without clearing senderos etc. you cant even see the deer.

Western Edwards plateau - I've killed lots of nice whitetail bucks (mainly in the rut) on spot and stalk, but you're right that the terrain, wind, etc. have to come together. Helps a lot if they're in rut. Plan ahead carefully re: terrain and wind. Need to know your ranch and where big bucks or groups of doe might be hanging out so you can plan your stalks in.

No time to elaborate my opinion but others have said good stuff. If not mentioned I would say that "other" non target animals can easily blow the stalk. No real answer for you on how to avoid that other than watch for them as well as the target. Its my favorite way to hunt and if you can see a lot of country it can be the most effective way to hunt. For sure, the best way to hunt for me is to set up over a feeder as well as corned roads and also be able to see distance for a possible stalk.

I've tried it on numerous occasions. I generally lose.

Wind and visibility are paramount for the spot part. Then using cover and/or terrain in combination with keeping a favorable wind to close the deal. If you can’t choose a location where conditions are in your favor, your odds go way down.

Play the wind, go slow and deliberate, and stay in the shade as much as possible.

Keep the sun at your back......cross wind works as well as down wind......do your pre scouting on Google Earth so you know where the funnels and pinch points are and start there......move twice as slow as you think you need to......watch for reflection and movement.......when hunting canyons and draws avoid getting profiled by the sky behind you......back away enough from the edge to move parralel to the edge of the canyon and then very slowly make your way back to the edge to look down into it....very good to great binoculars are a must......

Lots of good tips in here and some things I hadn’t thought about yet, thanks guys.

redchevy your place sounds similar to where I hunt, very few trees tall enough for a stand but lots of brush and thick areas. I’ve seen lots of game moving in and out of one particular section that doesn’t see much hunting pressure from our group, so I want to go in on foot sometime before end of season. I don’t think it contains any areas with enough distance / visibility to make glassing an option. I think success will come from very slow & deliberate movement and finding myself in the right place at the right time.

Smokey, can you elaborate on using terrain & cover to ones advantage when moving through the woods? There aren’t any hills in this section I plan on moving through, so I’ll have to rely on the brush, sun, & angles for cover.

we always take the wind into one of the biggest considerations, and try to hunt into the wind as much as possible. Very slow, deliberate steps, glance down to see where to step with the least amount of sound, then stop and look at all surroundings thoroughly, glance down again, take another step, look, repeat.

Thank you for this. I try to move slow but nowhere near as slow as I need to. Usually when we see game, it’s because they’ve busted us first and are hightailing it out of there. I need to really slow down and rethink how I’ve been managing movement. Instead of just trying to “move slow” through a few hundred acres, maybe I should give myself all day to slowly pass through that same few hundred acres at almost a crawling pace.

my dad and I worked great together paralleling each other from one end of the pasture to the other, I was just slightly faster than him and our paths were a slight arc, where he would take the inside and I would take the outside about 75-100 yards apart. Took us a couple of hours to work our way thru and usually one or both of us had a deer on the ground. Often times when one of us shot, the other would get a shot of deer leaving the first area. We would come out to the far fence line within a few 30 seconds of each other.

no telling how many times I got my rear chewed for going too fast, so I finally slowed down to where it worked almost perfectly for the two of us. I can still hear his comment, look where your stepping, step quietly, now pivot your eyes over every little area a couple of times, look where you are stepping next, step quietly and now pivot your eyes.... over and over ... It will really help you slow down and actually hunt and not just go busting thru the brush to spook something out.

^^^Good stuff here. His country allows a lot of practice if he wants to. Someone else said try to stay in the shade--automatic for me even if just going to and from a stand.

My son turned me on to a youtube channel recently called The Hunting Public. They hunt public land all over the country but do quite a bit of spot and stalk. Pretty intense stuff. Often times they will have someone filming from a distance so you can really see how it all goes down. The shooter himself is always filming as well so two different vantage points. Crazy thing is most of the time they are shooting bows. They just posted a hunt last week or so that they made in Oklahoma that was awesome!