So I try the whole "traditional" route.
I wear 18th century clothing, with a layer of wool, with the outer layer being my hunting shirt. I attach a blaze orange cape to the hunting shirt, and have a blaze orange Voyager's knit hat. Although I'm mostly on private land, The State allows straight walled modern cartridges during "gun" deer hunting season, and they will reach from the near-by public lands to where I hunt. I'd rather discourage a shot in my direction than run that risk, OR cause a poacher to move off instead of taking a shot at the tan creature creeping through the woods.
I wear mits made from old knee high wool stockings. Wool leggings and mocs, but if there is snow I wear Hi-Low boots....
I carry my shooting bag and my hunting horn. Both are brown, although I have a lovely screw-tip horn that is white, but again, I don't think where I hunt it healthy to have a bit of white bouncing around on my hip in deer season. (I wear a blue linen shirt instead of a white one for the same reason)
The shooting bag carries my rifle gear, plus my skinning knife and a stone, my compass, and my fire kit.
A tin canteen carries my water.
My "mouse" 'hawk rides on the back of my hunting bag
I also carry a snapsack, with a change of wool socks, my drag rope if deer hunting, my first aid kit in a japanned tin, an extra, modern, orange knit hat (I'll explain in a moment), a bag with a half-pound of ground parched corn aka
rockahominy (can be eaten cold or boiled) a smaller bag of raisins (not only sugar but potassium - wards of leg calf cramps
), a small a tin of tea, another of sugar, a few strips of venison jerky, salt and red pepper. I also carry two tin mugs aka "soldier cans" (One is modified with a bale so I can heat water over a fire, or lift it out of the fire using a stick). Tobacco and my pipe.
I load the snapsack as though I'm going to, for some unforeseen reason, get stuck in the woods overnight. IF I intend to go overnight, I'd also pack my wool blanket, and my oil cloth lean-to.
I like to stay hungry when hunting as I seem to be more alert when so..., but after the deer is down, I may be a bit spent hauling it out of the brush even if it only went a short distance, and I will very much be spent if I have a difficult drag from where I retrieved it to the vehicle. So the raisins and the candy help with fatigue, so does a cup of hot sweet tea. Caffeine helps too.
After shooting and reloading, I smoke my pipe. This, as with archery, allows the animal if I haven't made a serious hit, to lie down and expire. Then when the pipe is done, I start my track.
The extra orange hat carried in the snapsack is on the back of the tree where I'm waiting for the deer. I hunt from the ground, often in a natural blind, which means I use trees to break up my outline. Well the orange hat posted head high on the tree to my back, hopefully discourages hunters from tossing a shot in my direction, since the tree blocks them from seeing me wearing orange. When I'm trying to track, I move the extra hat to where I was when I shot. I've found being able to look backwards and spot where I was standing helps when I am locating where the deer stood when hit, and thus makes for easier tracking when needed.
LD
