Learning How to Saddle Hunt Isn't as Tough as You Think

For the entirety of my deer-hunting life, I had only known one way to pursue whitetails. From the time I started deer hunting at 15, I had always used treestands. It started out with ladder stands, and then, as I transitioned from gun hunting to bowhunting, I learned the value of a hang-on stand. Looking back at the first hang-on stands I used, however, it’s no surprise I wasn’t a very mobile hunter. They were bulky and heavy; I’d set a few stands for the season, hunt those trees, and never move the stands. Considering the combination of my youth, lack of whitetail knowledge and the fact I hunted only a couple trees each fall, it’s no wonder I wasn’t very successful.

Fast-forward to my college days, circa 2013-2017. Moving to North Dakota for school forced me to learn a completely new deer-hunting area from scratch, and I knew I would need to become a mobile hunter if I wanted to succeed. So, that’s what I attempted.

First, I tried a climbing stand. I quickly learned that wasn’t for me, as many of the areas I hunted didn’t offer trees conducive to climbers. Next, I bought a bunch of cheap hang-on stands and a pile of screw-in steps. That was how I tackled the next phase of my deer hunting. It’s funny looking back at some of my “mobile setups,” but I was giving it the old college try (literally) and did punch some tags. I hunted like that for a while, in conjunction with some more “permanent” stand setups, until the lightweight hang-on craze arrived.

As lightweight hang-on stands built with mobile hunters in mind became wildly popular, I finally bought a good, run-and-gun stand and set of climbing sticks. I was finally making the leap into true hunting mobility. Although this version of lightweight hunting offered some perks, it also had some limitations. By 2022, I was fully engrossed in running a whitetail-hunting brand, WhitetailDNA, with team members who filmed and hunted with me. I had a group of three guys, plus myself, and our newest “team member” at the time had previously been saddle hunting. I had heard plenty about saddle hunting, but honestly, from the outside looking in, it looked like a fad people were doing just to be different. Let me tell you, I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Going into the summer of 2022, team member and good friend Luke Eilefson convinced our whole team we needed to engross ourselves fully in saddle hunting. He was adamant it would change not just how we hunted, but our whole approach to hunting. He insisted we could dramatically increase the number of hunting spots at our disposal, since we wouldn’t need to hang stands in advance. Instead, we could scout our way in, hunt and leave with all our gear to hunt in a different tree the next day.

I was skeptical. I was also looking for an edge to boost our team’s success in the field. So, we took the saddle-hunting leap.

Our 2022 season started in North Dakota, and it was going to be a great litmus test to see how I liked saddle hunting. When we hunt North Dakota early in the archery season, we run trail cameras on a ton of properties and bounce around a lot. In the past, we limited ourselves to a certain number of properties to scout, because we only had so many stands to hang. Well, in 2022, we didn’t hang a single stand! We decided if we were going to jump into saddle hunting, we were going to jump in with both feet and figure it out in a hurry.

On opening day, I picked a spot we were familiar with and had hunted in the past. But I decided to climb a tree I had never hunted. With my saddle gear, I identified the tree I wanted to hunt, climbed up and settled in. I had a pretty good hunt but didn’t see a shooter buck. Not knowing what I wanted to do the next day, I pulled all my gear out of the tree and headed home. It was day one saddle hunting, and as I walked out of the North Dakota deer woods that night, I had a smile on my face. I knew right away this was a game-changer. No longer would I let the thought of hauling and hanging a stand determine how I hunted. The next two days, I went back to the same tree, each time not knowing whether I’d return. So, I set up my climbing sticks and removed them each day. On day three, I arrowed an awesome velvet buck, and we were off to the saddle-hunting races.

Strike Fast

Over the rest of the 2022 deer season, Luke and I, along with fellow team members Garrett Otteson and Kaleb Comstock (my cousin), saddle hunted probably 150-200 sits collectively. Garrett and Luke also killed bucks out of their saddles, and we learned a ton along the way. It truly set the stage for our 2023 deer season, when Luke and Garrett each enjoyed textbook hunts that perfectly demonstrate how saddles became such an important tool for us.

Since it was now our second year of saddle hunting, we started to understand some of the nuances and small details. For instance, we learned to use hooks on our saddles to attach our climbing sticks and platforms, allowing us to set up and hunt while making just one trip up the tree. We also got a lot better at being organized and efficient in how we packed our gear. This is very important for us, since we film all our hunts, and that requires a lot of extra equipment.

On Oct. 9, I got a tip about a big buck seen near a piece of Minnesota public property Luke could hunt. We participate in a suburban hunt where you get placed in certain “zones” and can only hunt public land within those zones. We all helped scout for one another, but this piece was in a zone only Luke was assigned to. I passed the tip on to Luke, and he acted right away. That afternoon, he headed out to this small parcel with his saddle setup. Luke scouted his way in slowly, looking for recent buck sign. As he neared a steep creek bank, he started to notice a couple of things. One, there were a lot of mountain ash berries falling, and up here in Northern Minnesota, mountain ash is a preferred food source. Two, he noted a handful of fresh rubs.

Luke figured this was the spot to be, so he hung his saddle setup and was ready to go. Within 90 minutes, a buck he knew well from summer scouting leisurely walked past him at 20 yards. Luke put the pin on him, let the arrow fly and, just like that, had killed the biggest buck of his life. It’s not just the fact that he was hunting out of a saddle; it is the saddle’s ease of use and the lightweight platform and sticks that allowed him to take advantage of the new information so quickly and efficiently. It also wasn’t the last time a personal best buck fell last fall.

First-Sit Giant

Fast forward to mid-November. Garrett was about to shoot his biggest buck, though the hunt played out differently than Luke’s. We had acquired a new, 100-acre piece of property in the summer. During the summer months, Garrett and Luke placed a couple cell cams on the property, but other than that, none of us stepped foot on it all fall. We had a giant buck hitting our cams all summer, but come September, he disappeared. That is, until November. The first week of November, this massive 10-pointer reappeared on a couple of our cameras, and we thought we should go after him. I was tagged out. Luke was tagged out. But Garrett still had a tag in his pocket, which meant he was the lucky one who got to chase this deer.

As we progressed through the second week of November, Garrett knew he could hunt the morning of Nov. 17. With that in mind, and considering that he had not set foot on the property since July and I hadn’t either, I wanted to go in and do a quick scouting mission. We planned that on the morning of the 17th, I would be behind the camera filming Garrett. So, we needed a good tree that would support two people.

On Nov. 15, I ran into this property and identified a tree I thought would put us in good position to kill the buck. Knowing we were going to be saddle hunting, all I did was hang the sticks in the tree and leave. Coming in blind on a morning hunt can be difficult, and I knew if I could just get sticks in a tree, it would be a breeze getting set up, and Garrett could pick exactly how he wanted his platform in the tree.

Two days passed, and the morning of the 17th arrived. Garrett and I headed for the tree. We got all set up quickly and quietly and were ready to go. As the sky turned a vibrant pink and the sun rose, we immediately were in the action. We heard crashing to our right, not far into a group of pines, and figured there was some sort of chasing going on. Not long after, a doe bedded behind us. We had been in the tree maybe an hour total. While the doe was bedded, I looked up and just saw antlers coming our direction. I put up my binos and as I landed on the buck, I whispered to Garrett to get ready. The buck we were in there after was headed directly to us!

Thirty seconds later, as the buck closed the gap from 100 yards to 20, Garrett bleated, stopped the buck in its tracks and let an arrow fly. Yet again, a member of our group had shot their biggest buck ever, this one being a giant, 167-inch, 10-pointer.

As I reflect on the last two years saddle hunting, a couple things strike me. The first is how quickly you can learn to effectively use saddle gear. You don’t need to be an expert who has saddle hunted for years before enjoying success. Second is how saddles allow you to hunt in new ways, like it has for us the past two seasons. We now mostly hunt in a “run-and-gun” style, hardly ever leaving equipment in a tree. We can cover a lot more ground over the course of the season, hunt fresh spots almost every time out and, as you’ve read, doing so can quickly lead you to the end of a blood trail.

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