[NW GUY]

I was fortunate in my folks usually had a cabin in the woods..(no NOT that one when I was growing up.
ANd
I also had the opportunity to learn bush skills from people who lived it and breathed it and didn't know they were practicing woods craft, to them it was just life.

That said,
From the early days one of the things that was stressed was "quiet" and even "invisibility"

I built my first ghillie suite when I was about 12 using some old fishing net and just using it like a poncho with a bunch of weeds and such stuck into it. I would disappear into the woods and just go and sit and not move and just watch and listen and see how well I could disappear. See how close the critters would get. IF you could sit long enough and quiet enough the critters would forget you were there. I could go out and sit for hours and not get bored because of what was going on around me and not give myself away. Sometimes it would be on a hillside and I would glass my view with some pack binoculars.. but with minimum movement.

It is amazing what you learn from just sitting quietly. You learn among other things, patience, and develop powers of observation. Skills and traits that kept me alive in later times in my life.

Even while working the cop shop before and after getting married I still would take a couple days each year to go out and reset my thought process and just disappear into the woods.

Have had lots of critters run over me, climb up me. Birds land on me. Actually had one deer step on me and had a bunch close enough to reach out and touch. (WARNING.. NEVER surprise a deer by reaching out and slapping it on the butt!!!! Really, don't do it, you will be glad you heeded this warning.) Also, NEVER drop out of a tree onto a deer's back. NOPE another thing you never want to do.

I still have a ghillie suit and I still go out and see how much patience I have 55 years later. IT is a fun and inexpensive way to kill an afternoon or morning and is good for the soul.

Anyway, I was just curious if anyone else ever took the time to just go out and disappear into the landscape to see what you can see or learn more about yourself or.. (insert your own reasons here).

 

[Surviving Suburbia]

A hunt is enjoyable to me whether I "get something" or just sit quietly in the woods with no meat to show for it.

I've seldom gone out into the woods just to sit, but I can see the appeal.

And did you really smack a deer on the butt? Lol!

 

[lasers]

Not to your extent but I still hunt and often have nuthatches, woodpeckers and chipmunks come sit inches from me. Not as common but once had a mouse try to start tearing apart my coveralls (i assume to make a nest) and once had porcupine try to share my stand with me(I ended up giving him a kick before he got too close to me)

 

[Mtnman Mike]

Quiet time - constantly but mainly on my remote mtn retreat. Sometimes in the wilderness even a million plus acre national forest that surrounds my remote WY land.

I have had more experiences especially since 1987 than I can remember, in the wild and on my remote land where usually no people except on weekends.
For the past twenty years I rarely read a paper book in a city. I have read many dozens of books on my land since no distractions as there are in a city even in a quiet motel room with tv, the mostly no good net etc.

I have seen a large herd of elk wander down my private dirt road while a couple deer were watching the elk and I was in my blind / tent watching them all from above on my hillside.

I have also seen every Rocky Mountain animal except a grizz and wolverine and I would just as soon not meet them up close.

I was digging in a remote forest a few hundred feet above my land and I turned around to see a fawn sniffing me. The momma deer was stamping her feet but I moved to touch the fawn and they ran away. I also have seen a pika - sort of a rabbit - and a marten stare each other down.
Seen a marten chase and eat a chipmunk and seen all kinds of hawks, eagles etc. Just too much to tell about all or even half my real life experiences since 1987 when I bought my land or since 1979 when I first began to go into the wild.

And here is a thread where I tell in detail about one of the best experiences I have ever had, not moving for half an hour while a big herd of "wapiti" moved slowly on by. >>> https://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=73868

I try more than most, to Do this >

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

― Henry David Thoreau

 

[Nomad 2nd]

I don't really do that anymore, but I move slow these days;

I'll bring a book and sit and read on my walks here and there, looking around and enjoying the surroundings and then going back to my book.

 

[NW GUY]

A hunt is enjoyable to me whether I "get something" or just sit quietly in the woods with no meat to show for it.

I've seldom gone out into the woods just to sit, but I can see the appeal.

And did you really smack a deer on the butt? Lol!

YEAH.. and if you get tempted to just hope it is EMPTY, because I found that in the initial shock it EXPLOSIVELY jettisoned all the excess weight it could prior to launch and burying me in debris and other foul things. :headshake: IF the opportunity ever arose again.. I would pass on it.

 

[browningv308]

Up every morning at 3:30 starting my day out in the field at 6 am home at 6 pm owning/operating a heating and air company, phone always ringing, dealing with traffic, hot attics, nasty crawl spaces and people all day, then sit in front of the computer half the night sending out invoices and estimates.
I value the little time I actually get and try to head out to the woods, I'll make a fire and cook some meat, drink a beer or make some coffee. I usually try to find somewhere near a creek and just sit against a tree or on a rock and enjoy the sound of the water and peace.

 

[IC_Rafe]

I usually go out when i need some quiet time. It doesn't get really quiet around here though, but getting away from people counts as quiet time .

 

[Offrink]

I hunt that way. My shots are almost always within 50 yards. Many times 15. I’ve had skunk walk over my feet. Snuck up on a red fox. Got ran over by a deer. He was spooked by another hunter while bow hunting. He came sprinting from around a big bush pine and literally jumped over me. Scared the crap out of me. My wife’s grandfather would bring a coffee can of birdseed with him when stand hunting. The birds would land in his hands. Even years after he stopped hunting you could still and I did do that. I hunt there every 2-3 years to for sentimental reasons.

 

[no guns here]

Have had a hawk land on my tree stand. Had a flock of turkeys walk on the trail 10 feet away. About 12-15 of them... that was cool. Once had a bobcat sniff my neck and back at about 0530 one morning. That was "fun". Had what I think was a rabid coyote look up at me in my tree stand and growl at me. It died. Once woke up in the middle of the night to hear sasquatch breathing outside my tent, right by my head. Turned out to be cow. That was "fun" too.

 

[no guns here]

The best one was in Alabama... nice afternoon. I was about 25 feet up a pine tree. Quiet and still for hours. A couple walked into the forest and did their thing about two trees away. I clapped softly afterwards... they left quickly. Ruined my hunt. Didn't see a danged deer.

 

[NW GUY]

The best one was in Alabama... nice afternoon. I was about 25 feet up a pine tree. Quiet and still for hours. A couple walked into the forest and did their thing about two trees away. I clapped softly afterwards... they left quickly. Ruined my hunt. Didn't see a danged deer.

YEAH... you practice ghosting the woods and trails it is amazing the "wild life" that you can see and run across.

A couple of times I found folks enjoying the sweet nectar of youth in the lonesome places and left them undisturbed after I investigated the sounds and made sure the young lady was not in distress.:::

 

[Jojo]

I climbed the same tree nearly every day between the ages of 5 and 18. 20 ft off the ground there was the PERFECT cradle of limbs to kick back and watch the sky.
As I got older, I turned to daily meditation in a variety of more easily accessible locations.