Teenage Fad or Hunting Tool

During whitetail firearm season my brother and I attempted to implement a little technology into our hunts to help communicate. I have tried using walkie talkies in the past. I found them useful for putting on drives, but trying to remain as quiet as possible sitting in a stand and conversing with those things is not a combination I will try again. This time around my brother and I turned to texting with our cell phones to communicate during our hunts. Now I know many of you think of texting as a teenage fad and a strange concept all together, but I find it has many advantages for hunting purposes. Brief messages are all that need to be exchanged during a hunt. My brother and I were able to converse with each other without making any audible sounds to the surrounding wildlife. All of our words are typed and read quickly and quietly. By simply turning our cell phones on vibrate and keeping them in our jacket pockets this became possible. If you are going to attempt this strategy in your next hunt there are a few things you need to look out for. Be aware of the sun, a deer will easily spot the glare of the sun off a cell phone. Keep the phone covered if you can. Be careful in low light situations; better yet, don’t use the phone at all during these times. The illumination from your phone can give you away, and more importantly dusk and dawn is prime time to see deer, you should be focused and not fiddling around with your phone. Last tip: MAKE SURE YOUR PHONE IS ON VIBRATE. I don’t think a deer is going to mistake your ring tone for squirrel chatter, just a hunch. 

During one of our hunts my brother was in a stand overlooking a long field. At the far end of this field he could see deer cross and head down into the woods where my stand was located. Our text exchanges went like this.

(Brother 7:20am)- 4 does just crossed heading your way

(Brother 7:25am)- They just ran back across

(Me 7:25am)- Never saw them

(Brother 8:04am)- 6 point headed your way

(At this point I hear the six point coming and watch it in my binoculars cross in front of my stand and down into the creek bed. While still watching it I hear another deer coming from the opposite direction headed down towards the six. I spot the much larger buck and instead of sizing it up in my binoculars I chose the scope of my 30-06 instead.)

(Me 8:16am)- Down goes Frazier

After I had cleaned the buck I was able to ask my brother for assistance dragging it out of the woods by text without ruining his hunt. Now many of you might argue that a major aspect you enjoy about hunting is getting away from technology and getting to back to the basics. I completely understand and agree with this concept, but for me I was able to have a little more interaction with my brother which is a fair tradeoff for me.