Ep. 72: The Finer Points of Hand Signals

did he spook, Maybe he just bedded down. You may never know. That's unless you have a spotter. When planning a stock, it's always easier to have someone watching from an advantage and doing what I call directing traffic. Hand signals can be a great way to guide another hunter in, but if you're not on the same page, it can honestly be more confusing than it's worth. So this week I'm gonna be breaking down the tried and true use

of hand signals. So text your hunting buddy right now to listen in on this podcast because it takes two to tango. But before we go there, I'm going to share the story of today's late season archery mule deer hunt with my wife. I figured, if I'm going to tell a hunting story, might as well tell the story of today's hunt. My wife and I drew some late season archery meal deer tags, and this is kind of my wife's like first jump into archery hunting. Earlier this year.

She just thought she's been on a few archery hunts with me and thought it would be pretty exciting to try herself. So we got our shooting a bow and she actually went out and did some small games, some grouse hunting, and she's doing really well and just progressing really well, just all in preparation for this tag, so she's been really excited. Unfortunately, today was the first day

we could get out. I was actually had a trip already planned in Alaska and just got back, so we kind of gathered up our stuff and went out today. First morning. I figured out, okay, I'll just we'll continue to hunt and I can do these podcasts at night whenever after we get back. So we went out and not having any time to scout, I just started to check a few areas that I'd hunted before, and the first part of the morning, didn't really see much. You know,

we hadn't had a whole lot of weather. Sometimes late season hunts can be a little more migration dependent. We got some weather, so I thought, okay, this is gonna be great, and then didn't really see what we're looking for the first part of the day, so we switched areas kind of got into a new spot away from people. Some weather started moving in its cloudy, snowing cold. Um, the fog started to roll into the glass. In visibility

wasn't that great. But before we lost visibility, spotted a couple of bucks down in this this valley like kind of in this patch of aspen trees. So I saw one buck and he was actually a nice, nice buck, pushing some dose in the aspens. Were like, okay, we'll go over there. The snow is deep where we were at. So we got up to the top and I'm like, all right, it's maybe a mile and a half. Let's

go over there and stock in. So on the way there, we get into a group of deer and my wife's just looking to get her first our bow harvest, like first bow kill, so not being super picky, there's a big fork in horns or like, let's stock this. The snow starts moving in, we start crawling in, and all of a sudden, the one deer we saw bet had turned into about fifteen deer mostly does like, man, that's gonna be a tough stock. But we're headed for some other deer anyway, so let's do a quick stock. If

we get in there, great if not, no tears. You know, there's probably quite a few other bucks like this one around, so let's just kind of knock the rust off, get a little stock in. It was actually honestly bad stocking condition. We didn't get very far before the dose sauce and blew out. Thought okay, usually blew up the correct direction,

so we continued on. As we're now getting closer, we hit some patches of pretty deep snow, like three or four ft drifts on the back side, and we're like, okay, man, if we gotta walk all the way there and then all the way back up the mountain in this snow, it's gonna be tough. So we kind of tried to navigate to a spot with a little less snow, pick a different route over there, and on the way, sure enough,

here's another buck. Okay, so these other two bucks are feeding and like, okay, these are kind of by themselves. It looks like a bachelor group. Maybe we see two right now, there might be more, so we slowly crept in, but just the I think they definitely hurt us. The snow wasn't really I wouldn't say crunchy, but it wasn't quiet either. They blew out, so like, okay, well we got about sixty yards on those, but she wants to get within thirty thirty five yards. It's like this is

gonna be tough. So we continue onto that bigger buck that was in those aspen trees, thinking okay, I just saw like a couple of does in a in a buck. So we get up over on the hillside where we can look into those aspen trees we're glassing, and I'm like, I see the doughs in there and not the buck. So I start moving down the hill that we're on, like the opposite hill of where they're at, and sure enough,

a deer jumps up. And this is just something that kind of happens in migration areas where you start getting a bunch of deer moving in. In this stage that we had to go through to get to where we're going. Was just a pocket loaded full of does, probably sixty doughs. One blew out and it took the whole hillside running. We didn't even get within five yards of the deer we were trying to stock. Sure enough, those dose blew

out scattered everywhere. We couldn't see them because they're laying in sage that was about neck high, and there when our stock for the day. So like, bummer, this sucks. Well, let's head back to the truck. There's a lot of deer around we might see something. So we head back and we're starting to head out and I spot a couple other bucks, but nothing in a good stocking positions. Said, okay, we're just not even gonna waste their time like on

these deer that are just unstoppable. The wind was bad, They're better in a good spot, just not in a good position for stalking. So we're on our way out and as we're we're heading out, I spot antler tips coming up the hill in front of us, like buck buck. So the buck crosses in front of us and then starts feeding. Is perfect. The wind's good and we're already fairly close within that two yards, so we creep in a little bit closer. She gets within range, but then

just no shot. It's like, oh man, that was so close yet so far away, Like all right, well, let's keep going. So we go just a little bit further and just around the bend there was this Earlier that day I had spotted this really big I called it forcas Sours, just a giant forking horn. It was like a probably a regressed buck, real mature animal, just a big buck, only two points on each side, but very

tall times just like a cool looking deer. And he's with a bunch of does, and there's actually two bucks in the group. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna stay here. I got my camera out. I'm like, I'm gonna guide you in because that way, it's just like less people, less in the movement. And they're kind of in this tall sage mix and a really steep hill, so it was kind of hard. It's hard to know where they're going. So I hold back and she starts to creep up. She's crawling in and now she's like on the steep

face below. It's pretty vertical, so you can't really see until you get close, and I can see she's she's creeping up and I'm directing her up and that group of deer. There's a buck with some does right above her. So as she's creeping in, I can tell she sees a dough. She gets down and she can start seeing the group of deer. But what she can't see is the buck walked up and around and is now on the other side of her. So I start hands signaling, like right, go right. She looks at me like right.

I'm like yes, right, she's looking she can see the deer. She's like, okay, I'm just gonna trust his hand signals. So there happened to be two bucks in. The bigger bucks circled around and went to this bush. So I just started hand singing, like she's looking at me. She can't see above her because the hills steep and the brushes thick, so she's looking back at me. I'm hand

signaling over. Up she goes, and I just start directing her in, and I can see the deer because I've got this this wide view, this panoramic TV view of seeing everything. So I direct her right to the bush and she gets down, and then I can tell she sees it antler tips right on the other side of the bush. And I mean from from my view because the two of them are stacked together, it looks like the deer's five feet away. It ended up being fifteen yards. So now this is her first opportunity at a meal

deer buck, and I can tell she's pretty excited. So the bucks moving right, I guided her right in to the perfect spot. She draws back, the bucks now feeding, and it's just gonna walk out right broadside, perfect, but instead turns and starts going left, not like moving fast, just milling and feeding. So she's already at full draw and she creeps around the point of the bush and I can see her settle the pin and she shoots and it just hits the bush right in front of her.

Her site picture was clear, but the bush's trying to shoot around. She didn't notice that her arrow is lower. And I was like, oh, no, the things you learned archery hunting. I mean, I've made that mistake, probably myself. I don't even know how many times I did it on a doll sheep in Alaska. Once just hammered the rock right in front of me, two feet away, And since that that time is just one of those like

experiences where you just have to have those experiences. You think, at fifteen yards there's no way you can miss, and yet you you focus in so much that you don't realize your arrow doesn't clear the tree branch right in front of you, and you've got that deer right in your site, dead to rights, and something goes wrong. And I said, welcome to bow hunting. I mean that right

there perfectly describes to me what bow hunting is. It's it's everything combined of so many things you need to learn, so many things you need to do, and even when everything looks so perfect, there's still those little things you need to pay attention to that can go wrong. But you know, if she would have just kept creeping on those other deer, she would have completely had no opportunity at the buck. Because I was sat back and was

able to direct her. And even though she thought, okay, those I can see, dear here, they've got to be right here, just following those hands signals, it was able to get her within range, within fifteen yards of a buck that she probably would have messed up or not even she would have even known that that buck peeled off and win another direction. Um, has she just been stalking in or had I been stalking in with her? So there was a huge ability to just like helping hand.

I call it like a helping hand guiding her in to the deer when I could take that original view and see everything from the director's chair and kind of helped direct her into position to get close enough for a bowshot. Now, I'll be real honest with you, I have had a love hate relationship with hand signals for a very long time. For me, I generally hunt alone.

I do a lot of solo hunting when I'm hunting for myself, so I don't have somebody else helping direct me in or even know what happens if I stalk in and then lose the animal or can't find it. I think that often the best way to stalk you end up losing sight of whatever you're stalking at some point through the stock because you have to go around the backside, come in from the top. You've got to adjust your plan, and you're gonna lose sight of him

at some point. That's where having somebody there to watch really can pay dividends. Now for me personally, I've gotten used to hunting without that, but I do when I hunt with other people, I realize what a benefit it is to be able to help guide people in. Now there are some states that allow radios two a communication.

Me personally, even in states where it's legal, I don't use it, and I don't like to use it, partially because I don't know, just personal preference, But I feel like the hand signals are a little bit different because it's a it's more of an archaic form of guiding someone in, and if you've ever done it, you can realize that a lot can go wrong even with hand signals, and I think that the thing that goes wrong most is poor communication and poor pre planning between the two

people trying to signal each other in. So if done correctly, however, I will say that it is extremely effective at getting someone into position, and it's a way that you can communicate back and forth silently, and the person with the director's chair the big view can help guide the hunter as things move. So I think that if we're gonna break down hand signals, we've first have to talk about the basics. What hand signals are is you've got someone

watching and someone's stalking, So the hunters stalking. Obviously, the person watching is is seeing hopefully has a view of where the animal is and can then pick up the hunter along the way. The person signaling his job is to direct the hunter to the animal. Obviously, So you're gonna need some standard commands. Here are the commands that I think are necessary, and I think any more than this is kind of unnecessary. So your standard commands are

gonna be up down right, left. You need something for yes, something for no, something for I don't know, and then you need something to communicate. It is the same, it has changed, it is over. So I'll jump into the like breaking this down here. So the signal or the way that I think works the best, and what you need is to people to be on the same page.

That is the number one key tactics. So whether you're a signal er or you're the stalker, you need to have this down, memorized and understood before you embark on a stock and before it's game time. So the way that I operate hand signals is the signaler should always direct where the person needs to go from where they're looking. So the direction of travel needed. So if I'm looking out at the mountain, I've got the hunter at one point.

Let's call the hunter at point A and the deer's at point B. Point A from my view, he needs to go right to get to point B. The hunter needs to move right to go to the deer. I put my arm right if he needs to go up. I put my arm up above my head if I need he needs to go down down below my head, and left left arm out so as he's looking, he can look back at the glass er and he goes the direction that he's pointing. So okay, he's looking, and okay,

I go that way. Um now, now don't want to be pointing at the animal, but you're using your arms as directions. So left, right, up, down essentially covers all the directions on a hill that a person can go. Now, you also need something where you can communicate back and forth, because this is where hand signals fall apart. The person doesn't know if the deer's where they were before, if the deer has changed, anything like that. So I like to have an easy way of communicating these three things.

It is the same, it has changed, it is over when the hunter leaves the glass or I like to set up something where at a glance, they can understand how or what I'm looking at without having to make any signals or anything. So the way I do that, I generally have like a even if I'm archery hunting or whatever, I have an extra blaze orange vest in my backpack, or I use a game bag like a white game bag, something easy to see before the hunter leaves.

I said it on one side of me up maybe where either tied on my pack, or maybe there's a branch or something I can put it on. So if I'm sitting down looking at the hill, I generally put whatever I'm using, my orange vest or game bag to the left of my body, so it'll just be sitting there constantly, always to my left. That means that what we're looking at when the hunter leaves, it's the same.

So for if he's stalking a bedded buck and he looks back at any point during the stock to check in and sees that that game bag or orange vest is to my left when he's looking at it to be to my right obviously, but you do it while he's there, so or he or she's there, so they know where it's at. They know that it's the same as when they left, so they're gonna plan their stock. You're gonna plan a stock, and you're gonna assume that. Okay, I'm gonna stalk into this animal like everything is the

same when they left. Now, if things change, I move the game bag or the orange vest to the other side of me, so at a glance, the person can look and say, Okay, something has changed. They are not in the same place, or maybe not the exact same place, but not in the general vicinity. It's moved. I'm going to have to reassess the stock and use more hands

signals to go in. Now, if it's the hunt's blown, I generally take that thing and either put it away or put it on, or put it above me or wave it around something to signify that, hey, we need to regroup the stocks over you either blew it or it's so messed up. At this point, the animals move so far that we need to regroup and reassess and restock.

The hand signals are no longer going to work. Just having that where the hunter can check in and identify that takes out a lot of communication problems and communicates a lot of information very simply, and a lot of information that's important for directing a person in When you think about hand signals and directing people, it needs to be something simple and it needs to be in a

way that you can communicate clearly. And really all you need to communicate is direction of travel and whether things are working or not. So I have a couple of signals that I use for yes, no, and I don't know yes. I got from when I was scuba diving trying to communicate underwater. Just putting your hands in a circle above your head. That means everything's okay, Like making an O with your arms around your head. That's what I use. It just says okay, everything's okay. Yes. It's

a way of communicating positive. I use my hands as an X to communicate no. So if they're going somewhere or they're pointing in a direction, I use the X as no, uh, something's wrong, look at me. The X is no go. And then sometimes things happen where you're the glass er. You look, the deer's gone. You don't know if he's there, you don't know if he's not there.

That's the kind of shrugged shoulders w shape, like the I don't know, that's I don't know, arms up to both sides, like it would make a w between your head and your hands, just like I don't know, is you there? Maybe? Um? And that's a good, that's a good. Having those three things to communicate back and forth with hand signals is huge, But it's also something that's easily

identifiable over a long distance. Now, when we're talking about directions, a lot of times you've gotta understand that you might be five six hundred, seven hundred yards away, so you might be hard for the person stalking in to see the hand signals that you're doing as the director, as the person giving the hand signals. A lot of times I'll just take a game bag out, use that white

game bag for the direction, so it's easier to see. Now, what you have to make sure is you have to have some way of communicating back and forth that the person needs a signal, so as the glass or you're gonna be watching the person stock in. One thing that I do, I often use my hat to get the attention of the glass or so I'll use I'll flash my hat to say, hey, give me a direction. Am

I good? Am I okay? What's going on? If I turned my hat backwards and saying I'm not really sure where I'm going or what I'm doing, and I need some more direction. The glasses responsibility is going to be to continually direct the person who's stalking. In this best works with the spotting scope so you can have your hands free. The glass will be sitting there with the spotting scalpe watching and then constantly giving direction like up, down, left, right,

toward the animal. So at any point the person stalking can check in with their binocularcy okay, I need to go this way, and then continue on the path. One thing you have to definitely think about is you need there to be time to communicate over long distances with these hand signals for the person stalking to look with their binoculars, check in with you, then put them down. Then the glass or needs to then check in with their binoculars and see if there's any other communication that's needed.

If they don't understand, they could give the shrugging motion and I don't know, or they can understand or reply that they get what's going on by giving the circle or the X saying no, I don't get get what you're saying. I think one of the signals that I want to know the most is if the stocks blown. If I'm stalking in and the animal blows out, have some way of communicating at any point as the hunter checks in that hey it's over, and so that might be you know, before you go, have a pre chosen

sign for it's over. A lot of times, like I said earlier, I moved that that indicator, whether it's that game bag to the left, the right, or just put it away. But you also don't want the person to be stalking and not see that and come back, Oh, I thought it was blown. So you definitely want to be able to check in. Wave your arms. Hey, we call it off. It's no longer good. We need to regroup.

If I were to give you five tips to keeping hand signals successful, the first would be to keep gestures to a minimum, stick to directions yes, no, maybe, and then the sign of whether things are the same or different. You should be able to communicate what you need to with those. When people start ad living, when they start thinking that they're communicating something with their hands at a long distance that wasn't pre talked about, confusion sets in.

I've had that happen so many times with people that are knew that I've hunted with friends that I've hunted with. I mean, I can think of more times that it hasn't worked out because somebody's done something like, oh, I was trying to tell you that another one came up behind you and you should draw back and look at that one and then shoot and go that way and watch out for that. And there's just it's too difficult to communicate too many things. Keep it simple, stupid like

that's just how it works with hand signals. Have your directions to the animal from where the hunter is. Direct them to the animal, make sure everybody understands that, have ways to say yes, no, maybe, and then let them know whether it's how it was when they left or if things have changed, and that just keeping it simple like that is going to lead to a lot more success. The next thing is you know what the plan is ahead of time. You know, plan the stock with the hunter.

Don't Sometimes the person hunting just goes off and like, Okay, I'm gonna get over there, and they don't really plan the stock out Let the person who's glassing know what your initial plan is. Obviously things change, but it can be very difficult to pick out somebody that's crawling and staying hidden in camouflage. UM. It also could be difficult knowing, Hey, what route are you gonna take? Where are you planning to get to? Where do you want to get to?

I think where stocks go wrong as people only think about getting to the animal, not getting to a place where they can shoot from. So before I leave, I really plan out the stock with whether I'm the signal er or the person is stalking, we plan it out. We say, okay, look the deer's there, he's betted, he should stay bedded there. I'm gonna go up around the back side. I'm gonna pop over at this tree and look for you. I'm gonna check in there and see if I can get hand signals or if it's moved.

If it hasn't moved, then I'm going to stalk to that rock just off the left side. It looks like that's down wind of where I'm going. It also looks about twenty to thirty yards and maybe a clear opening. I'm gonna get there and wait. You know, if it does and look like I can get any closer, I'm gonna wait there so long as it hasn't moved. Now, if it moves, which way. Do you think it might go, Well, I'd say, oh yeah, as the sun comes up, it

might go rebed in these trees over here. So if I move the pack to the moved side and then you know he's moved, maybe we'll do the okay symbol if he moves to that spot. So that's Those are just ways to pre plan the stock and pre plan your communication based on what might happen. You don't know exactly what's going to happen, but you have a pretty

good idea of some of the options. So stick to a plan, formulate a plan, and it makes the communication a lot easier between the signal er and the hunter. The next thing would be wait and look for the signals. And if you think about it, even like a two way radio, only one person can be on channel at a time. So the trouble that I find is a lot of people get confused because one guy's signaling, the hunter's signaling where do I go? I don't know? Do

I go this way? And the signalers signaling to the hunter this, this, this, go, do this, do this, and they're doing it at the same time. Yet they aren't far enough to visually see with their eyeballs, So you need to make sure it's one person signaling and then the other person signaling, give look, look at each other with binoculars whatever, get in the optics, confirm that they can see you, do your hands signals, then look back, and when they understand they should give you the Okay, okay,

I got what you're saying. Now I'm gonna do it. So communicating back and forth one at a time and then confirming whether you receive the message or not. The next thing would be the hunter needs to check in. So many times I've been the guy doing the hand signals and hunter's like, Okay, I'm gonna do this stock. I'm gonna go up there, and and then they never

check in. They never look back at the person signaling, I will have moved my thing, saying, oh the the animals moved, and they continue to get so focused in on the stock that they forget to check back in. You think, okay, that's very simple. They wouldn't, but it happens so many times where they don't look back. My wife did a really good job on her stock, and the reason she was able to get fifteen yards from that deer as opposed to not even get close to

the deer. Was as she got close, she kept checking back, checking back, is it right? Am? I? Okay? Does everything look good? Yeah? Everything looks okay, everything looks good. The next thing would be small gestures don't really translate over big distances, but also the reverses. You don't need big gestures at short distances. So on this particular hunt, you know, okay, could be having the same thing but just smaller instead of having to go big over your head. I was

actually not that far away. She could see me with her binoculars fairly easy, actually probably with her her bare eyes. So just giving the okay symbol like finger, thumb and index finger you know, okay, typical like yep, it's okay finger xs no, you know, using my hat instead of the game bag hat forward means it's the same hat backwards means it's different having those for different, uh, different distances. But then also realizing if you're looking five yards you

need binoculars to see the person. Small hand movements don't translate well over big distances, so you really need to exaggerate one way. As it gets further, what I do is I use my not only hand signals, but my

body movement. So I hold my hand right and walk right from where I'm at as they're looking at me, hold my hand up, walk back just ways to show that they need to go up, they need to go down, they need to go left, they need to go right, but over a larger distance where it's easily translated into okay, that's what I need to do. And then the last tip would be to trust your signaler, but don't blame them.

So many times I've been hunting with guys, or I've been the guy stocking and somebody has been directing me. The person that's looking at the hills doing the best of their ability. It's not always easy to tell um distances. Sometimes when they're stacked up against each other, they're they're directing you based on the way that they see it. Communication is limited in one way. When you leave the person signaling, you have to have the assumption that I'm

going over here to stock. This person will tell me if it's gone. This person might be able to help direct me in if I get confused or if the animal moves, But I'm not relying on them for my success or failure. You're it's still hunting. It's a team effort at this point, you know, blaming your hunting partner because oh, you didn't understand their signal or whatever is

a horrible way to go. I've seen I've seen many hunting partners get hit each other's throats because one guy was a bad signal, or he didn't understand what he was doing. He did a terrible job, the stock was blown, he would have done better with it. It's just like I've seen that happen. But also trust the guy signaling. He's got a way better advantage than you. Um, so

you know, trust in what they're saying. If they're saying go right, go right, there's now there's are times when you're on the ground you need to make different decisions. But trust that your signal is saying okay, at least directing you to where the animal is and giving you a better idea of where you need to go. So trust them, but don't blame them. If you do those things, I think that you'll find yourself a lot more successful it being guided in or guiding in your hunting partner

on your next stock. If you really think about the hunting trips you go on, most hunting trips people are with friends, with a hunting partner, unless you're by yourself. But it's a great advantage to have to really nail down these hand signals ahead of time, to be on the same page to communicate these things. You're gonna find yourself a lot more successful guys that have hunted and done this a lot together. I mean, it's very hard

starting out. You might like it seems difficult starting out, but the more you do it, the more you practice it, the better you're gonna be at it, both as the hunter and the signal er. That's what makes a really good hunting team is people that can communicate well without the use of electronic devices or having to talk. They can just give hand signals. They understand what they're doing, where they're going, and they're gonna be a lot more

successful that way. So find a good hunting buddy, get on the same page, work these signals out, practice them in the field, use them as often as you can, and you're gonna find that you're gonna be a lot more successful for it. I think we're coming into the Christmas time next week. I'm gonna do what I like to call my Christmas special, So there's gonna be some gear giveaways like I did last year. I like to

reward everybody who listens to this podcast. So I got some some cool stuff to give away, nothing huge, but just a little give back thank you. Try to make it a little bit easier odds of winning than some just mass giveaways on social media. So um, good luck at that. You'll have to listen in to figure out how to claim your prize. It's gonna be I think as Christmas Eve is the next one, so you know

you'll probably be enjoying it with your family. Maybe we'll do the giveaway within like the that week of Christmas even on so you don't have to. But if you want to listen on Chris to see Christmas whatever with your family or whatever, that's cool too. But enjoy the time with your family. Hopefully you're thinking about hunting, I'll give you some some good uh. I like to think about some good holiday stories and then maybe some good

tips on that hunting. Between Christmas and New Year's maybe getting some family out, whether your kids or just people in your family out, and some just some fun hunts that you can do with other people that may hunt that may not hunt. That maybe thinking about getting into hunting, just some fun stuff to do and maybe some ways to cook up what you take home, so look forward to that until next week. Keep them pointed in the right direction.