Here's a little on how I approach still hunting with a bow...
Like CJD said, still hunting can be rewarding and it can frustrate the ever living hell out of you too. I limited my still hunting to late mornings and late evenings from roughly October 20-November 20 and only when the leaves are wet. (A great time is after a hard frost and it melts come late morning. Scouting/still hunting to break up a long sit is a great way to make it happen…) I like to follow four-wheeler trails and edges. Still hunting is crunchy leaves is pointless in my opinion as it poses a whole different problem by generating more noise, which then effects your ability to hear as well. I’d rather remove that variable. Since I only stalk when the leaves are damp, I can move a little fast than I can in dry leaves. As Joe said, I stalk from tree to tree, or cover to cover. Do your best to move with the wind in your face, or at least crossing your face. I typically go to an area I want to hunt and begin the hunt 100 yards or so from the point I am considering to be the most likely place to encounter deer. From there, I will either circle back to my start or back track depending on my real time evaluation of what’s going on. I can cover 100 yards in 20-30 minutes with ease in open terrain. This is when binoculars come in so handy; let them do a lot of work while you are stalking. If I see deer up ahead, I’ll make a decision about the best way to get 100 yards in front of where they are headed. If they are headed to a field, I’ll beat them there and set up 25-35 yards upwind of their most likely entrance to the field. This has been a pretty effective tactic for me over the years resulting in a couple of kills and some great encounters.
My favorite thing to do when the conditions are present is to still hunt to the edge of an open field on a nasty/rainy/sleeting type of evening. Back in 2003, we had such a night. I started the hunt in a ground blind with Tracie, but we were shortly called to the house by the dinner bell. Turns out my grandmother had passed away, so my parents had to leave and my sister needed babysat. After it all sank in, I decided the best place to be was in the woods on a rainy, nasty mid-November evening. I decided to stalk to the downwind edge of the same field where I had killed my first deer three seasons earlier. In the process, I encounter 14 deer, watched does get bred, bucks fight, and had respectable 6-point walk attempt to walk in to the woods on the trail I was using to get positioned for a shot. He stopped 3 steps from me. It was unbelievable. To this day, one of the best hunts I have ever had. Using the conditions, it was perfect for covering some ground and making something happen. To me, that is the biggest factor of success in still hunting, the conditions.
