Like the Wayne Gretzky quote, “You miss 100 percent of shots you don’t take,” if you aren’t in the stand (or blind) you won’t get any shots at deer. So, the focus for any deer hunter should be to stay in their stand for as long as possible, especially when the rut kicks in and deer are moving all day long. Probably the most common culprit for hunters getting down from their stands is getting cold.

When I first began deer hunting as a teenager, I remember constantly buying new pairs of socks because my feet always got cold when sitting in a treestand for longer than two hours. Yet no matter what I wore, my feet ended up freezing by 9 o’clock. Looking back now, I clearly had too much insulation on my feet between my boots and heavy socks. Just walking to the stand my feet would get hot and sweaty. Then that moisture on my feet would slowly evaporate and make my feet cold. The same happened to my hands, no matter what gloves I wore. Now, after years of experimenting, I know what I want to wear for a variety of weather scenarios.