Ultimate Guide to Staying Warm in the Deer Stand

I consider 5 key strategies for staying warm in the deer stand. Staying warm and staying still determines whether your deer hunt finds success or failure in the deer woods. Follow my ultimate guide to staying warm in the deer stand to maximize success on your next winter deer hunt.

My Hunting History

I started hunting as a young kid in a frigid, blustery Minnesota winter for grouse and duck. It gets ridiculously cold in Minnesota. Feet of snow on the ground, wind chills well below zero degrees Fahrenheit, and just about as cold as you can imagine. I think it’s amazing that I still love hunting.

My dad always dressed me in a duck brown canvas snowmobile suit to head out into the woods and keep me warm. Young kid, in a brownish full-body suit, looking an awful lot like a deer. Maybe Dad was trying to tell me something! lol

Other than a couple of cold winter mornings leaning against a snow-covered hay bale on the edge of a partially frozen lake, I don’t really remember being cold. Bored? Yes. But not cold.

I’ve also done a fair bit of cold weather camping, including a dog sledding trek to northern Minnesota where we camped on a frozen lake and the temperature dropped to 26 degrees below zero over night.

Cold Weather Strategies

Now that I’ve lived in Florida for so long, though, I find that I’m very sensitive to cold weather. So, I needed to implement some really good strategies to for staying warm in the deer stand, to stay in my deer stand, and remain still.

I’ve drawn on my childhood hunting experiences and cold weather camping trips to develop my strategies for staying warm in the deer stand.

Oftentimes, a successful winter deer hunt boils down to staying in the stand and remaining still. You can be in the perfect location under the perfect conditions to nail your target buck, but if you’re cold and fidgeting around to stay warm chances are you’ll miss him. You’ll be moving around to stay warm, spreading your scent all over the woods, and heading into the house way too early.

5 Key Strategies to Staying Warm in the Deer Stand

I consider 5 key strategies when planning for a winter hunting trip and what gear I need in order to stay in the stand and have a successful hunt. You need a strategy for your feet, hands, head, and core. Most importantly, you must use layering as part of your plan for staying warm in the deer stand.

Feet

Let’s start with the feet, since that is the most difficult area for me to keep warm on a deer hunt. My feet are the worst. I just cannot keep them warm. If I’m leaving the deer stand early to head back to camp in the winter, 99% of the time it’s because my feet are just too cold. Once my feet are cold, my likelihood of getting my target buck drops significantly. He’s going to bust me a mile away as I wiggle and stretch and move my feet around trying to warm them up.

Based on this weakness, I spent a bit more money on winter hunting boots; getting the most insulation I could find in a hunting boot. That turned out to be the Cabela’s Inferno boots with 2,000 grams of insulation.

These are the lace up version, but they also have a pull-on style called the Zone Trac Comfort boots that also have 2,000 grams of insulation. They are also waterproof which keeps my feet from getting wet, which would make my feet even colder. They added additional insulation (the 2,000 gram zones) under your feet and around your toes – the areas most susceptible to cold infiltration.

For socks, I use a Merino wool sock that has a pouch for Hot Hands. The pouch keeps the Hot Hands from moving around and positioned where I need it; over my toes. Next year, I’m probably going to try a different strategy and use bison/Merino wool socks — marketed as the warmest socks on the market.

Hands

If you are going to use something on your hands, you need to use mittens in cold weather. Your own body heat keeps you warm; clothes just act as insulators that keep your body heat in your body — they don’t actually “warm you up.” Gloves separate your fingers from each other, not allowing your fingers to touch each other and share that body heat. Mittens insulate and allow your fingers to stay together and share that heat. You can quickly take one mitten off when party time starts.

If you are going to use something on your hands, you need to use mittens in cold weather. Your own body heat keeps you warm; clothes just act as insulators that keep your body heat in your body — they don’t actually “warm you up.” Gloves separate your fingers from each other, not allowing your fingers to touch each other and share that body heat. Mittens insulate and allow your fingers to stay together and share that heat. You can quickly take one mitten off when party time starts.

Head

Keeping your head warm maintains warmth throughout your body. If your head gets cold, it’ll feel like all your body heat is escaping out of the top of your head. One of my favorite pieces of cold weather hunting gear is my fleece lined faceshield from Salt Armor. You can use it as a gaiter to keep your neck warm or as a beanie hat for your head or use it in combination with my hat to keep all the wind and cold off my neck and ears.

I have also been using a fleece balaclava to keep my head warm with great success. I throw my parka hood over the top as a wind barrier and my head never gets cold. This past season, I used a trapper hat. This reduced the amount of gear I needed to carry into the woods and actually kept me warmer than my older strategies with the hood and balaclava.

Core

You need all four areas to stay warm to remain comfortable in the deer stand, but your core is critical to basic cold weather survival. For my core, I use a full layering system (that we’ll talk more about in a bit) that includes MTO50 bibs and the MTO50 parka to keep my core warm. The MTO50 line from Cabela’s protects you from the most extreme weather while hunting. They’re Gore-tex shells are waterproof and breathable. They also break the wind and prevent it from getting inside your clothing.

The MTO50 gear includes tons of insulation to keep your core warm, especially in those places that really need it.

The MTO50 line can be cost prohibitive. I’ve found that the Red Head brand from Cabela’s offers basically the same clothing as the MTO50 line for about half the price. For example, the Red Head Silent Stalker Elite Parka is almost exactly the same construction and design as the MTO50 parka (pic to the left).

The MTO50 design is a little more refined and the Red Head parka uses an “off-brand” version of Gore-tex, but other than that, they’re basically the same parka. The MTO50 is about $300 vs. about $160 for the Red Head parka.

Layering

When developing a strategy for cold weather hunting, always include layering as part of your plan for the above four areas. Layering allows you to shed or add layers of insulation to prevent sweating into your gear and losing some of that insulation value.

Layering all starts with the base layer. I use tight fitting Merino wool base layers. Merino wool base layers (or Long Johns as we called them when I was a kid) cost a bit more than the long underwear you’ll pick up from Walmart, but they’re much more effective and will last forever, if you take care of them. I’ve also had great success with the Cabela’s Heavyweight Fleece base layers. Your mileage may vary.

Next up is the middle or mid layer. Last season, I used the First Lite Origin Merino wool hoodie for my mid layer. INCREDIBLE! This Merino wool hoodie was extremely comfortable in warmish, as well as cold temperatures. It’s flexible, includes a built-in face mask, and the hood stays where it’s supposed to while providing amazing warmth with a view. I will probably do a separate review just of this piece of gear because it’s so fantastic.

The Cabela’s Heavyweight Fleece also works great as a mid-layer and that’s what I do in the deer woods.

Finally, your outer layer consists of everything I talked about in the Core section, above. The key to an outer layer is establishing a solid wind barrier, as well as some water protection.

Winter Hunting Gear List

• Cabela’s Inferno Boots
• Cabela’s Zone Trac Comfort Rubber Boots
• Wool Socks with HotHands Pocket
• HotHands
• Cabela’s Handmuff
• Glove Liners
• Cabela’s Wooltimate Mittens
• Cabela’s MTO50 Bibs
• Less Expensive Bibs
• Cabela’s MTO50 Parka
• Red Head Silent Stalker Elite Parka
• Cabela’s Heavyweight Fleece Base Layer
• First Lite Midweight Merino Wool Hoodie
• Salt Armour Fleece Faceshield
• Fleece Balaclava
• Hunting Backpack

Getting to Your Stand

All of the strategies mentioned above go out the window if you wear all your hunting clothes on your hike to your stand. You’ll work up a nice sweat getting to your stand and soak through your base layer, maybe more. All the gear I mentioned above still retains their insulation properties if they’re wet. Although you won’t die from hypothermia because of those insulating properties, you also won’t be comfortable.

During my winter hunts, I use a larger hunting backpack designed to carry wild game out of the wilderness. I use that additional capacity to carry my cold weather gear to the stand. I generally wear my base layers to the stand and put on the rest of my layers when I get into my stand.

Follow all the strategies for staying warm in the deer stand and you’ll have a much better time in the winter deer woods. You’ll likely improve your chances of success, too.