6 Ways Battery-Powered Tools Can Up Your Deer Hunting Success

When you're going in and out of your hunting area, the less noise you can make, the better. Smart hunters are discovering they can lessen their impact on their hunting area by using quieter, battery-powered tools to clear shooting lanes, trim brush and clean out debris. They have plenty of power to get the job done, they're environmentally friendly and they don't require any kind of electrical cord. They're also lighter, more agile and more maneuverable to finish the job, whether you're working on the ground around your stand or trimming shooting lanes higher up. Here are six ways battery-powered tools can up your deer hunting success this season.

Less Noise = Less Impact

I have been very impressed with the Husqvarna 536Li XP chainsaw I picked up for exactly this sort of work. It is powered by a huge Lithium-Ion battery that has plenty of juice to make short work of big tasks. The saw is also very light, making it easy to transport on my ATV.

I own a gas-powered Husqvarna chainsaw, but I have found that the battery-powered 536Li XP will do all of the same jobs with a lot less noise than comparable chainsaws. And you can get as much work done on a single charge as you would on a whole tank of gas without any exhaust emissions fouling the air and driving game away.

An added bonus is that the same Li-ion battery pack works for all the tools in Husqvarna's battery-powered series, so when I added a line trimmer, I could simply pop the same battery in and get to work. And Husqvarna is a brand I trust in power equipment.

Controlling Ground Cover

I don't know how it is where you hunt, but around my stands I deal with a ground-cover plant that drives me crazy – ferns. It doesn't matter how well I clear the ground before I put in a micro food plot, those pesky ferns will grow back in. I've gotten into the habit of carrying a line trimmer with me every time I go in to check the plot, or swap out cards in my trail camera. This way I can keep the ferns and other clutter to a minimum.

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Creating Quieter Access Trails

A few years ago, I was sneaking into another stand location when something happened that honestly made me sick for days. The route into the stand took me along a dense tree line and then around a corner to where the ladder stand was hung. I had kept things trimmed so I had a clear path to the stand, but the extremely dry summer had left things a bit "crunchy," even by mid-October. As I approached my stand, the tell-tale grunt and crashing noises from along the ridge to the west told me that my crunchy footsteps had blown the buck I was after out of the area. As crazy as this sounds, I now go in along the entire path with a leaf blower and try to clear as much leaf litter as possible off the trail before the season opens.

Honeysuckle and other shrub-type ground clutter are another problem. These type of bushes, along with other plants like wild blackcap briars and sumac, are important food sources, but they can get out of hand, and turn into arrow-stopping traps. A hedge trimmer is an awesome tool to add to your land-management arsenal as you can not only cut the brush back to provide good shooting lanes, but you can improve the browse for the deer at the same time. Cutting these types of fast-growing, bushy plants back lets new, tender shoots come in at a quick rate, making them an extremely valuable food source and a magnet for deer.

Trimming Is Safer With A Pole Saw

There are some great, hand-powered saws out there for cutting off limbs to hang a stand, or to clear branches and small trees out of a shooting lane. The problem with hand-powered tools, however, is the energy it takes to use them. Exertion leads to sweat and even with a pound of deodorant on you, you're going to leave some sweaty scent behind. A battery-powered chainsaw and pole saw make quick, quiet work of trees, brush and branches for clearing shooting lanes and stand locations with far less effort.

A pole saw is a great tool for the serious deer hunter. You can cut limbs to hang your stand from the ground, and clear limbs from other branches and trees away from your stand so you have a clear line of sight, all while being safely planted on terra firma. Using battery-powered equipment makes sense because you can get into your location, set things up the way you want them, and then quickly back out, leaving the stand location quiet right up until it's time to hunt.

Minimizing Nosey Neighbors

Even if you have hundreds of private acres to hunt on, you still don't want your neighbors to know all of your business. Using quieter, electric power tools helps mask the location of your stands, just in case your neighbor is trying to figure out where you're hunting. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Part of my property includes a small 20-acre parcel that is butted up between a bigger farm and a golf course. I knew there were big bucks traveling through the property, but I didn't want to attract attention to it, and I did not want the neighbor with the bigger farm to know that I had a stand location in there. By using quieter battery-powered tools, I now have a stand with lanes cleared in two directions and a small micro plot growing to hold those bucks when they come through. Best of all, no one knows it's there.

Eliminating Emissions

No doubt you could find uses for a line trimmer, leaf blower and other power equipment around the house, but you don't always need a chainsaw every day unless you're cutting a lot of firewood. Using a battery-powered saw is smart because like any other power tool, you can use it then put it away. Having a gas-powered saw sitting around that you don't use often can lead to issues as today's ethanol-added fuels don't sit very well in small engines and can cause damage and expensive repairs over time. Save yourself the expense and aggravation and go electric.

With the push toward electric-powered engines, the advancements in battery-powered technology are spilling over into other areas. Battery-powered tools are really benefitting from this innovation and are now on-par (or better) than their gas-powered counterparts. Hunters were "green," well before it was the socially acceptable thing to do. Battery-powered tools go a long way toward lessening your impact on the land you hunt, and you'll be eliminating any deer-spooking smell of gasoline from a gas-powered product. You'll also be doing the environment a favor at the same time by eliminating both noise pollution and direct emissions.

Ultimately, adopting a quieter method of managing your hunting property might just help you harvest that trophy buck and all that nice, organic protein for the table. What could be better than that?