*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Keeping your hands warm when deer hunting is vital in order to stay focused, and to maintain dexterity in the fingers. Numb fingertips are a nemesis when it comes to operating a weapon.
Additionally, I personally hate wearing gloves in the day and age of cell phones, as they interfere with touch screen use while on the stand.
Following are 7 effective ways to warm your hands while in a deer stand, with one bonus way that you may not have seen before.
Be sure to purchase hunting clothes with pockets in a comfortable position. You’re going to need those pockets when the temps plummet.
1. Jacket Pockets For The Win
Unless it’s very cold, I usually just use the pockets of my hunting jacket. I find that insulated pockets work well enough when it’s down to about the upper 30’s for me.
It sure helps to choose hunting attire that has insulated pockets in the right spot to place your hands in a comfortable resting position.
When using just pockets, you don’t have unnecessary gear or expense to deal with. This is a great option to keep your hands free at a moments notice. You want to be able to quickly and cleanly pull the trigger, or draw back a bow without fumbling with gear. But, you didn’t come here for such a basic suggestion, so let’s keep going.
Gloves make it difficult to operate a mobile phone when deer hunting.
2. Gloves
While gloves are a tried and true method of keeping your hands warm when hunting, I don’t actually like wearing them when I can get away with it.
First of all, thin gloves don’t seem to help much better than pockets alone, and second of all, thick gloves have to be removed to operate a weapon.
Gloves with the fold back mitten tips are better than other options, but I still prefer to avoid using them altogether. Following are a few alternatives to gloves.
3. Chemical Hand Warmers In Your Pockets
If it’s a little too cold for pockets alone to do the job, I like to throw a couple chemical hand warmers in my jacket pockets. I find that usually does the trick for me.
Chemical hand warmers are fairly cheap, and actually quite effective at keeping the chill off your fingers. Supposedly they are odorless, so I don’t worry about deer smelling them.
4. Hand Muff
If chemical hand warmers aren’t enough, or if I’m wearing clothing that doesn’t have pockets in a comfortable position, I’ll bring out the hand muffs.
The advantage of a hand muff is that you can interlock your hands inside, so they can work together to keep each other warm.
When wearing gloves, a hand warmer can serve as an additional layer for your hands. This allows you to get away with a thinner pair of gloves that work better with firearm use.
Hand muffs, in combination with gloves, can hold back quite a bit of chill. There are other ways, discussed below, to make your hand muff even more effective.
Make your hand muff perform even better by tossing a hand warmer inside it.
5. Hand Muffs With Chemical Hand Warmers
Moving up the scale, you can toss some chemical hand warmers inside your hand muffs to create a little heater to shove your hands inside. Unless its ultra cold, I prefer this setup over wearing gloves.
6. Hand Muffs With A Rechargeable Heater
Now days you can get very effective electric hand warmers that double as a phone charger.
Toss a rechargeable hand warmer inside your hand muffs, and you have a very warm and convenient setup to take to the deer stand. I love having the dual use ability to recharge my phone on those all day sits.
7. Propane Heater
As I get older, I find myself escaping to a box stand more and more when the temps take a real dive. When I deer hunt from an enclosed box stand or ground blind, I usually haul in my portable heater if it’s really cold.
Nothing beats a steady supply of heat swelling up in front of you from a gas heater. This is yet another option that lets me bypass the use of gloves. Can you tell yet, that I don’t like wearing gloves? To be clear, I do often wear gloves to and from the woods. I just prefer to take them off after I arrive at the deer stand.
8. “Coffee Can Heater” With Toilet Paper
I remember seeing a coffee can heater in action 30 some odd years ago in the deer woods. One of my old timer uncles pulled it out of his truck and set it on fire. My mind was blown to see someone light toilet paper on fire and it not actually burn up. If you’ve never tried using a coffee can heater, you should give it a whirl, at least for entertainment purposes.
You can see how to construct this poor man’s heater in the video attached above. Basically, it’s just a metal can stuffed with toilet paper, and then soaked with rubbing alcohol. Done right, they really do work well.
A coffee can heater is nice if you happen to find yourself without other warming options available. You can throw one of these together from supplies you likely already have lying around the camp.
Negatives To Wearing Gloves In The Deer Stand
- Uncomfortable
- Limits ability to shoot quickly
- Limits use of cell phone
- I’m always losing one of them
Obviously I’m biased against using gloves when deer hunting. I find that they’re uncomfortable, sometimes bulky, and most of all they hinder the use of my cell phone while on the deer stand. Besides hindering mobile phone usage, I find they also interfere with quick and clean operation of a weapon. For these reasons I usually use one of the other options listed above.
Conclusion
Next time the mercury takes a dive, you could certainly wear gloves to keep your hands warm. I personally think there are better options. My preference is either chemical or electric hand warmers shoved into my jacket pockets. But, when the temps really fall, I usually flee to my box stand and fire up the trusty propane heater.
Speaking of keeping warm, you might also be interested in some thoughts about drinking coffee in the deer stand. You can check that out here.
Stay warm out there,
Augustus Clay
