By BEN GARRETT TnHunting.Com Publisher December 6, 2006

Yes, I am a wimp. I will readily admit that. And I am a cold-blooded wimp, at that.

If I had to hunt in a state where it gets really cold — say, North Dakota or Minnesota — I suppose I would be in real trouble. As it is, Tennessee's November and December temperatures are plenty cold enough for me. Although we have not had too many mornings in 2006 where the temperatures have gotten particularly cold — around 27 degrees is the coldest morning I have hunted, though it did dip to the mid-teens on Monday morning on the Cumberland Plateau — it is inevitable that we'll see a few mornings before deer season closes where the mercury dips to 20 degrees or lower. In fact, we'll see a couple of those this weekend, with low temperatures for the my home region of the Plateau predicted to be around 10 degrees Friday morning and in the upper teens Saturday morning.

That's cold. Not Minnesota cold, necessarily, but cold enough.

I say that to say this: There aren't many things I am an expert on. Ask me to describe the ins and the outs of the whitetail rut, and I'll give you an opinion. Ask me how to kill mature deer consistently, and I'll give you an opinion. Ask me how to stay warm in the stand, and I like to think I actually know what I'm talking about. It's a learned thing. When I get cold, I get miserable. When I get miserable, I don't stay in my stand long. So I have developed a system to keep me warm and able to sit in the stand for hours at a time, at least until the temperatures drop to below zero.

Everyone has their own ideas of how to keep warm in the stand. Here are mine:

• The basics: A set of thermal-net underwear (long johns), a turtle neck shirt, camo pullover shirt, camo BDUs, wool socks, and a camouflage parka. I also carry a pair of thick fleece pajama-style pants (black in color) from Wal-Mart that I can slip on over my BDUs if it is especially cold, like Friday morning promises to be.

• Toboggan: More heat escapes the human body through the top of our head than any other part of the body. A toboggan (or beanie or knit hat or whatever you call them) is a necessity, even if it doesn't cover your ears. I don't like a toboggan over my ears; I feel it hinders my hearing. So I simply wear mine atop my head, sometimes even slipping it over my cap. Cost: $7.

• Muffs: There are certain areas of your body that can get cold and make your entire body feel cold. Ears and neck are two of those. Some prefer to wear a toboggan over the ears, or one of those ski masks, or something similar, to take care of the head, ears and neck all at one time. I don't like having my ears covered by a toboggan or my face covered by anything, so I avoid those. I do, however, wear ear muffs. I prefer the 180 Wraps available from JC Penney. I like them because they do not hinder my hearing too much. Plus, as an available accessory, you can purchase a pair of headphones that slip inside the muffs if you use headphones with a two-way radio. Cost: $20.

• Neck gator: A fleece neck gator may not be the best cold-weather clothing item a hunter can possess, but it is certainly near the top. Slip one around your neck and be amazed at how much warmer something so small can make you feel. Cost: $5.

• Gloves: I struggled in this area for years. I purchased pair after pair of gloves and could never keep my hands warm. Each time I purchased a pair, I'd look for something thicker. Soon, I could hardly get my trigger finger inside the gun's trigger guard. Gloves, in my uneducated opinion, do not work well because each finger is separate and relies only on the glove itself for warmth. Mittens, on the other hand, keep all five fingers together. That makes a world of difference. So the solution? Mitten gloves! The wool gloves that are fingerless and have the midden end that can be pulled back and Velcro'd to the top of the glove when you are ready to shoot or use your hands. I have found them available in camouflage at Wal-Mart, but those are fleece. I prefer wool for added warmth. An added benefit to these hybrid gloves is if it is really cold, one can stick a Toasty Toe warmer inside each of his mitten flaps (Regular hand warmers are typically too large to fit comfortably inside the mitten flap. Be sure to wrap the Toasty Toes in a cloth of some sort to avoid direct contact and potential burns). Cost: $8.

• Body bag: Well, not quite a body bag. My grandmother — who owns and is skilled with a quilting machine — quilted me and each of the rest of the family a bag that is quite useful. Designed by my uncle, Larry, the bag is sort of a half-sleeping bag, except thinner than a sleeping bag, with cotton batting inside. It has a zipper down the side, so one can step into the bag, zip it up, and then pull a pair of draw strings at the top to tighten it around the waist or chest. If it is really cold, I'll take off my boots once I reach the stand and throw some Hot Hands down in there. This is the most useful cold-weather accessory I have. A sleeping bag — especially now that they're available in camouflage — will work as well, but the polyester material typically makes it hard to sit in a treestand without sliding around in the seat, and the bags are usually too bulky. They are, however, typically warmer because today's sleeping bags are rated at colder temperatures. If you don't have access to a "bag," a sleeping bag will work fine.

• The final step: Hot Hands, those little activated charcoal-style hand warmers. There are several brands of warmers available on the market, but Hot Hands brand seems to work best for me. Not all the warmers are good; some are duds and never get very warm. Others get extremely hot at first and then fizzle out quickly. So be sure to pack some extras. But, overall, they're fairly reliable. I might as well buy them by the case. I use the regular hand warmers and the larger body warmers, as well as the thin body warmers with an adhesive backing, and Toasty Toes. I mentioned before that there are certain areas of the body that make a world of difference when they're kept one. The ear and throat are two of those areas. Another is the kidney area. Stick one of the adhesive body warmers to your shirt (I put it on the inside of the back of my thermal net shirt, so that my t-shirt will be between the warmer and my body. I used to put it on the outside of the back of my t-shirt, but since the side opposite the adhesive is the warmest part of the Hot Hand, I wasn't getting maximum warmth from it). Lean back against the back of your seat and be amazed at how much warmer you'll feel simply by having heat applied to your lower back. Another area is the thighs. If it is really cold, I'll place a regular body warmer on each thigh after I've gotten inside my bag. This, too, makes a big difference.

And that's my system. I used to put on several layers of clothing, coveralls, and the works, walk to my tree like the Michelin Man and be sweating by the time I got into my seat. No more. These days, I've learned that a couple of relatively thin layers of clothing — the thermals and camouflage outer-wear — is all that is needed, even if the temperatures are well below freezing, IF I do the following: Wear a toboggan, wear ear muffs, wear a neck gator, wear glove-mittens, wear the parka, use my bag, and place Hot Hand body warmers on my kidney area and each thigh. And if it's really cold, throw a few extra Hot Hands down into the bag. I used to dread cold weather. These days, I look forward to it. Cold in Tennessee? There's no excuse for it, really. Those Minnesota hunters, on the other hand, those guys I feel sorry for.

[Everyone has their own system that they use to keep warm. What's yours? Share your ideas in our forums!]

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