Whitetail Myths...here's one

[Lilred]

well..i been seein alot of deer the past 2 days..but the dern things must know exactly where the shootin lanes are...cause they refused to step in em....walked all round me...but wouldnt get in a open spot fer me to shoot.
It was funny...i left my cell phone in my jacket pocket from last night and i wore it huntin this mornin. bout 7:30...the woods was perty quiet with the exception of the acorn cannonballs droppin and the squirrels. Next thing ya know...fred sandford (my ringtone) started blarin. I dont know wether the squirrels were mad er singin along cause man did they git ta sqawkin lol..it wont funny at the time tho...fumblin to shut the dam thing off...good lordy.
anyhow..this awesome owl came sailin in...never heard a thing..but i swear his wingspan was a good 6ft..he was huge. it was great to watch him...the squirrels quit dancin to fred sanford and started chatterin somethin fierce when that big boy sailed in and landed in the big oak. He was an amazin creature. Seen 2 hawks too...they was fightin with the crows...that was interestin too. sometimes...esp bowhuntin from the ground like i did today..can be very frusteratin but it was worth all i lost just bein able to be out there and watch all the other amazin creatures. I'll have to take my digital camera along tomorrow and take some pics..i think ya'll would enjoy it. Its a mighty beautiful batch of woods. I can only hunt mornins cause i have to pick Lil Lilred up at the sitters by 5...so i aint got nary idea what an evenin hunt would bring me. I got 2 days left..and vacation is over. We'll see what happens tomorrow.....


As fer as yer question fabs...2 3/4 has done killed just as much game as 3" or 3 1/2".....so I think stuff like that is trivial really. As fer as guaes go...again...a matter of preference..but surely not a neccessity unless one of yer guns just happens to patterns better than the other.

[wages]

Okay, here's my take on it.
I bow hunt from sept. to jan. with one week of rifle hunting in nov.
I am religious about scent control, some might say "paranoid"
But just this weekend I had a doe and 2 young working a salt lick 8 yards from my stand for 20 minutes.

They were up wind and down wind of me, but they never smelled me. Point is scent control works, but it is a part of woodsmanship not a replacement for it.

As a kid, I used to go down to the neighbors orchard in late summer, climb up in the trees and watch the deer as they came into eat apples. I practiced no scent control back then, and my observations were that on an average day a deer would smell me at about 15-20 yds. Some would spook others would just notice. But you could always tell when they found the smell.

I own a carbon suit, and it is one of the few things that I've bought over the years that worked as advertised. Having said that, I have had occasions where I do everything I always do and have a deer lock up on me. It may not spook but you can tell it smells you.

But certainly you can harvest a truck load of deer, just as our forefathers did, with no fancy suits, sprays, and soaps. You just might not get to sit and watch them at close range for 20 minutes and then have them walk away and never know you were there. And that's why I go to all the trouble, for all the ones I don't shoot.

[fabsroman]

Well put, but I have watched plenty of deer at less than 20 yards with absolutely no worry whatsoever about scent control. I have had so many deer around my stand that I had no idea how I would ever get the opportunity to draw my bow without them seeing me.

[wages]

good point, fabs

I also think pressure and human exposure makes a big diffrence in how they react to scent, and I think the older a deer gets, doe or buck, the more sensitive they become to scent. A 3 year old buck and a 5 year old buck may be the same critter as far as science is concerned, but they have completely different ways of being a deer.

Lilred's original post explains seeing those deer, but what about that big old sway backed grey-beard of a buck that might live in the area, would he have been bothered by scent. I'd say he certainly noticed. But again that doesn't mean he wouldn't come walking through as well, that's just deer hunting!

My hunting partner had 4 bucks come in together the other day, the 3rd knew something wasn't right, and froze up. The 4th was apparently a monster, and was que-ing off of of the 3rd. Long story short, my buddy couldn't get the shot off because he'd been scented. The deer were at 25yds.

Another quick note on scent, two of my all time favorite stands:
one was near a charcoal kiln and the woods there alwaus smelled like smoke. It was almost imossible to get busted by a deer there.

The other is a stand I still hunt. It's next to a hog farm.

[fabsroman]

I was just going to post something to the same effect. How deer react to sent probably depends on what they are used to. I hunt a couple of places where they do not get much pressure, and that is where I can see them all day long. Then, I hunt a couple of places where they get a ton of pressure and those deer are really spooky.

I'll agree with you about the older bucks, but I did shoot one that the taxidermist puts at 6 1/2 and he was standing behind a tree watching me walk up to him. I shot him at 50 yards, but this was also in an area that did not get much pressure.

[Steverino]

Good points about pressure fellas-
In my experience, this does make a huge difference as to what deer will tolerate as human odor and their behavior generally reflects this.

I do believe that as we have learned more about deer (cone color readibility, olfactory senses, and general behavior) we have been much more successful as hunters than our forefathers.

If you look at hunters that consistently kill mature animals, they usually employ some of the newer technology in their arsenal. Anybody can usually take younger does and bucks in an unpressured area. IMHO, to be successfull at hunting larger, mature whitetails in pressured areas, this requires completely different hunting tactics.

[wages]

The key to the big ones is simple get between their bed and their food. It’s the execution that’s tough. Too close to the bed and you spook them, too close to the food and you never see them before dark, plus you’re likey to spook them when you climb down.

I’ve scouted some great bucks in the past, knew right where they bedded and right where they fed, but I never saw them while hunting.

I figure they saw/heard me climbing into or out of my stand at some point and simply changed their travel routes or just waited until well after dark to move.

So again even with scent control, mature bucks are hard to hunt, until the rut, then some of them slip up and we catch them.

[Steverino]

"So again even with scent control, mature bucks are hard to hunt, until the rut, then some of them slip up and we catch them"

That's exactly what we're hoping for in the next few weeks pal!