Trad Gang
Main Boards => PowWow => Topic started by: Jerry Jeffer on February 12, 2007, 09:06:00 AM
-
This past season I hunted a couple of spots kind of frequently. (2x a week) This was early season. The deer would show up after being there an hour or so. When the extended season rolled around; I found the deer where still using the area. However, they were around my spot while it was still dark, and I was walking in. I moved to another area and hunted that a few times. After that, the deer again came around earlier before shooting light, or not at all. I am pretty careful about scent control and hunting the wind. I think the simple presence of human sensitized the deer into changing up there routine a bit.
Any one else care to share on this one?
-
They absolutely will pattern a hunter. One trick I like to use when I hunt a new area that other hunters have been hunting is go to the one area they haven't been hunting, no matter how unlikely a spot it looks like. Odds are you'll find it holds deer. Dr. Kroll has reported radio tracked deer learn hunter's habits and adjust their movement accordingly. That's why he strongly discourages permanent stands.
-
I have had the same observation as you. No matter how careful you are about scent something is always down wind of you. In the public hunting areas that I hunt the change in behavior of the deer over the course of the season is very visible.
-
Scent is a priority...that said, I tried something different this year after my stands had the same thing happen. Took out my buddy...second year bowhunting. We just walked into the first stand....not loud, but not trying to be too quiet. NO talking, and we tried to keep our footsteps in time. Stopped at the stand....he quietly climbed up....I walked on. Half hour later he shot his first deer....six pointer that came to the base of the tree looking in the direction I had gone. Poor deer didnt have a clue.
-
Watch a doe that has survived a few seasons. She will know every tree that has ever had a stand hung in it in the woods. She'll check everyone of the trees for stands when season starts too. You don't survive as a prey species if you can't adapt some to the predators that pursue you.
-
Deer do pattern hunters, and it doesn't take them long to do it.
Jamie: Your experience fits under the "deer can't count" syndrome. My brother and I have used that to our advantage countless times over the years, one dropping off the other as we go to our stands. In the dark particularly, deer often wait until "we" pass and then resume their movement, often right past the person on stand while the other person can still be heard and sometimes seen while walking off.
-
OK, all that being said. How often do you change your set up? Just curious about what others do. I do usually change up often. But obviously not always often enough.
-
I don't hunt from treestands. I set-up in a different place to play the wind and many times to play off of how the deer have changed in response to other's treestands just about everytime out.
-
i hope i dont catch too much flak for this, but when we gun hunt i have found that deer expect to be hunted a certain way and learn the best escape routes. realizing this my brother and i have had a lot of success hunting together by slowly pushing a deer and anticipating his moves on past experience. if you do it slow, the deer will not get too spooked and will simply walk on his "escape route." its actually a lot of fun to create a scenario for the deer to react to, but as you all know...those old bucks are old for a reason and can make you look silly sometimes.
-
I hunt the wind...wait until its good for a stand or go elsewhere. I usually hunt all weather, except for very hugh winds...swaying back and forth a few feet in a tree is not for me...not to mention when trees or branches come down.
I also key in on weather fronts. Before and after seem to work well for me. I have a barometer, once it is up to 29.5...Im out in the woods for sure.
Orion, it is a nice tactic...but ya think any of them big boys can count?LOL.
Another thing to key in, like vermonster said is other hunters. Use em to your advantage as much as possible..with their knowledge....or without. ;)
-
They definitly do. Where I hunt, the deer are accustomed to moving after most of the hunters are out of the woods at 10:30am. Old doe will bust you out if they become aware of what your doing.
-
I have 27 acres to call my own and on that i have 7 stands, to some it might seem a bit much. But i feel strongly that deer pattern hunters big time. I have watched them adjust there routes and times around me. That is why i have so many stands to choose from some are within 50 yards of others, i move around from stand to stand and I'm not afraid to move stands during the course of the season to follow the deer habits.
-
I hunt the wind and the does. Because its just a matter of time before the bucks start to show up.
-
I've seen deer walk into an area from a thicket and instantly start looking up at trees! My only guess was that have gotten used to hunters in treestands, and now are looking for them. I absolutely believe they pattern us. I have had more success around midday, right after hunters have walked back to their wehicles for lunch, than pretty much any other time.
Lee
-
Stoneknife has 7 stands on 27 acres, well I have 102 stand on about 200 acres, one piece is 37 acres and I have 19 stands on it. I switch up quite a bit and if I have been picked off by deer I may move as little as ten ft. and not get busted. Shawn
-
several years ago I got busted in my treestand by an older doe. I hunted that same stand 2 weeks later facing the direction they came from, the doe crested the hill and looked right at me and veered to the edge of the field along with the 3 other deer that were with her. I never moved a muscle and I was dowmwind of her. I waited 2 more weeks and set a trap: I had my buddy sit in my usual stand and I set up along the field, it worked like a charm.
-
Those older does are cagey critters for sure.
-
If I primarily hunted the wind in my neck of the woods I'd be pretty dizzy all the time. It's almost always fickled. Changes 4 or 5 times in the course of a couple hours.
-
onetrap...thats what i am talking about, they are smart, but sometimes, we manage to out maneuver them.
i have never had a deer scanning the trees for stands...that would make it a little rough. next thing you know we will have to dig fox holes to fool them.
-
For sure, deer pattern hunters alot better than hunters pattern deer. I will never forget something that happend to me years ago. It was when I first began bowhunting, and I was hunting the same stand over and over. When November came around, I hunted in it everyday for about 2 weeks or so. One day I saw a big 5x4 slipping through the brush. He stuck his head out and looked directly at me in the tree. He was far enough away, that he did not notice that I also saw him looking at me. He slowly turned around and went the other direction. He did not smell me. I had the wind. Nor did he smell where I came in at, since he was nowhere near my entry path. He also did not see any movement since he was far enough away that I did not even begin to get ready for a shot. I have never seen another deer do anything like it, but I am 100% convinced that this deer knew I was hunting there, and decided to check before he moved through the area. More than likely, he had spotted me in the stand on a previous day, and I never saw him.
It's hard to do, but I think it helps to only hunt a stand once every week at the very most. Too much more than that, and the deer will surely figure you out.
If you think about it....people are much easier to pattern than deer. Most of us enter and leave the woods at about the same times every day. Plus, many of us hunt the same stands over and over. It does not take them long to figure this out.
-
They sure do, have had the same experience as ishiwannabe on 4 different occaisions, two hunters in one out dead big buck not long after. In fact I use this routinely from middle season on. Your sent can linger on trails, trees ,leaves etc, for several days after your gone and older wise deer will pick this up. Deer here also routinely look for you in the trees.
The old truism first set in a stand is the best holds true.
-
At any one time, I have about a dozen stand sites, including tree stands. Which one I hunt on a particular day depends on the wind, but I try not to hunt the same stand more than once every three days. After I sit the same stand about three times, I usually move it, even if only 50 or 100 yards.
-
I have had this happen several times, but one time, a few years back was up close and really showed what an adult deer can do.
I was in a treestand in an area that has grown up recently with a type of small tree that has no growth from the ground to maybe 4 feet high, then it is very brushy. A pain to shoot thru or around, but it gives tremendous cover while the leaves are on. This was during a time when you needed to shoot a doe first, before you can get a buck.
As you guessed, I did not even SEE does for much of that year. A very nice and, till that time, never before seen by me mature buck walked into the stand of trees. He was up wind of me, never crossed my entrance path and actually walked by me at about 20 feet distance. I was maybe 12 feet up a tree and with a ton of cover.
This buck would walk maybe two or three steps, then stop and look around, UP around. He was very obviously looking at the content of the trees in the area. I got to watch him up close and personal for probably ten minutes as he walked thru my small stand of trees in the marsh, then move on over to the next stand. He was watching the entire time.
And of course, there are the does. There are a couple that like to cut thru my stand and find me. They come in together (I could see them coming, in the marsh) and then they separate, one sneaking in very slowly and watching, the other cutting down wind of the stand. They ALWAYS find me. it is a game of sorts for both of us. I will, one day, either put a mannikin in my tree with me down wind somewhere, or a second hunter down wind.
Yep, they are dumb, defenseless critters.
ChuckC
-
Quite a few years back I was sitting in the edge of a grove of white oak trees bowhunting. Deer came in right at dark so I sat to let them pass, more deer came in. The full moon had come up and I could see them walking by glimpses in moonlight coming through the trees. A buck with a rack nice enough I could see it in the moonlight came from the pasture into the trees. He hit my trail, followed it with his nose to the ground to the base of my tree and looked straight up at me in the stand. Eventually he turned and walked off and started feeding. I finally got down and ended up spooking deer anyway. Evidently the buck's nose wasn't too impressed with my rubber boots. From that I came to believe that even when I don't spook deer on the stand I still make them aware of my presence. I've always noticed the first couple of times on any stand are the most productive for large deer. I use to almost always hang my stand for each hunt and rarely hunted the same tree. I'm not sure if I've just gotten old or lazy but I leave some stands hung now, it is more convenient.
Doug