Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

Movement

Fishbonker

Fishbonker

Life Member
I have a THEORETICAL question on movement in your treestand.

Lets say you are in your stand, the slight breeze is in your favor. A deer is coming down the trail, it is not aware that you are there. You used the latest and greatest in scent control, so its not gonna smell you. Its not gonna cross your incoming trail. It is just making its way twords you, browsing as it goes. It stops and looks around as they always do, then it looks right at you. You aren't moving, you are like a statue, you aren't even blinking your eyes. It flicks its ears around, looks over its shoulder and then looks right back at you, cocks its head back and forth, up and down, turns are starts to move back away from you.

Here is my question, all things being equall, good cammo, scent control etc. Why did it move away? Any chance that it was the lack of movement that made it wary? All around your silhouette the leaves are moving in the brezze. The deer sees that LACK of movement from your outline and its not natural. Is this where a ghillie suit or something like sneaky leaves would help? Or do you think the deer wouldn't notice the stillness amidst the motion of the foliage?

Any thoughts?

The 'Bonker
 
That's a pretty good theory.

I think it's just the 6th sense. No camo can really make you invisible. And I don't believe that you can completely eliminate scent. You can make your scent harder to detect, but not make it disappear.

Case in point: After I spend 3 or 4 days at the cabin without a shower and hunting all day I really, really stink. When I get home and walk in my house the sweet smells of civilization are pretty intense. I can only imagine what I smell like to a deer when I run out for a few hours of hunting after work and try to mask that scent with some carbon spray and coon piss.
 
You are in a deers living room and look out of place...He saw your silhoette and in his mind registered as possible danger and he took action. I get that with deercams on occation, it sits on the tree, no activity, then a deer walking by sees it. A lot of pics I have are on deer staring at the unit....Prior to the picture, they noticed something out of place.

A suit with leaves attached may help in a situation like that but you still have the blob effect in the tree regardless of the camo worn. Just my opinion on the matter but that is why I pick very large and tall trees to hunt from with lots of branches....to minimize the blob effect. I hope that helps shed some insight and sure others have good opinions
 
Man was I afraid to even open this thread up...
grin.gif


I agree with bukket...they know when they are being watched...the bigger they are the better they are at feeling it. As goofy as it may sound I try not to look them in the eye at all.
 
I agree with shredder on this.. it is the deer's domain, if you come in there and change something then they are more than likely going to realize it. It would be like someone coming in your home and moving items around or adding something to the mix. Then again I'm a bigger guy and the deer are probably wondering when in the world did they put a giant tree stump there.

Limb I do the same thing of not looking them in the eyes, it sounds silly but it seems to work most of the time.
 
I agree with you guys about looking a deer in the eyes. I try as much as possible not to make direct eye contact with the deer. Don't ask me what it is they just know " kind of like getting the feeling that your being watched sometime and then you turn around and sure enough there stands someone". Just my thoughts.
 
Its just like sitting and watching TV, you look over and stare at your trusty dog (Lab) right in the eyes. The ol' dog knows something is up,by either wagging his tail, or becoming more alert. It's (deer or dog) senses something.?.?.?
 
shredder and others i think are right on. living room, bedroom, kitchen. all a mature deer needs to do is look at your position and it knows something is different from the day before. pick big trees and do your best imitation of a big branch......
 
Yeah i agree with both shredder and bukket. I also try not to look them in the eye. I remember last year on the a traditional archery forum one guy saying he gets close to rabbits by in his mind saying that he's not going to hurt them. I guess whatever works.
 
I'm with bukket kinda a sixth sence in them .Ya can just feel someone just lookin at you sometimes we all have felt that.
 
I'd have to agree with Shredder on this one,I think the blob effect has alot to do with it.Todays camo looks real effective to our eye with all the fine detail,but as you move away it takes on the blob effect.Take Mossy Oak Breakup for instance,I've had turkeys walk within feet of me at times and never notice me.Turkeys have such keen eyesight that I believe they see all the fine detail and actually look right through you.Where as the deers eyesight isn't that keen for detail rendering most camo not that effective.I personally like a pattern with bigger contrast like the Predator, it has bigger light colored areas to help break your outline up.I think most of the camos today lack this feature,just my opinion.
 
I think a lot of a deer's "sixth sense" is noticing something out of place but can't quite pinpoint where it is. but everyone here is right, I try not to just stare at the deer....just look out of the corner of my eye
 
Not only do I not look them in the eye, but if a deer seems nervous I will try to think about something that has nothing to do with hunting, like ‘look at that really interesting branch right by my shooting lane...that’s really cool’ or ‘is my library book due tomorrow?’ Stuff like that. Don’t laugh, it works.

If you’re telling animals that you won’t hurt them and then killing them, I think you might pay for that somewhere down the road.
angel.gif
 
I think adrenaline has an odor of it's own that animals detect and humans cannot. I call it "AO". You start breathing harder and exhale more of it. This could be the reason that thinking of something other than killing the deer and eliminating eye contact, aids in you being undetected. In affect your adrenaline rush is somewhat diminished by changing your mental attitude.

I know this sounds like a ridiculous comparison but think of it like passing gas, regardless of the breeze it seems to affect a wide radius instantaneously. Older deer have definitely acquired better survival skills than do younger deer be it a buck or a doe, but have you noticed if your hunting mature bucks only and a doe or younger buck comes into range they'll hang around your stand indefinitely. But try changing your mind about filling your tag and that old doe starts to look good. The adrenaline kicks in and at times you'd think they were telepathic. Their head will pop up and they get nervous acting and you haven't so much as blinked your eyes so you know they haven't caught movement. I'm convinced it's "AO".
 
I think Racky is right, but I think there is also a certain "rhythm", "vibe" or "frequency" in the wild that the animals are tuned into and when you put your personal "aura" into the mix, its not natural for it to be in the wild and the deer "feel" your presence. Call me crazy, only because I am, but I do belive between AO, which is probably CO2, and your own aura, they know you are there. The young deer don't know what to do about it, the older ones have been there B4.

The 'Bonker
 
Throw all of these ideas together and add some that humans will probably never figure out. The combination of these makes for a very wary animal. I would compare what Rack said about the scent of the hunter's adrenaline and how police use k-9 units to track fleeing suspects. Think of all of the scents in a neighborhood, but when released the dog keys in on the scent of the adrenaline released by the fleeing suspect. It's amazing to think about and I'm sure deer have a similar ability.
 
Rack,

I posted on this last year. I talked to a guy several years ago who was trying to get a Ph.D. He was studying human pheromones and their effects on animal behaviors. He was trying to prove that humans give off different smells when they're hunting vs when they are walking through the woods.

mole
 
I think he's right. We've all heard the term, "the smell of fear." There are certain pheromones and scents that people give off that not only animals, but even humans detect. We humans are unaware of the trace elements given off in these situations due to our lack of ability to pick up faint scent. They are still detected but not like an actual odor. Animals on the other hand have a more highly developed olfactory system giving them ability to smell fear or aggression.
 
Great posts from everyone!!! I agree with shredder and the blob affect. I only hunt from big trees that provide me a way to really blend in. I also hunt as high up in the tree as possible. One aspect that I always focus on when identifying a good stand location is the direction the deer will be moving in relation to the stand position. I make absolutely sure that when that deer is walking down a trail that he does not have the opportunity to look up and see my big fat A$$. Which means that I won't place my stand on top of the trail that they will be using. Instead, I will place it 15-20 yards off of the trail so the deer will not be looknig down the trail as he walks and see me right on top of the trail!!!

I learned a hard lesson several years back. I found a trail with an abundance of sign. I had not hunted this part of the property and the only tree that I could put a stand in was a scrawny thing that was right on top of the trail that the deer were using. The first morning I hunted that stand I had a really nice 160" 10 pointer hop the fence and walk the trail straight at me. He got roughly 20 yards away and stopped and started staring holes through me. He had me completely busted as I did not have time to get my bow up. He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, my knees started shaking violently and that sob turned and ran off. He had me completely shaken!!! Afterwards, I got down out of my stand and walked the trail in the same direction that he came from. My stand was located on the tree where there was absolutely nothing behind me. It was in the morning and he was walking to the west which put the sun at my back!!!! A hard lesson to learn....

Great posts everyone!!!

Mark...
 
I'm with Shredder on this one also. A lot of today's camo is way too dark. Next time you're in the treestand, look at the sleeve of your camo and hold it up to the tree bark. I actually like some of the older camo that is faded. Just my thoughts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom