Can deer smell you in a treestand?
More often than not, a deer will smell you before seeing or hearing you when you're in the tree stand. One of the most tried and true hunting tips is to play the wind when you hunt. If you're always downwind, they can't smell you.
ANSWER: Under normal conditions, a deer can smell a human that is not making any attempt to hide its odor at least 1/4 mile away. If the scenting conditions are perfect (humid with a light breeze), it can even be farther.
According to an article in Hunting Lease Magazine by Ben. H. Koerth, human urine does not frighten deer. On a large lease, mock scrapes were created and different lures were used to attract deer.
Scent compounds also come from the human body itself when it breaks down molecules to make energy. The odors are emitted through the skin and breath. These substances — the VOCs — evaporate into the air and can spook deer when you're hunting.
Putting out a mineral or salt attraction is not only a great place to hang your trail cameras, but a way to attract deer to your tree stand location before the hunting season. Deer determine their movement by 3 criteria, ease, security, and social influence.
- Timing The Herd For Stand Access. ...
- Hidden Access Thru Natural Lay of the Land. ...
- Plantings and Improvements To Screen Your Access. ...
- Shadow Access For Daytime Travel. ...
- Controlling Scent, Sound, and Site For Predatory Access.
Deer are attracted to the smell of soil as is, but if you want to up the attraction factor, pour some buck or doe urine, or scrape starter into it. This will create an exceptional trail camera site, as bucks will continue to check the scrape every time they pass by or are in the area.
Whitetail deer can absolutely smell cigarette smoke, but they do not seem to mind it. Many hunters have reported that it has zero effect on their hunt, which is hard to test.
For example, if a hunter goes in and hunts the same stand day after day, for the entire season, it becomes susceptible to stand burnout. This happens more often than we might think. It doesn't matter how good the spot is or how many deer you see in there.
Yes, deer are attracted to the odor of urine. Not just that from does in estrous, but also urine from other mammals – even you – in the fall. Biologists have told me that mammal urine is socially interesting to deer, and other mammals, but not distinguishable among species or even gender.
Can you pee in the woods while deer hunting?
“Deer aren't genetically programmed to be able to identify human urine. For them to do that, they'd have to follow a hunter around and wait for him to urinate, or catch him urinating, and then go check it out.” In the woods, urine from deer and predators is everywhere.
Whether or not a deer will bolt in response to the sound of a fart depends on how the individual fart itself sounds and how loud or high pitched the fart is. As one deer hunter noted in response the woman's account of her hunting mishap on public land, “the problem here is you didn't fart loud enough!
In normal conditions, vibrations produced by walking in leaves and branches can conservatively travel 300-400 yards, and slight metal clanging (like when hanging stands and climbing sticks) up to a half-mile, all within a whitetail's audible frequency range.
Estimates state that a whitetail deer can detect human scent for up to 10 days after it's left.
Some smells that deer react negatively to include eggs, garlic, cloves, and mint. They're also driven away if they smell danger, so using predator scents, such as wolf urine, may work.
If you're not seeing deer, you might be reaching your treestand too late and leaving too early. Get settled at least a half-hour before you expect deer to move. That means arriving before first light in the morning, and at least an hour before dark in the late afternoon. For evening sits, plan to walk out in darkness.
Not only is deer corn highly consumed and well received by whitetails in almost every habitat across the continent, but it's also one of the cheapest options for hunters. Corn contains several of these essential nutrients for whitetails that improve their health and ability to survive leading into winter.
Three major reasons stands go dry are: your approach allows deer to smell or hear you entering and leaving; the stand is hunted too much; and the stand is hunted when the wind conditions are not the best. Let's take a look at some data related to the idea that a stand can be overhunted.
A radio, activated by a motion detector can scare off deer. Pie pans, metal cans, or wind chimes suspended by strings make noise when they rattle in the wind, and have also been used to deter damage.
However, you still need to make adjustments for treestand height. You can't simply aim at the same place on the deer as you do on a 3-D target when shooting from the ground. u aim slightly higher than you would from ground level. Like the broadside shot, the quartering-away shot gets the green light.
Why do I shoot high from a treestand?
Failure to aim lower on steeply angled shots is a major reason many archers shoot over the top of deer from treestands. In this particular case, a 27 yard shot doesn't make for a very steep angle.
Cherry and Apple Bomb are Redmond Hunt's super effective long-range attractants for deer. Bomb is a granular product with an enticing scent that pulls deer from afar. It's also a fortified deer mineral supplement with a high nutritional value you can feel good about giving the herd.
Some deer do return, although it might take a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months to do so. Other deer never return at all.
Another popular repellent is human hair, the smell of which is also said to send deer scurrying elsewhere.
Cohen found that deer see blue colors best and red colors the worst. Deer can also see greens, yellows and UV light, but they can't differentiate color shades to that extent that humans can. What this means to a hunter is that you should avoid wearing anything blue.
Auditory deterrents can repel deer with their noise, and include noisemakers like gas or propane exploders, whistles, and ultrasonic devices. Gas or propane exploders produce loud, banging noises, which frighten deer away, and have been used to help protect orchards, row crops and truck crops.
They can pick out short (blue) and middle (green) wavelength colors, but they're less sensitive to long wavelength colors such as red and orange. “They're essentially red-green color blind,” said Brian Murphy, a wildlife biologist and the CEO of Quality Deer Management Association.
1) Follow local hunting laws.
State and local hunting regulations are in place to protect you, the land, and game populations; it is your responsibility to follow them.
Your regular clothes, right down to your underwear, should be washed in scent-free detergent with no dyes or perfumes. When possible, take a shower with scent-eliminating soap and shampoo just before you head for the woods and use the scent-eliminating deodorant too. Never ever wear cologne or scented deodorant.
You should look to only grunt periodically, every 15 minutes to 20 minutes. 'Blind calling' can work but it is best to make the calls subtle and sparingly because you don't know how close a deer might be to you. Grunt calls usually work best when a buck has been spotted.
Do deer poop where they bed?
The answer is a definite yes. If you are in a wooded area and notice piles of deer droppings all over the place, you are in a bedding area. If the piles are fresh, then they have recently used that area to bed.
To a whitetail deer, the detergents we wash our clothes in, and the soaps and colognes we use on our bodies, are repulsive. Even our natural scents, like the bacteria that grow when you sweat, are enough to alert a wary buck to your presence.
However, if they hear metal clanging, a cell phone going off, or a plastic bucket clunk, it's immediate high alert for all deer, but especially mature bucks. Even small things like a quiver snapping into place, or snapping a trail-camera door closed, can spell the end.
- Not Practicing Enough.
- Checking Trail Cameras Too Often.
- Scouting Balance.
- Planning Access Routes.
- Clothing Choice.
- Forgetting Equipment.
- Scent Control and Wind Direction.
- Hunting the Wrong Conditions.
However, deer can also be active during the day and even midday, especially during rut and around the full moon. While deer can still feed and move around during the day, they tend to stay closer to their bedding area during the daylight hours.
Deer will be active all day during a steady rain, especially if the wet weather lasts for several days. Don't let these conditions discourage you! The deer are out there and they must eat and socialize (especially during the rut). Plan on being out there with them!
Deer don't always move with the wind in their face. That's a myth. But they do almost always bed with the wind at their back. Wind direction and speed can impact where deer bed at for the day.
- Hearing the signs. An angry squirrel barking or a blue jay sounding the alarm can often alert the hunter to an approaching deer. ...
- Hearing the movement. Leaves rustling or an animal walking through leaves creates a predominately high-frequency sound. ...
- Localizing direction. ...
- Communication.
This means they don't need to move their eyes at all. With the head stationary, deer can see at a 300 degree angle around. A slight turn of their head can reveal the other 60 degrees.
It's common for bucks to rub a line of trees as he travels through his territory. If you find a large concentration of rubs, you're likely in the buck's “core area.” If you find fresh rubs, trails and other deer sign, you've located an excellent hunting spot.
How do you cover human scent when hunting?
For example, hunters have long used pine needles to conceal human odors. Pick a handful of fresh needles from a live pine tree, break and rub them between your palms, and then wipe the juice on your hunting clothes.
They Can Smell You Even If They Can't See You
They smell you. The scent on your clothes, the stench of your sweat, and the reek of your breath are all seeping into the woods and telling the deer you're there. With their powerful noses, they don't ever need to see you.
Fleeting glimpse of an adult white-tailed deer, known as N17003, that traveled the longest distance ever recorded by a UNH researcher — averaging 8 1/2 miles per day for 22 days.
Yes, deer can smell. In fact, they're great at it. Their long noses are a lot better at picking up the scent particles in the air with a whopping 297 million olfactory receptors while humans have a dinky five million.
- Shower before heading out into the field. Effective scent control starts at home before you ever hit the woods. ...
- Dress in the field, away from your vehicle. This is crucial. ...
- Use a headcover to control breath, hair and skin odors. ...
- Spray bow, boots and other hard goods.
Deer are attracted to the smell of soil as is, but if you want to up the attraction factor, pour some buck or doe urine, or scrape starter into it. This will create an exceptional trail camera site, as bucks will continue to check the scrape every time they pass by or are in the area.
The first time the hunter takes that tree stand into the woods to hunt, the smells and sounds of that new tree stand will spook more deer than a group of sweaty sumo wrestlers trying to tiptoe through a briar patch. Longtime deer hunters recommend never taking a new tree stand into the woods.