Funny you mention this. A similar thing happened to me last night. I had three doe come in behind me about 50yds. They were in feeding on crab apples, and were showing no signs of leaving anytime soon, and it was pretty much dark. I started to climb down, and granted I was in open hardwoods, so there wasn't much blocking this movement. I climbed down fairly quietly, and just waiting for one of them to bust me, but they never did. Then I got out of the stand, crunched around a bit getting my bow untied...still nothing. I walked around the tree twice as I unhooked the climber...still nothing. It wasn't until I loaded the dang thing on my back that they busted me. So basically I lowered my bow out of the tree, climbed down, unhooked the stand, walked around a bit in the crunchy leaves, and they took forever to bust me. But last Saturday morning, I was almost busted standing frozen solid in my stand by a doe 30yds out. Go figure[&:]

has happend many times to me as well.