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wolfen68

BOW...I agree with you and others that the approach and retreat from your treestands is yet another important aspect of bowhunting deer...especially honkin' monster whities. It' s always part of my strategy when I' m putting up a stand. I' ve gone as far as 500 yards out of the way to get to a stand in an attempt to not spook any animals. I have never used a flashlight either. I' ve seen buddies of mine coming from a hundred yards away with their flashlights, even their little ones, and I know if I can see it a deer can see it too.

Stickemup

Just another little tip. If you use the tacks or reflective tape, put them low to the ground so you don' t have to shine your flashlight up at all. I do like someone else mentioned and cup my hand around my mini mag light and never shine it anywhere but straight down.

One thing I have learned to do after being busted in the dark is to snort like a deer. I' ve learned to imitate the sound pretty well and it usually settles them down quicker and keeps them from standing there and blowing for the next ten minutes. I' ve had one buck come across a field to my snorting and I' ve had a group of does come back after a few minutes and resume feeding.

Antler Eater

The whitetail' s life can be sumed up in one word, survival. It is the combination of learned behavior and instincts that make this creature the wonder that they are. As has already been pointed out one day a person can make nearly every mistake in the book and bag a big buck and the next day do everything right and never see a deer. There are a number of reasons that can happen but I won' t take the time to get into it. There is no doubt however by taking precautions a person shaves the odds in his/her favor.

All of us are " taken" up with the whitetail or we wouldn' t spend so much time on this site. One of the by-products of our admiration is giving the deer human traits or characteristics (anthropomorphism, by definition). Instead of understanding how a deer lives it' s life we tend to try and " think like a deer" . Of course when we do this we put our interpretation on what that " thinking" consists of and many times it is in error. I have to chuckle at some of the articles I read. If the deer had the powers of reasoning that some of these articles write about we would NEVER kill one. It can also affect the recovery of an animal. So many things a person hears or reads says a wounded animal will always head for water or go down hill instead of up hill. This simply is not the case. Yes it does happen, but it is not by any means set in stone. So therefore a person who doesn' t know better after not finding much of a blood trail could feel the animal will be okay and end their search after checking " downhill" by the pond, when the deer could be laying dead somewhere on the ridge....Ah but I digress.

I do think a person is smart for taking precautions going to and from his stand. But reatlity is you still have to get to your stand if your going to be successful and one can only control so many of the variables involved in that process. There have been numerous times I have bumped deer going to my stands, (even at my stand) and still had a nice buck come in later. Certainly not anything I want to happen but sometimes it does even with all the precautions taken.

Good points about our scent being left behind long after we are gone. Again a person should control what he can but no matter what some contamination is unavoidable. Does anyone other than myself share the woods with coon hunters? Talk about noise and scent!!! Yet a study that I read where they tracked deer by radio telemetry showed the deer simply worked around the coon hunters and they weren' t completely driven out of the area.

Until technology progresses farther only a deer could accurately tell you precisely how well they see in darkness---and their not talking. Because of their actions and the cone/rod count we do know they have amazing vision under the cover of darkness. But really it goes beyond that, well beyond. They are a product of their five senses that work in unison and perfect harmony with each other. Though each sense is highly developed in its own right, they are really incomplete without the others. Throw in the lesson they learn by way of experience and you have a " soft ware progam" that would humble Bill Gates.

short-range

I can use a flashlight and walk in quietly, allowing any deer in direct sight see me, or I can walk in the dark making noise that can be heard over the next hill as I bump into trees and sticks, then leave scent everywhere as my tears fall to the ground after I get a stump to the groin. I think I' ll still use a light as needed.

parker1

I agree with antler eater. We can only control so much. I don' t care how quiet you are or how far out of the way you enter your stand, if a deer happens to be in your path you will alert him. Its the luck of the draw and its what makes hunting a challenge. Of course you should strive to be as quiet and scent free as possible to better your odds but luck has even more to do with it as far as getting to and from your stands. No one knows where a deer may be in the woods before light or after dark we can only keep hunting and hope for that one day that we do everything right and the luck is on our side and then we will come home successful. Although every day out in a stand is successful to me because theres no better place to be.........

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JJWIII

Use a light with a red filter. That way, you get the best of both worlds... and you can see it too.[8D][:-]

ShadowAce

Actually, Whitetail deer are crepuscular. They prefer low light conditions. That is what the biologists say anyway. I always thought they were nocturnal.

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