Watching deer, and stuff deer do

John Y Cannuck

John Y Cannuck

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I'll start this off with an experience from this year. I have a stand that I made, it's mounted on a single tree, and had a wooden home made ladder. This year however, I didn't get around to checking it until too late to be fussing about building a ladder.

So, and extension ladder went in for this years hunt. About the most unnatural thing in the woods that. I taped over the latches, and ratchet strapped the two pieces so it was silent.

Everything went well for the first week, watching deer doing deer things, looking for Mr big buck. Then one day my two semi tamed (not my fault) deer come walking in right on my track. The first a small yearling, when it got to within 10 feet or so of the ladder, went to a trot, then back to a walk when 10 feet the other side.

The second bigger yearling, walked down the trail to that same 10 foot back spot, and did a right turn, looping the ladder about 15 feet out, and returning to the path where the first stopped trotting.

Hmm, was it the ladder itself, or maybe the ratchet straps had some scent on them? I always pull my rifle rope up when I am in the stand, and keep it up there.

In any event, it goes back to a wood ladder next season.

Oddly, tracks indicate a huge deer walked right by close at night, but the wind direction might have been different too, hard to say. Also, at night, the deer may not have perceived the ladder as strange.

I had a camera down the trail a bit, and within sight. I watched two yearling does come up and sniff the strap. Damn, I guess I need to start using rubber gloves for that too.

I had adjusted the camera position the day before, and used my bare hands.
 
Could always paint an aluminum ladder to minimize light reflection and add some hockey tape to help minimize sound, cold, and improve traction.

My bet is scent though.
 
You could try what I do every deer season. I get the deer used to my scent by leaving a piece of my clothing such as old tshirt, a sock or two, g-string lol…whatever has your scent. I do this about 6 weeks before the deer season starts…once a week or twice, I put a “fresh” well used piece of my clothing around the spots I will hunt. It seems to do the trick as I do not have issues with scent.

Try it and see if it works for you.
 
valczer said:
You could try what I do every deer season. I get the deer used to my scent by leaving a piece of my clothing such as old tshirt, a sock or two, g-string lol…whatever has your scent. I do this about 6 weeks before the deer season starts…once a week or twice, I put a “fresh” well used piece of my clothing around the spots I will hunt. It seems to do the trick as I do not have issues with scent.

Try it and see if it works for you.
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Now you got me wondering if building a scarecrow that looks like a hunter would work to get them used to seeing it. That would make for an interesting experiment with a trail camera.
 
Grizzlypeg said:
Now you got me wondering if building a scarecrow that looks like a hunter would work to get them used to seeing it. That would make for an interesting experiment with a trail camera.
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Ha! Very interesting experiment 😉

I, do it with the ground blinds(one man pop up tent). Again, before the deer season, I, will put up ground blinds in the flied facing the woods and the field might be clover, cut corn or whatever…I, do this about a month before the season starts…and it seems to do the trick.

I, believe anything that may spook the deer from its routine, has to be introduced to the deer environment in advance…imo
 
Grizzlypeg said:
Now you got me wondering if building a scarecrow that looks like a hunter would work to get them used to seeing it. That would make for an interesting experiment with a trail camera.
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I've heard of people putting a cut out plywood silhouette and put it in their tree stands so the deer get used to seeing a human shaped thing in the tree before the season so it's not a sudden shift from empty ladder stand to all of a sudden there's a dude sitting up in the tree
 
Most memorable moment was I had to pee from the tree stand. Then sat back down. A few minutes later a deer comes along walks right under me stops and smells the pee and keeps going. No it didn't freak out and run lol

Edit it was a yellow fiberglass ladder. I think deer are pretty used to us. Around here anyway. Watched a deer today walking along the other side of our fence. I asked it what it's doing and said you'll probably get chased soon. It's ears turned towards me but it kept walking along the fence
 
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Many times I have parked a vehicle in the woods, and returned to either see fresh prints in the snow, or even a deer standing beside the truck. I even once took a snooze the box of the truck (too many early mornings and long days on the woods, needed a mid day rest), and awoke to seeing a deer standing about 30 feet away. I would guess it has to do with familiary with certain objects, and the cautious lack of detection of movement that reveals human presence. These were always does though, and they do seem to be much more reckless than bucks.
 
Back in the 1920's-30's, my Dad lived about 5 miles from our town. Often he walked to town for supplies. On the route cross country, he would hang an old coat in a tree as sort of a figure to represent a human. On his way home, he would retrieve his little .22from his stash, sneak into where the coat was hanging, shoot a duck for supper.
 
kjohn said:
Back in the 1920's-30's, my Dad lived about 5 miles from our town. Often he walked to town for supplies. On the route cross country, he would hang an old coat in a tree as sort of a figure to represent a human. On his way home, he would retrieve his little .22from his stash, sneak into where the coat was hanging, shoot a duck for supper.
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It is amazing what useful information one will get from the old timers…if one listens to what they say…a well of information they are.
 
Grizzlypeg said:
Many times I have parked a vehicle in the woods, and returned to either see fresh prints in the snow, or even a deer standing beside the truck. I even once took a snooze the box of the truck (too many early mornings and long days on the woods, needed a mid day rest), and awoke to seeing a deer standing about 30 feet away. I would guess it has to do with familiary with certain objects, and the cautious lack of detection of movement that reveals human presence. These were always does though, and they do seem to be much more reckless than bucks.
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that reminds me of the experience a former cgn member shared with me some years ago. Sleeping in the back of his pick up on an a september elk hunt and waking up to a 1/2 dozen elk faces looking at him while he slept. All of them had thier heads in the box checking him out. He was able to get his phone out and take a quick picture and all you see is eyeballs and noses LOL

Mule deer are especially curious creatures and I am fortunate to have them in my backyard from spring to early winter. This year in particular , the first year I have not had a dog around in over 20 years, the deer were using my yard heavily for feeding and sleeping. One even settled into the 4ft gap between my house and shop and curled up for a 4 or so hour snooze..... using a 20liter yellow jerry can as a place to rest his head LOL
I would often find them peeking into my greenhouse door while I tended my garden and have even caught them in there a couple times checking out the inside of the building. The odd whitetail comes thru the yard but they don't want anything to do with people so they hightail it nearly everytime...... but the mule deer, they are fun to watch and seem to somehow know they are safe even when I am feet away. The last ones i saw out there before thier winter migration was a doe with twin bucks from last spring. They looked to be in prime shape and ready for winter, maybe i will get to see them in the spring.
 
From years back, hunting Fogducker's place. There was about a foot of snow on the ground. I entered a clearing to see about seven does maybe 150 yards away upwind. I was crossbow hunting, and on a bucks only tag. No place to hide really, so, wearing green insulated coveralls, with layers underneath, and a balaclava on my head, I bent down to look more like a deer in the distance, and crept forward. I lay down on my side on the low hillside with sumac behind me. My intent was to 'play' with the does. See what happens. I fished out the can call and flipped it once. Heads shot up over at the does and my motionless form was spotted. They walked towards me, very much on alert. Heads high, ears forward, and sniffing the air. Five of them approached to about 20 feet, and clustered around me still up wind. They began stamping their feet as they stared at me. I made no movement and tried to control my breathing to minimize the steam of breath I was producing, on this very cold December day. It was about 10am. Where's the buck? Never did show. Probably could not have shot even any of the does at this point, with a crossbow they would have moved far to fast for a shot. Still, it was an interesting study. One lowered her head sniffing, and came closer. As she did, a little gust came through, and the air was filled with white, as their tails went up and they vanished.
 
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