Strange hunting stuff you have done that actually worked

John Y Cannuck

John Y Cannuck

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For me, this would include dropping to a crouch with a crossbow in front of me when a deer has already seen me. (no orange, bow season)

Walking crouched over with one arm swinging, in full view of six deer at about 100 yards. Again no orange, and with a crossbow.

And the really strange one, walking to sound like a deer. This takes practice and is a PIA at first, but if you want to still hunt in noisy leaves, it can work.
Listen to a deer walking in those conditions. crunch, crunch...... crunch, crunch... You can do this by putting you heel down and then somewhat forcibly the ball of each foot. It slows your walk, and at times messes with your balance. If someone sees you doing it, they'll think you've lost your mind, but, it can work, and has at least once for me so far.

So, have some strange things you've done that work?
 
Saw this bull with 2 cows and I walked up to him, wind was towards him, I put my rifle over my head and swayed and I bull grunted right at him. Cows ran and he walked towards me and raked the willows. Client shot him at about 60yds. Shouldnt have worked at all due to wind but I was kinda busted anyhow. His desire to fight was greater than his desire to run. Good thing my hunter got him as I had absolutely nothing to hide behind.IMG_0643.jpg
 
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grabbers said:
Smoking...

When I was a smoker it was pretty common to shoot a deer with a dart in my mouth...
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done that many times myself LOL
my buddy used to always grind my gears over smoking in my spot ..... my reply would be.... "i'm checking the wind" hehe

I waved at a doe that was looking up at me from the base of the ladder of my treestand. All she could see was my head looking down at her. She just stared with those big black orbs and when i waved at her all she did was pump her head a bit , do a bit of a double take, then went back to eating leaves LOL Don't think she had any idea what i was but didn't sense a threat.

Several times I have yelled at a running deer as loud as I could..... "hey!!!" and they stop dead in thier tracks..... taken at least 3 that way. On walking deer I make a sound like a sheep or goat and that also stops them in thier tracks.

I think the funniest thing that's ever happened to me deer hunting was seeing a buck above me and trying to get a good sightline through the scope as it walked into bushes only to catch movement beside me a few yards. Turning my head from the scope an entirely different buck has come from behind me and is goose stepping along while he looks at me standing there. He was a tasty deer hehehe
 
It’s not uncommon for a new hunter to get a big buck, they do unconventional things that experience tells you won’t work.
I know I’ve been guilty of overthinking situations.
Lately I’ve been of the mindset “it probably won’t work, but what if it does!”. Game is often surprised enough to give a rifle hunter a couple second chance.
 
IronNoggin said:
By far the best time to hunt Blacktails!!
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indeed it can be for sure and I'm finding myself spending a lot of time drying gear and clothes on most of those hunting trips LOL
Fall rains trigger the migrations in several of BC's blacktail regions too and a keen hunter will watch for those weather events and capitilize if they can
 
Got stuck in a cut line hiding behind a little pine tree that looked like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree while a herd of elk was trotting past. A couple stopped to have a look - got lucky and lined up a bull at 40 yds. Spent the summer and fall doing load development with 129gr Nosler LRABs in my 6.5x55 when I could have used a bow 😂
 
That's genius! I've done the 'freeze in plain sight' thing, hoping deer would think I'm a tree. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.
 
45ACPKING said:
done that many times myself LOL
my buddy used to always grind my gears over smoking in my spot ..... my reply would be.... "i'm checking the wind" hehe
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I don't really believe in the whole scent thing. That's not to say you should wear cologne, but taking a piss, smoking or the laundry detergent you use hasn't shown to me to have any effect on deterring deer. The forest has all kinds of different smells and Deer are curious animals, I have found.

Just this year I rode my ATV right to my blind, took my helmet off and a Deer was standing there watching me not 25 yards away. Damn thing let me get off, get out my ML and shoot. Then while I am cleaning it, probably 30 mins later, a doe and her yearling walks 35 years from me and starting eating my apples in plain view of me, didn't give two poops.

In all my years hunting I have found only one thing that works. Being in the woods. Some preseason scouting wouldn't hurt either ;)
 
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My first and only deer hunt with hounds was told when on stand it was okay to take a dump, light a fire and have a smoke and the deer will run towards the fire when pursued by dogs. Naturally I knew they were ‘crazy’ but they shot deer… and me…I was confused, cold, constipated and got nothing that week.

Read somewhere a ‘dumb’ idea that if a doe ‘wheezes’ at you but hasn’t seen you or smelled you then you should ‘wheeze’ back at her. Theory is they get fooled into thinking its just another deer that got spooked by their initial wheeze and that everything is okay. Well…Ive had a few lengthy ‘wheeze off contests’ and it sorta works as the herd doesn’t run off immediately. Pro tip… wheezing sounds due to smoking or pneumonia doesn’t work the same. Stay healthy… Cheers
 
I have also had great success hunting in rain for bear and whitetails.

I went around with some orbital gland gel and hemp ropes one year. Put them up all over, mock scrape, pissed in them and put up a trail cam. I had deer walking by on multiple cams, not one gave a #### about the hemp ropes, gel, or scrape. Bears on the other hand were checking out the gelled hemp rope.
 
I generally don't wear camo.
Other than not smelling like i just worked a 12 hour shift in the oil patch, i use my regular shampoo/soap. I do wash my hunting clothes in soap with no UV "whiteners" or whatever they are. I do pay close attention to the wind while hunting, I've been hissed at by deer i can't even see on occasions when i didn't watch the wind. But then the buck i shot last year was 6 feet (yes feet) away from the muzzle when i pulled the trigger.
"Dirty" weather is great for hunting. Especially small open areas where the deer are likely to move into when the trees get whipping. Pay close attention to lulls... that is often when bucks move through. I also hunt a lot in the middle of the day 12-1:30pm are good times to catch bucks traveling. I've found waking up early and going out first thing to be far less productive.
 
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Going out in all kinds of really foul wet weather allows me to come upon critters that have learned not to expect humans in the woods on those days, but those encounters are more often with fellow predators, notably the local yote population, scaring the pants off of them, but also pine marten and such. Another tactic I've tried I think twice on an experimental basis, something I'd read about, is to run through the woods at a fairly rapid rate, or in other words like a crazy person, again something a hunter wouldn't do. That has turned up deer I wouldn't likely have seen otherwise, but I wasn't hunting them and also, what with the pounding heart rate and rapid breathing, aiming would have been really tough, like someone competing in biathlon. Want to see and even bag a lynx? Turn around suddenly in areas where they're known to exist- one will sometimes trail a hunter, apparently out of curiosity but perhaps even cautiously keeping the dangerous people in sight. I've followed tracks in the snow where a lynx has done that.

I really like the 'act like a deer' tactic described in the OP, I've put that one in my repertoire. I would not however do it in deer or moose rifle season, for fear of getting bagged myself.
 
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I've acted like a moose many times LOL but not so much deer.
Although one morning years ago i crept into my favorite blacktail spot well before dark.
Sitting there on the moss covered rock outcrop in good cover, I began to hear noises around me from different directions. I realized that while walking in to my spot, there were already a group of deer travelling through as i was making my way along my trail in the dark.
The crunch crunch of hooves on forest debris and the odd very quiet vocalization.... which was the first time i heard blacktail making those sounds.
I didn't know how many deer were around me in the dark but enough that i was worried about being discovered. I carry a small deer call in my pocket and made a noise that mimicked what i was hearing. Those deer hung around feeding until just before shooting light and they disappeared into the forest. One came so close to me in my hide I could have smacked it in the face and they never smelled me as the down drafts were carrying my scent down and away. I don't use that call much but any time i think i might have spooked a deer that's close enough for me to hear but not see fully, I'll do a few of those soft doe grunts and often times it seems to put the deer at ease
 
I've never done this, but my Dad told me that during the 30's, when he was pancake flat broke, he would walk 6 miles to town. On the route he took, there were several little potholes with some scrub brush around them. He hung an old coat up at about human level, hide his little old .22 near by. On his way home he could retrieve his .22, sneak through the bush and shoot a duck. There! He had his supper!

He taught me some tricks for hunting Prairie Chicken and bush partridge (Ruffed Grouse for the purists). I used those tricks for many years. He died just over 60 years ago, and I still miss him. One of his favourite sayings was "Don't get your shirt in a knot"
 
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