It has always made me smile to see in a movie where a hunter tip toes behind a bush and slowly sneaks up on a large buck chewing unaware on some clover. Stealthily silent, the hunter creeps within bow range of his quarry and takes him down with one arrow. These maneuvers have not been my experience, nor has it been the experience of any hunter I know. The deer I hunt are not blind and deaf, nor are they suicidal. They are extremely wary creatures with a sense of hearing, motion, and scent detection that is second to none. Although I have accidentally stumbled upon a few while ambling through the woods, they made themselves scarce quickly. By the time I had my rifle up and safety off, they were in the next county.

Many strategies have been employed by hunters to level the playing field including camouflage, deer stands, scents, calls, and feeders. I have tried them all, especially when bow hunting.

Camo is worn by all of us hunters. It hides us and makes us look official. Then we don our bright orange hat and vest which you might think would undo the camouflaging initiative. Apparently though, a deer’s vision doesn’t process the bright color as we do. Since a deer’s peripheral vision picks up motion very well, I’ll keep wearing the camo to limit giving myself away. I’ll wear the orange too, since it could keep me from getting shot by an overzealous, half-blind hunter.

The cornerstone of deer hunting seems to be the deer stand. Whether a commercially built aluminum stand or a platform built from two-by-fours and plywood, the basic idea is to get the hunter 10 to 20 feet off the ground. This accomplishes several things. Firstly, it takes the hunter out of the line of site of the deer.

Although occasionally I’ve seen a deer look at me in the stand, they don’t normally look upward. Since they have no natural predators (besides us hunters) stalking them from trees, and since their food source is generally on the ground, there is no need for them to gaze upward. Secondly, the human scent factor is lessened. Deer have an incredible sense of smell and the first whiff of us they get, they’re gone. By being up higher, it is less likely our scent will drift to their wary noses. Thirdly, a stand provides a better shooting vantage point. The shrubbery and saplings of the forest floor are less likely to get in the way of a clear shot. For gun hunting, stands tend to be a little higher off the ground. Bow hunters need to take into consideration the added shot distance a stand will incur so they tend to be only 10 or 12 feet high. I always hunt from a stand whenever possible.

Scents and scent masking solutions are very popular. Some scent solutions mimic the scent of a doe to attract bucks in search of love. Some are buck scents are aimed at attracting a buck coming to chase an intruder buck away. There are sprays, bombs, wicks, squirt bottles, and various other vessels for releasing deer scent. Different scents are used for different times of the season based on whether bucks are in the rut and/or does are in heat. I have personally never had any luck I can contribute directly to using these scents to attract deer, although I have had some strangely amorous looks from women in the Shell station where we always stop for coffee on our way home from hunting.

Scent masking solutions are designed to remove our human scent which will certainly spook a deer if he smells it. There are various products in this line as well. Some are soaps to shower with to remove scent. Others are sprays applied to the clothing to absorb and mask scent. There are even clothes washing powders specifically used for scent removal from hunting clothes. Some hunters swear by these products showering and spraying themselves head to toe and even spraying behind them as they walk into the woods. I have used them, but again I don’t know that they had any effect on my bringing deer my way. I tend to rely on these more when bow hunting where it is required that I get closer to the deer in order to get a shot. I’ve also known plenty hunters that hadn’t bathed in two days, wreaked of liquor, and were smoking a cigarette when they shot their trophy buck, so go figure.

Deer calls are yet another method used by the superior-brained hunter to fool the quarry into waltzing into shot range. From buck grunts to doe bleats to rattling of antlers, this technique is supposed to attract deer to the sound. I’ve grunted, bleated, rattled, and tooted from my stand for 20 years and I’ve never had a deer come running up to me. Perhaps others have had different experiences, but it hasn’t seemed to work for me. Frankly, I believe I have probably scared more deer off with these noises. Electronic devices that make these deer call noises are illegal to use in Kentucky, although there are several iPhone apps which will make more animal noises than you can shake a stick at.

Feeders obviously attract deer looking to eat. Employed by hanging a large barrel full of food from a tree or a tripod, these contraptions dispense food either by electronic timing devices, light sensors, or simply by the deer feeding from them. Feeders are somewhat controversial. Mention them on any hunting forum and half will slam you for using such methods. Normally, these are setup weeks in advance to get the deer used to stopping in for a free meal. I have certainly attracted deer to feeders before and I particularly like using them during bow season when I need a close shot.

What seems to work best is patience, quietness, diligence, and a good hunting spot. The rest is just plain luck.