August 03, 2010
I found this interesting question and answer on allexperts.com, concerning deer hunting and I thought I would post it. I disagree with part of the answer as we have been hunting for many years and always carry flashlight early in the morning and late at night for safety reasons. What do you think? The expert answering the question is a Mr. Keith Patton. Edited for content:
Question
Keith:
I live in Wisconsin and hunt deer with a friend. My friend insists that we go to our tree stands when it’s pitch dark 5 AM, and leaving our stands at the end of the day (evening)
when it is also dark, without using flash lights. He claims the deer see the light and advertises to them as to where you are and spooks them. I told him I disagree, and told him that it was to dangerous to go to our stands without lights. I said I didn’t want to break a leg or get shot. He laughed at me and said I was wrong. Stands are on private land by the way. Who is right me or him?
He also says that we must urinate in a plastic bottle so that the deer will not smell us. I disagree I don’nt think that it matters if one urinates at one’s stand using or not using a plastic bottle. What I have seen it does not scare the deer away urinating without a bottle. Who is right? He doesn’t want to hunt with me any more because I disagree with him and ruining his hunting and scaring off the deer. Thanks Don
Answer
Don:
I don’t hunt from stands.
But I agree with him on the lights. It just pushes the deer farther away from you as you move in. If you do scent control, your noise in the dark is just noise to the deer, add a light and they might not stop running till they get to the next county.
To me that is like a trip to Vegas. You are betting the deer is going to walk by the stand you put on the black this year. The deer is betting you put the stand in the wrong place. If you chose right you win and get a deer, if you don’t you go home empty handed.
I doubt that your decision to piss in a bottle or not is what is ruining his hunt. Does he smoke? Does he use minty fresh toothpaste? Does he use super scented detergent on his undies? Scented deodorant? Doe he reek of beer and cigarettes from the night before? Does he smoke in his car on the way to the stand? The deer can smell a lot of stuff and spook at it when they smell it in the woods where it doesn’t belong. A lot of different critters piss in the woods. It can’t help, but then putting up a stand reeking of paint where there wasn’t one a few weeks ago can’t help either. Wood full of chemicals smells too. Below is a response to a similar question that should put the argument to rest. Read down to the second to last paragraph. He had a lengthier article in one of his books, on the deer vs human topic but I failed to find it on line.
Part of the urine myth might be due to the movie, the title which escapes me, I think it was a baseball movie, where the heroine takes the ball player out in the woods to disrupt a deer hunt, she promptly drops panties and begins to water all the bushes and trails in sight, in order to scare the deer from harms way. She exhorts him to do the same. Hollywood. I can see the writer making that up in some Malibu side beach house having never set foot in the woods himself to hunt deer.