Mostly the seeing part IMO. Lot of times the deer will run just out of the field and stop at the edge.

Lot stuff with deer is what the deer are used too. IMO pressure is what the deer ain't used to.

I have shot a doe out of a group of does wait a few minutes and kill one that came back hunting her. I've done that a lot of times

Killing deer off fields with numerous other deer makes the largest impact on the frequency and duration deer use that field more than anything else I have ever done. Ive hunted bucks the same way for 20 years, find one you want to kill and where he uses the most and grind the hole. Only exception is wrong wind, I setup most my places to be huntable except on one wind direction, that direction depends on my travel route to and from the stand. I have hunted and killed most mature bucks this way. May take 25 days consecutively, may take 2. Eventually their stomach or pecker is gonna make em show up. Usually 7-10 days in the does pay no mind to you entering and leaving if they cant smell you. They look a few minutes and go back to feeding. If Im tagged out and decide to take does after about 3 or so expect them to show up at last light or not at all before dark.

We don’t eat deer meat much anymore, heck, we don’t deer hunt much anymore with our busy schedules. So, I couldn’t care less about shooting a doe. If one of my boys wants to shoot one, that’s fine, but for me, I just like watching them and hoping for a buck to come along.

You know I actually just went back and looked it up and realized you were giving me a compliment……..I’d never heard that phrase before other than with some caramel popcorn…….I just assumed you were being a Goober. You sure you didnt use that in the wrong context??



All of this discussion about keeping the herd dumb though and trying not to let them realize they’re being hunted is another reason why I like those little mini-trucks so much…….Deer easily get used to “trucks” riding around and don’t really spook on them……They may bounce off to the side for a moment but then they go right on about their business…..They don’t alter long term movement or behavior patterns because of trucks or tractors running around a piece of property unless people start shooting at them from the trucks….But a mini-truck allows you to go down 4-wheeler type trails right to the base of your stands with virtually no impact to the deer because the deer are used to “trucks” and trucks are not a threat to them. You get a minor temporary effect about like a tire running through water in a mud hole which is just what you want anyways to allow you or someone else to slip in or out of stand unnoticed…….10 minutes later the deer go right back to their usual routine. You could even take this concept a step farther and spread corn from the mini-truck as you went through and develop a positive association with it instead of just a neutral one.

Your 4th thru 6th sentences just simply do not apply to 85+% of Alabama hunters because they dont have those luxuries.

During the summer, our deer wait for us to put out food. Then they are in it before we make it back to the gate.
But during season it seems if I even ding the gate with the chain, they leave the county. I swear they can read a calendar.

Age and experience has taught me a lot of stuff about deer and deer hunters, and Aldeer has confirmed most of it. Far and away, the topics that are debated on here have very little to do with deer, and almost everything to do with deer hunters.

The answer to this question almost exclusively lies with the personality of the hunter.

Does shooting deer on food plots cause them to avoid the plot?
Hunter A is hyper sensitive to hunting pressure, of course he thinks it's bad.
Hunter B is way more carefree and really doesn't consider factors like hunting pressure, of course he thinks it's fine?
Both hunters can provide anecdotal examples to support their view.

But in general, I feel it's best to be as non-intrusive and invisible as possible. I don't think the gunshot is the problem (this is why shortly after shooting, if you stay undetected, you see deer again), it's everything else that has to happen AFTER the kill.

Not that this is the holy grail, but I brought a biologist out to my hunting club this spring. She wanted us to do everything possible to reduce human presence on a green field. That is something you can control to a large degree. Don't allow hunters to bait green fields, don't allow camera's on them unless they are cell camera's and in before the season starts and left all season, and don't allow people to wander around them all the time to see if deer are using them.

We can't make folks follow wind direction to hunt them, I even put up a list this year of stands and the proper wind direction to hunt them, then went out there on a day with a south wind and me and my son were the only people set up right to hunt a south wind. 5 other hunters were not. I have watched hunters I would categorize as experienced do this. They might sit back off the field a ways, and think that helps them, but even if it did help, 300 yards off a greenfield makes a deer hard to identify in the last 45 minutes of legal light.

We did away with baiting green fields this year, and judging by what I am hearing, people are seeing deer on the greenfields. I think the further away from the field you have your stands, the less likely it is for someone to go cruise around the greenfield. And most of the guys aren't busting the youger doe's either.

In my last club, we had an old doe that liked to hit this one field, and the shooting house was right on it. Man, if she smelled you, she would camp out over there blowing and letting every deer in the county know you were there. Those are the deer you need to be killing.