When I kill one I try to get him and get out of the area with as little disturbance as possible. If I kill him in his bedding area I generally won't hunt that spot again but if I kill him in a major funnel or bottleneck I will hunt it again the next day ESPECIALLY during the rut. Deer will continue to use them because they still provide the most secure route for them to travel.

Lota truth here. If the stud hasn't been killed and you have a hot spot hunt it! Also if you wanta just kill any buck, hunt it! A funnel/bottle neck or a hub when they are really moving is a slam dunk. But you CAN OVER HUNT any spot.

ya'll act like "the stud" ya'll KNOW about is the only stud around. My records indicate that, even with cameras, there are mature bucks that we have never seen or know about. A good % of the big deer I've killed were unknown to me till three seconds before I shot em.

These are wise words.

Troy and 2Dogs are both making great points. If you see a hot doe with a good buck tending, whether you shoot him or not, overnight you can expect her to pick up some more suitors. Sometimes they will be deer you've never seen before. As far as that goes, I'm convinced there are deer on any given property that you never see afield or on camera.

Seen multiple deer every year killed out of the same stand. Go ahead and don't hunt that stand, somebody else will and will be laughing at you all the way to the processor.

Every year I know of multiple studs, some years I get 1 of em, some years 2 of em. some years 3 of em. I'll also be happy to run a bullet through an unseen drifter. Ran one through a 160" buck I'd never seen before a couple years ago. Happy Happy Happy!
There's always unseen bucks or drifters. But if he's unseen, he may not be there at all. Why would I sit there if I am reasonably sure where one is somewhere else? Since I've been running cameras over 50% of the bucks I've killed I had pics of, some multiple years, some I've actually seen in previous years. I guess the difference is hunting bucks or hunting specific bucks.

I have seen it both ways! I had a cousin killed 3 8pts in two days in same tree!!

I don't think our scent on the ground or on foliage bothers deer nearly as much as them getting a whiff of us live on stand. I don't think our scent, left at a stand site after a kill, is any different than footsteps along a trail a distance away. I would think they notice the scent but I doubt it alarms them.

any scent will greatly bother a mature buck.....

Don't understand how they would know that one is harmful and one is not. My thinking a deer, buck or doe, that's survived several hunting seasons with even a small amount of hunting/human pressure doesn't care where it's coming from, they're outa there.

I watched some deer try to cross my path (upwind of me) about 4 hours after I walked in to hunt one morning. They backed up, looped around and tried to cross at a different spot. Again they wouldn't cross it and bolted out of there like I was chasing them. I learned a lot that day, and haven't seen anything since to make me feel any different. Mature deer absolutely hate human scent and will change their patterns because of it.

This is what confuses me. People say they piss in mock scrapes but it doesn't affect bucks at all, actually attracts them. If that's the case why would any human scent affect a mature buck?

It smells like urine and testosterone, like another buck. The urine has little or no human odor to it, I suppose.

yep ,,, why i posted my so called bad/unethical advice on another topic .

just last year i killed 6 does on the same 50sq feet of green field and let a 8 and a 9 point go . as for a deer smelling death it dose not bother them .

So what does taking bad/unethical shots have to do with this thread or Bfred's post? I assume you are referring to your post on taking highly marginal shots the other day.
Sure hope you're not trying to say Troy takes bad/unethical shots because of his "three seconds" comment. Never met the man but I bet he "out grew" that kind of behavior when he was a much, much younger man.

I dont totally agree with this.I killed a deer last year with 4 other ones standing around.No deer ate in that spot for the rest of the year.The oats and peas grew waist high in that little area.

Ok I gotcha it's the testosterone

I guess it depends where you are, I know a guy who killed deer every day in his backyard, while listening to his radio. Some deer are just dumb