Trouble from the ground: the sad tales of an involuntary vegetarian

[Don W]

I'm several hours north of you, so my deer habits may be a little different, but if you have deer that follow the same path every day I'm extremely jealous!

Also keep in mind just being in an area will sometimes change their habits. If you've been there a couple days in a row mature whitetail will know. Like already said, sometimes it's hard to know who's pattering who.

Also keep in mind deer remember their habitat different than we do. Major changes in a blind, moving it, or adding one can affect their habits as well.

They're crafty little buggers, especially if they've made it through a few hunting seasons. When I was younger it annoyed the crap out of me. Now I just shake my head and smile. I hope they can sense what I'm thinking at that moment too!

[TimBo]

Sounds like a pretty exciting season so far!  Getting off the shot is definitely the hard part, and I have yet to do it myself.  But I would say to hold off on any movement (even leaning forward) until you can do it without being seen.  Like Thomas said, any movement that close is going to be noticed.  There is a lot of useful info in Fred Asbell's ground hunting book, but you are learning a lot by being out there and figuring out the timing.  Good luck!

[Hawkdancer]

Good advice and information.  Good luck!
Hawkdancer

[Eric Krewson]

For bow hunting I make all my blinds with shoot through holes, to me it appears that deer don't have good depth perception and see a surface but not what is through the hole on the other side.

I like a lot of fresh cut green vegetation in the front of my blind, the deer don't see me.

Here is an example of one that have I killed deer out of, my setup, the shoot through holes, there are 4 or 5 of them and the deer's view from the outside.

[Eric Krewson]

Another one, I tied green stuff to small saplings to make the blind.

the blind;



A shoot through hole and what I could see;



And the result, a 6 yard shot, I shot him as he stepped out from behind the big white oak in the previous picture;

[Black Moshannon]

I like that setup Eric. I’ll put up a blind like that. I was worried a shooting hole would restrict the area I could shoot but a bigger concern looks like being seen.