Top 5 Deer Hunting Myths

wanted to spend some time with my top five favorite hunting and habitat myths that some of them been around for decades things that hunter shouldn't do in the woods things that deer do and or always do when they don't and want to discuss these with you because it might help your planning for next year might help you really narrow down what's important in the woods what's not what's important in the habitat what's not the first one peeing in the woods I heard long ago decades ago in the 80s that you shouldn't pee in the woods you know it's gonna spook deer deer can smell deer can smell human urine folks all your in terms of ammonia within 20 minutes and I actually think that we've used human pee we've peed on our mocks grapes for years I've been doing that since the early 2000s in fact if you really want to take the time you can look up on Google type in to pee or not to pee I know a really catchy title but it sounded cool back in 2008 2010 when I first wrote it I put it out on my blog site in 2012 and if you just write to pee or not to pee mock scrape or for deer that kind of thing it'll come up right on top on Google and you can see that I've been doing this for years peeing on scrapes opening up our scrapes that way now I'm diabetic my Sugar's been a little bit high lately so it seems like you used to be able hold now I have to go pee all day maybe on the way to stand or something but unfortunately lately I have to urinate off the stand a few times and during a sit during and all they said especially and I've learned the deer pay absolutely zero attention so if you really want to get away from those little disgusting pbot alipin you're blind or that you use for your tree stand that you keeping about people I've even seen people carry a pee bottle in their backpack I mean just something I would have never done anyways but you don't have to worry about it it's a really big myth and and I think it could make it a little bit more convenient for if you don't have to worry about it so peeing in the woods not a big deal I've even heard I think it was Ted Nugent years ago talked about drinking apple juice so he then he'd go pee and his pee would smell better that way it said it smells like apples so to bring the gear in but for whatever for whatever you're doing don't worry about it it really is a big myth next one the dry dough myth so we took out that old dry dough we shot her because she's not producing any fawns in folks that is a huge myth I was told by a leading deer research pile just long ago that if a deer if a doe is not gonna have fawns it's because she's dying basically there was a doe I heard about over on the eastern side of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan than it was in captivity it was 20 to 23 years old and it had twins and triplets its whole life leading up to its final death when I was 22 23 years old as long as they're alive as long as they're healthy laws are not dying they're gonna keep producing fawns now every year we see those that are obviously dry but that doesn't mean that she didn't have fawns that she's not able to conceive that she won't have fawns in the future probably just means the Coyotes got her fawns fawns got hit by a car whatever predator got the fawns but and then what you find - and this is something interesting with the older a dull because they have studies that prove that she's a better mother and part of that goes back to not only her fawning grounds that she takes over to the summertime and the quality of forage and habitat that fawns have to survive on the amount of cover that she puts them in and they found that that the older the DOE would get the further her fawns are away from each other so she has twins instead of being 20 feet apart they're 20 yards or 200 yards apart whatever that distance is and that makes sure that when and there's a name for that but that makes sure when a predator gets this fawn over here this fawns far enough away that it's not getting that fun so the old dried doe myth is purely a myth unless she's dying she's going to have fawns you can count on that each and every year another myth that look at every year and I talked about this in Scouting buck bedding areas and another video we just recently did is that box always bet on the downwind side of doze and fawns now it sounds pretty cool if there's a habitat manager out there someone that wants to you know sound like they know what they're doing when it comes to the bedding area it sounds pretty cool to talk about that yeah you always have to make the dozer here and the Bucks are always downwind of that and if that were true then Bucks are always moving they're always changing their bedding areas by chordoma imagine if you have a giant AG field when the winds blowing this way then those dolls would have to be here every time and then that buck would have to be here if the winds blowing that way then when those dolls bed over here with the BOK obviously wouldn't bed out in the open field when the bowl winds blowing back out into the field so those dolls would actually have to change their bedding area to the other side of the field the box would have to move with them it it sounds good on paper but it's not realistic and it doesn't make a lot of sense instead what I find is you have food consistently if you have adjacent bedding area within that first 50 to 100 yards wilderness area maybe two or three hundred yards those dolls will bed there and the box will bed behind them it doesn't matter which way the winds blow and it doesn't even matter what direction you're facing doesn't matter if this is going east into the woods or west into the woods it really doesn't matter food major food sources afternoon food source could even be bait piles up north could be a giant AG field down on Western Illinois it doesn't really matter AG field big river bottom brush woods on the backside you're gonna find those bedding next that AG field and then box behind them it doesn't matter the direction you're always going to see that there are exceptions to everything in life including deer but that's a big myth out there that box are always gonna bad downwind and for that they would always have to be changing to be a big giant confusing mess and what I find on small properties and what I find for scouting small properties and deer herds for a living since 2005 on eight hundred client parcels is that consistently and definitively you can look at aerial photo you can pick out food you can pick out adjacent doe bedding and bedding area for doze and then the box are behind them they have to have that remote spot to be in too big myth out there so if you if you're out scouting this this offseason winter time if you're planning your habitat on your property that mine and plan accordingly next great method I see and have a hard time with this one because I see clients that you know we're out in the woods and they're excited because they see this track with the toes out and the to do claws behind in folks that's always a mature buck right and it isn't it's that's a running deer and so many times I'll see a client that points out that man we have that that's that big buck wheat that's that big track we see on the property all the time and you can look at it and see by the size of the toes in the distance by the dewclaws could be a fawn could be a medium-sized ole a yearling Bock but is not a mature buck running and you can see that track where either there are four feet apart and it's just stomping through or it's actually running or they're grouped together check that out on your trail cameras don't don't believe me just look on your trail cameras then you go out there look in the mud look you know this deers fresh just walk through the snow and then you check your trail camera and see what deer it was but you're gonna find that sure a big buck in the snow when it's walking normally you probably see those deep dewclaws in the back and you'll probably see that suede out bow in the snow between the start the stride - you'll notice that stride is wider you can identify that it is a mature buck in the snow it's pretty easily to do that their bodies are wider their stance is wider their spacing is wider you can even take a stick and cut it off and check between that stride and those tracks and realize that's a lot bigger stride and it's wider apart track to track side to side then an adult dull and certainly a fawn but when it comes to tracks and looking at in the in the mud that dewclaw is hardly ever an indicator that it was a mature buck going through your property really good to know those tracks I grew up looking at tracks that's something that we did often I love and I enjoy doing getting to know Bucks by their track and and often what I find as a general rule my Angela smaller but if you take those three fingers right there and you lay that into a nice clean pure track that's not splayed out not do claws and that deer track goes around those fingers then there's a great chance that that's a mature buck you know there are mature box a have smaller feet I'm sure of course but mature buck ages they don't actually get their full frame size till about the age for and when they do a lot of times they have some pretty big toes and yes they push their weight down on those new claws at times especially when they're stand and they're making a scrape and they're putting a little bit more pressure maybe on the side of a hill but if you go through the woods thinking that every track that's played out and has a Duke law behind it is big balk it's kind of cool because you can think well there's mature box running everywhere on the property but it's not realistic and that brings me to my fifth point with my greatest myths and I know there's a lot more back to left my list back in the trucks and there I had six on so I know I'm missing one then that really bugs me right now but greatest mess is that scent control in controlling your scent over on the woods will lead you to the greatest amount of success it's really hard because there's so many scent control products on the market and what I see are a lot of hunters that are not seasoned hunters not experienced and they put a lot of faith total faith control into those scent control products in the number one form of scent control as you can see behind me I have a really good location one we love I sat here had a couple real nice bucks go buy deer in late October this very right here is southwest west northwest and when I'm sitting here in the morning and I get to the stand there's a lot of low vegetation around here we have a two-track right down here that's never used it's just a sandy dirt washed out track we can walk on not leave our Sun when I get into this stand right here I could smell like the world's worst hunter the worst smelling hunter and I'm not gonna spook any deer because my scent is blowing away with the morning thermals it's blowing off this point it blowing out behind the valley that you can see behind me and I'm not going to smoke any deer because that sense never gonna get down to the nose of those deer if you're sitting on the outside of a thick line a brush within inside the woods and you're right on that edge word box or traveling and cruising back and forth you blown it out and immature hardwoods you're blowing it out into mature pines it had no food and deirdre of the day if you're blowing it on to a lake a waterway a beaver pond or road whatever it might be the best form of Sun control takes place with the stand location and locating that stand on the outside edge of thick security cover the downwind edge of a bedding area whatever it might be that's a number one way to control your scent now that's not to say that I don't control my scent I still dress outside the truck I still have clean clothes I still spray down with a scent eliminator we're using limit limit shield right now going back to the late 80s I think it was scent shield I think miles Keller even had his own you know a little face or name on a scent shield bottle from back in the day in the in the late 80s it was a green and white bottle if you if you guys remember dating myself but the I use a spray down Eliminator I spray my boots down right now they have some foam products on our safety system has some foam products a little mushy over I can wipe down my arms you're supposed to hold the scent so on I'm shampooing I'm washing my body with the scent control scent eliminator no scent type soap I'm using a foam if I can now they have those new products I'm spraying down before I got into the woods religiously I've done that for over 30 years now and in and so I'm really trying to not leave a scent trail in in out of the woods that's the way I control my scent as far as leaving a Sun signature in the woods and brushing up any kind of get against any kind of brush I'm also removing a lot of sticks and debris away from my scent trail so things aren't coming up and slapped me in the side and getting my scent and coming down I'm making sure my outside body is very clean that's the way you control your scent once you're on stand there's not much you can do about it and so yeah there's a lot of steps that you can do but pretty easy I'm taking care of the stand location during the summertime or spring I'm making sure that yeah I'm planning this stand location so I'm not going to get you deer downwind of me planing my access route in the offseason I'm keeping my clothes clean when I take a shower I'm using scent control products I'm spraying down but all that happens you know early season in mid season and before hunt and pre hunt planting once you're out here it's all boils down to stand location and I'll say on the flipside many people put a lot of effort into scent control and they don't control the sound we did a recent video on controlling your sound and that's the number one way to spoke dear think of it this way even if that scent was going downhill behind me I'm probably going to contaminate a 45 to 90 degree window of a bad scent area I still have this movement right through here I saw the movement around the band I saw the movement that comes over here I'm just contaminating it 45:9 into a good wedge on the flip side people don't pay enough attention to sound if this is a noisy squeaky stand for one I'm not going to use it I only use high quality standing tree stand company family tradition right here they're there no sound but when you have sound in the stand when your clothing is makes a noise when your backpack snaps against a piece of metal when you rub up against a tree or something to move to get a shot that sound extends 360 degrees around your tree stand so think about that if your sound can be heard 200 yards away you're clearing deer especially mature box and wary box wary animals older doze you're cleaning clearing those deer out within a 200 yard 360 degree direction from your tree stand or from when you even walk in the woods for scent only spoils that 45 degrees 90 degrees downwind those five myths I think if you pay attention to those they're not just things that'll make it more convenient for you in the woods or when you hunt but there are things you can plan your hunter on your habitat around and make sure that not only do you have a more successful hunt and more successful offseason this coming year but they actually have more success in the woods and have a more convenient and enjoyable time while spending time in the great outdoors pursuing the white tails that we all have an extreme level of passion for

Channel: Whitetail Habitat Solutions

Views: 1,629,131

Keywords: deer hunting myths, pee in the woods, does per spook deer, deer myths, myths, whitetail, deer, top hunting myths, hunting secrets, deer hunting truth, hunting truth, scent control myth, deer scent control, deer tracking myths, peeing from treestand, whitetail hunting myths, whitetail myths

Id: AlIOeGhnU9M

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2018