Learn about sunlight and shadows.

Knowing how light & shadows worked in my stand led to this buck.

The vision of a whitetail deer is truly impressive. It's uncanny how they can pick a bow hunter out of a bushy tree or a ground blind.

Hunters often question this ability. They claim their hot new camo clothing eliminates being spotted. They claim their scent-killing clothing and sprays will defeat a whitetail’s nose test.

In many cases they are dead wrong. The clothing and the sprays can help, as can deer scents, but the deer can spot a hunter. They can sniff out a hunter, and accomplished sportsmen know this. They know what will work and what will not.

Fooling deer means melding your knowledge against the deer. Think!

Nothing is absolute unless you stay indoors and never venture out. What hunters must realize is they need to be smarter than the deer. They must use their brain to figure out how to avoid detection.

Years ago I often sat in tree stands and watched the deer and their interaction with humans. Many sportsmen think if they can't see the deer, the deer can't see, hear or see them.

Whitetails are masters at standing in heavy cover, and studying the terrain in front of them before they commit to a move. Some deer have stood without any visible movement for 30-45 minutes without moving any part of their body except their eyes. I once shot a nice bucks that had stood for 65 minutes in belly-deep water before deciding the coast was clear. I finally took him out of the gene pool.

Follow this example. One day I had a man hunting, and he talked a good story about being able to sit still. I sat in another stand 200 yards away with binoculars, and watched him. I had an advantage because I knew where the deer would come from at his location.

Half of my time was spent watching him and half was spent watching the area where the deer would come from. He couldn't see the routes the deer used to approach his stand as well as I could, and the deer were much closer to him than me.

This gent was spotted time and again. Many hunters believe that when a deer spots a hunter, it will snort and run off. Sure, that happens often enough but the animals often will remain silent and take a wide stroll around the unsuspecting hunter. The hunter figured if all remains silent the deer never spot him.

Get used to the idea that deer can see better than you can.

I watched deer stand 200 yard away in thick cover, and they would pick up the hunter quickly. A slight movement, a slap at a buzzing mosquito, some wayward drifting scent -- anything can spook deer. Once scared, a buck or doe can steal away through heavy cover without ever being seen.

It has become a mantra for me. There are only so many ways to tell a hunter how to sit still. They jerk, twitch, try to look behind them, and they feel the deer can't spot them if they can't spot the animals.

Folks, that assumption is dead wrong. Take a long look at your tree stand or ground blind. Are there an adequate mix of light areas and dark shadows?

Have you mastered the art of having cover behind you that will break up the human silhouette? Have you learned to memorize the light areas at various times of day? Move at the wrong time, and suddenly blot out an area that normally contains a brighter zone, and deer will spot that movement.

Deer are not stupid. They depend on their instincts, and if they see something out of place, something that wasn't there the day before, they don't consciously suspect that area as dangerous but on an instinctive level, they seem to know that something is different or out of place.

If a bow hunter sits in a tree, and blocks out a bright spot but moves and covers it up when a deer is looking, the chances are great the animal will pick him up instantly.

Learn that deer live in a world of sunlight and shadows. Use them.

This sitting still and studying the bright spots and shadows is an art. Study your stands long before the season opens, and note where shadows and light areas are found during that two-hour period before shooting time ends. Do that, and you'll learn where these areas are and how they change as the sun starts going down.

This is not calculus nor rocket science. This is more a matter of common sense. Know your surroundings, know what provides shadow, and know when the moving sun will be more of a handicap than an asset.

Study your tree stand site, and do it from all angles. Too many hunters view their stands only from in front or slightly to the sides. Most forget about standing 50-75 yards to the rear, and looking for moving objects.

Bow hunters can bet that a deer will do that. Savvy bow hunters are simply smarter than the deer they hunt. Being smarter just means paying more attention to your hunting site, your surroundings and try to look at things from a deer's point of view.

Learning to think like a deer, and trying to see what a deer sees from a distance, will eventually pay off.

Title: Learn about sunlight and shadows.

Tags: ((Dave, Richey, Michigan, outdoors, movement, patterns, sunlight, shadows, how, they appear, and, disappear, time))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors