Ground Blind users

[SoTxHunter]

I appreciate all your responses! It is weird, I guess you just dont know how your deer might respond. I hunted two ranches this past saturday. On one ranch, I had 10 does circled all around me and as close as 5 yards. They never even looked at me. At the other ranch, I had three does that kept looking at me and stomping for 15 min. non-stop until they left. I try to do the same thing as far as scent control each time. I dont know what the difference is.

[russellc]

Deer can still smell you. You need to pay attention to wind direction and I would put the blind in an obvious place. I have been busted many times in a ground blind even with the wind direction being in my favor. I had more luck seeing deer come around when I cut out a cubby whole in a spruce tree and put the ground blind in that. Deer notice very quickly when something is out of place.

[Kdog]

I think a lot depends on the individual deer, where you hunt, how pressured, and educated they are. Last year at Thanksgiving I deep fried a turkey, drank a couple beers and ate a big meal. It was getting late and I had to take my in-laws back to their car so they could go home. This is a 30 minute 1 way trip on my Ranger (through another ranch). By the time I got back to my lease All I could do was go directly to my stand. I could smell the Thanksgiving meal/turkey on me. A front was blowing in and the wind picked way up and blew everywhere. I still saw quite a few deer that night. None were spooked because of me. I certainly will not make a habit of hunting like that, but it was go to my stand or sit at the Ranger all evening. (It was too late to drive back to camp).

I may not have had that kind of luck in a tree, but you never know. For the most part I would consider our deer un-pressured. & Maybe certain deer would have been nervous, or were nervous and I never saw them. I do think a ground blind does a good job of covering your scent, but you should still be as careful as possible.