Pennsylvania Game News - September 2010 - 59

To further reduce sounds that can alert deer, I take great effort to be sure my equipment doesn’t betray me. My outer clothing is made of soft, chamois cloth in a popular camouflage pattern. Chamois material may not be as durable as other fabrics, but it is extremely quiet. Also, before the season, I go over all the pivot points on my treestand to make sure it doesn’t squeak, click or groan when it’s set in a tree. As a final step, after putting my stands in place, I camouflage them with small tree branches that break up my outline, because a deer will immediately come to full alert if it perceives something out of the ordinary in a tree. These precautions definitely help, but I take the additional step of camouflaging my face before every hunt, because an uncovered face is easily spotted by a deer and makes them more alert. For an archer, scent control should be a high priority, because while a deer might not bolt when sensing extremely faint human odor, it can cause the animal to become suspicious. Today, there are dozens of products that destroy or eliminate human odor and they are quite effective, but I seriously doubt any can eliminate it entirely, so a hunter can’t be too careless in his approach to scent control. Nevertheless, I use scent killing sprays before every hunt to eliminate as much of my human scent as possible, and I believe it makes a difference. I was convinced of the effectiveness of these sprays when one summer I spilled gasoline on my hand and couldn’t get the smell completely off, even with soap. I remembered the sample bottle of scent elimination spray I had in the garage and sprayed it on my hands. Result? The odor was gone — and I was converted. Over the years I’ve walked past other hunters’ treestands either before or after the season, and I’m amazed at how low they are. Some are barely 10 feet off the ground, and I just can’t visualize how a hunter can draw a bow and get off a shot with out being detected. To prevent string jumping the
SEPTEMBER 2010

shot has to be taken while the deer is calm, and I find a stand placed approximately 15 feet off the ground is ideal. Higher and the shot angle will be too steep, lower and you risk being picked up by a whitetail’s eyes or nose. There’s no way to guarantee a deer won’t jump the string after a shot, but in my opinion, the best way to reduce the likelihood of that happening is to be sure the animal is calm before drawing the bow. While it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to tell if a deer is going to react and duck at the sound of the shot, I’ve never had a deer jump the string that was looking away from me. In short, a relaxed deer is less likely to jump the string than one that’s even the slightest bit nervous. There’s a great deal of controversy as to whether a hunter should aim low when taking a shot. No doubt, a low aim point provides some margin for error if a deer does duck at the sound of the shot but, again, there’s no way of telling if the animal will react before the arrow finds its mark. For what it’s worth, I normally hold the pin just behind a deer’s shoulder and aim for the bottom third of the animal. If the shot is a little high, I still drive the arrow through both lungs, if it’s low, there’s an excellent chance it will go through the heart. A deer’s heart is located much lower than many hunters think, so a low shot behind the shoulder is a high percentage shot in my book. Because there’s no way of telling if a deer is going to react after a shot, hunters will always have to deal with this problem. A faster bow may help, but won’t eliminate this phenomenon. The solution is to exercise discipline to carefully read the body language of a deer, and hold off taking a shot if it appears nervous. Deer get jittery because they perceive the possibility of danger, so controlling human odor and quieting bow, clothing and equipment noise will also do a great deal to keep them calm and, as all bowhunters know, calm deer are the easiest to kill.
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Pennsylvania Game News - September 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - September 2010