What brand of detergent do you use on your hunting clothes?

Baths came around once a year or if they fell in the water.
Whether they needed them or not!
As I understand the brightener thing, deer can see ( like many wild things) better in the UV spectrum than in the ordinary light ( hence better night vision) so I presume that if you are standing into trees or bushes with your newly washed realtree camo on you stand out from the background like a light bulb, at least thats what we are lead to believe. I have walked up on a sleepy doe in the edge of long grass in the sun and ashe didn't move until I knelt down about 5yds fom her and said "bad place to sleep here"! and I had no fancy scent gear on. I have also been laid down on a bank 100yds from a buck with no wind to speak of, waiting for it to turn, and It took off like a racehorse, having presumably got a tiny wiff of eau de human.
That is what makes hunting good, it isn't always easy and we don't know everything.
 
Valid points, All. But If we assume deer can be 'trained' to come to a feeder it stands to reason that they can be 'trained' to be more cautiois when humans start comming around more frequently during hunting season, when things go BOOM.
 
Siotwo, right on the button.
I hunt an area which gets hunted 44 weekends out of the year (not by me! and yes we have long seasons ) The deer don't care about humans so much because there is public access when no shootings going on, during the week.
But start creeping around in camo with a rifle and they take a days holiday straight away, so they do get conditioned to things.
 
Ok I have made up my mind about this 100% after yesterday.

I went deer hunting and it was a rainy day. No one saw a deer the whole time and everyone else used some sort of scent attactant that supposidly masks human order too. They were all using Doe type products to hopefully attact a doe.

Now me I was sitting far on the other side of the large feild, next to the edge of the feild with my friends (he let me borrow it the last few hunts since I dont own one yet) crossbow and I was on a mini-folding chair just sitting there, It was too hot for the clothes I had on and I was sweating alot. It started to rain abit so I stood up and took a little walk around my chair. I sat back down and I could smell my sweat (I sweat alot :o).

About 10 minutes later a doe came out at 90 yards or so. I saw it and I noticed instead of going to the other side where they normally went it started to turn to go back out away from them. So I stomped loudly 20 yards up and the doe started to clamly turn and walk into a known trail they go to. when the doe was about at 70 yards I took the shot and got it :)

Moral of the story, I am going to lisen to my hunting partner because he says movement and scent dont matter one bit in areas where there is active farming and in areas that are isolated it does matter and he seems to be right :D

PS I use Tide to wash all my clothes too. So scent and reglaur detergant seems to be ok for me :)

Dimitri
 
Sorry SioTwo but by the time I found all my hunting parties group members it started to rain agian and it got dark so we couldnt find a blood trail to track :o

I kinda feel bad for taking the shot now that I think back about it to be honest. If I knew that it was gonna start raining agian and we couldnt have found a trail I wouldnt have tooken the shot :o

Anyways it was my first deer that I ever shot at. I went hunting for 3 weekends in a row and no one managed to hit the deer at much closer distances (10 to 30 yards) so the one I manage to hit we lost :(.

Its ok though its a learning experiance for me I learnt 2 things:

1) If its wet and dark outside no point shooting at a deer we wont find it.
2) Never lisen to any weather forcast since they said it wasnt supposed to rain.

Its all good though next deer I get its not gonna get away from me (I am going to buy one of thouse long lines you attach to your arrow to make it easyer to find the animal and modify it to shoot a extra long rope with a "tail" of florestant trail marker :) Think it will work ?? :confused: )

As they say "If at first you dont succede try, try agian" but hopefully you learn from your mistakes too or else trying wont do anything ;)

Dimitri
 
DimitriS

I hope that you learned a few things from your experiences also. You need to know your weapon's capability, a crossbow's range is nowhere near 70 yds. They are good for 35-40 yds max due to the bolts light weight, they don't have enough power at really long distances. Is there a reason that you could not go back to the area the next morning and look for the deer? If you have to leave an area right away you should not be shooting unless you are very sure of an instant kill. I don't know the game laws where you hunt, but many states require that a wounded animal be pursued, or at least a reasonable effort made to find it. Unless it is really pouring down rain, there is usually still a blood trail visible on a hard hit deer. You need to mark the trail, and if too dark, come back the next day and expand your search. Good luck on future hunts.
 
Yes I know I actually thought that since the crossbow I was using was shooting arrows that were 1.5 times the lenght or so and aluminum then the little light weight carbon bolts the other hunters were using I thought it would retain enough impact energy compared to the other crossbows (they are both shot at about 20fps difference too). Since a hunter in my group said that the crossbows that they all bought were ok to shot up to 50 yards or so I thought about it and took the shot. :o

To be quite honest I went deer hunting 3 weekends in a row for my first time and this was my 3rd weekend and the first time I was told by my friend who is older (read: much older) to sit at a spot at the edge of the feild and at about 6:15 to 6:30 the deer will pass. :) He was right the doe did pass at 6:35 but because there were 2 trails along the feild one at 90 yards and the other at 20yards (this one is much more heavily used they always pretty much pass through here execpt on really rare ocassions) from where I sat so I could see them both without moving. :) And it was the first deer I ever saw with my own 2 eyes that wasnt in a zoo or something so I got hyper (I guess) and stomped up close to it and took the shot :o

So I guess he paraticly gave me the shot to do on my own I just had to pick how to locate myself and I seemed to have messed up on that :o

PS It was raining quite abit and most of this part of the feild is swamp so that made it worse too as the deer ran in the swampy area instead of going the direction it was heading too where it was much more dry.

Dimitri
 
Was there blood on the arrow? At 70 yds or even 50yds, the deer may have 'jumped the string', or in other words, heard the crossbow and dodged the arrow by simply squatting to run from the sound. I'm sure she heard you 'stomp' to get closer.

Maybe you should ask one of the hunting party to sit near you so that you have immediate help in shot selection and tracking.

You also should practice shooting the crossbow so that you know EXACTLY how far you can accurately shoot it.

I'm thinking you may have missed.
 
Siotwo,

I did pratice with that crossbow alot and I could shoot accuratly (for a crossbow anyways) with that bow when I apply the right hold over out to 60 yards (thats the longest distance we had to practice with our bows with close to the cabin :D). And the animal didnt really move and started to run when I was stomping. I will assume it didnt notice me and thought I was a buck so thats why it started to slowly walk to the point in the bush where they have a little trail. (or atleast thats what my friend who is teaching me thinks what happend). Because it never looked in my direction it was always looking down and eating or as it started to go to leave when I stomped it looked towards the bush not me :)

I shot at the animal and about a split secound later after the sound was made it jumped and we didnt recover the arrow it was no where to be found where the animal was or around where it might have went. So I think I hit it and the other hunters with us told me since it jumped after the sound I didnt miss it. But I dont know I looked with the scope from the point the trigger was released to when it went into the bush so I know it jumped after the sound but I am not 100% sure if I hit it or not just based on the fact it jumped after the noise not with the noise :confused:

Personally I think with the practicing I was doing between morning and evening hunting everyday we were hunting I think I got used to the bow enough to be able to shoot it without missing since I was constantly getting close enough on target that if it was a deer I would be hitting its chest. :D

I was comfidant I wouldnt miss so I took the shot. The rain and swamp like part of the feild made it impossible for me to fallow it. I am gonna wait till after General Firearms season to go with the crossbow agian so there is snow and I can see the tracks and blood trail much better. ;)

Because it didnt run away when I stomped and it jumped after the noise, and I know I could have made that shot I am pretty sure I hit it. :)

Dimitri
 
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