Decoying Whitetail Deer - Part 1 of 2

Part I of II

If you love chasing whitetails, antelope, or any big game in the US, it would be silly for me to assume you that you haven’t at least thought of or somewhat dabbled in the mystique of decoying various game.  From antelope to elk and crude cardboard to plywood cutouts, decoying has been done for years.  It’s nothing new to the Western hunter.  But for the Midwestern and Eastern hunters headed out west, the new fold up and roll up decoys you can pop in you pack have become an almost standard item in the shopping carts of enthusiastic road trip hunters headed west nationwide.  Some of you adventurous souls have had some success, some of you have had near unbelievable success…so to you, the whitetail fanatic, why when you return home to whitetail country do you ditch the decoys?  And to you Western game gurus, I invite you to open your minds to some of the concepts you are about to read.  These same basic guidelines apply to whitetails from Washington State to Washington D.C. and from Alberta to Mexico.  And maybe even another species or two! 

Before we get into the details of advanced tactics, we need to explore first the environment in which you hunt.  In open terrain, like that of Western Kansas or Eastern Colorado, the goal is to place the decoy within shooting distance of the shooter at the highest elevation possible so that the decoy receives maximum exposure to other deer in the area.  Decoying, in this scenario, is as easy as placing the decoy and hunkering down in a bit of cover.  That is…if you’re a gun hunter.  If you’re a bowhunter, decoy location becomes a bit trickier.  As you probably all know, with a gun, all we need to do is draw the buck out into the open.  But drawing a buck into the open, and then getting an arrow into him in this type of terrain, requires a bit more thought.  However, bow or no bow, if you’re hunting in the timbered corridors of the Midwest, Western Montana, or the mountainous areas of the East such as the Allegheny National Forest, your ability to choose your setup will ultimately determine your success.  The presentation of your decoy is what will earn you inches on the wall, not just location.   

Many factors will play into your success with the decoys.  Probably the single most important factor is the age and maturity level of deer you are targeting.  I realize there are some exceptions to this rule, but if you hunt in states like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, New York, Virginia, or parts of Michigan the odds of you harvesting, or even seeing, deer that are classified by most hunters as mature deer (at least 3-1/2) may be slim to none.  In these locales, the type of decoy you use, the way you use it, and even when you use it carry little relevance in generating a calculated response of how a deer reacts to your decoy.  For over 10 years now, I have made my living and supported my family as a professional bowhunter and guiding others, as well as assisting in a deer handling facility from time to time.  From my personal experience, immature deer are the toughest critters to understand.  Deer on the same maturity level will act in virtually the same way in nearly any given situation.  The same could be said for several other species.  Because of that, these tactics and advice you are about to read apply, with almost certainty, to deer who have grown beyond adolescence and into maturity. 

When hunting in short range scenarios, probably the most crucial step in the process is your ability to control scent.  No product, clothing or chemical, can completely conceal your scent, period.  However, there are several that are successful in lowering your scent emissions and anything you can do to up the odds against detection, is well worth every penny.  The products I put the most faith in, include Scent-Lok clothing, Dead Down Wind Enzyme sprays and soaps, and rubber boots.  Even with all these products, you body will still produce odors that you won’t be able to conceal and stop 100%.  One secretion that is a real detriment to the decoy game is oil from your hands.  That’s where the cheapest scent protection I use is invaluable…latex gloves.   When handling your decoys from home, to transport, to set-up, and everywhere in between, you should be donning those little white gloves.  If I’m hunting close to home and on a property I know I won’t face theft on, I’ll go as far as to put my decoys in my hunting area in the pre- season.  Hide them in the brush or lay them down in a drainage ditch if need be.  I have yet to find a decoy I’m comfortable with that is light enough to not add any exertion to a trip in or out of a stand.  The other added benefit to this as opposed to storing the decoy at home, is there won’t be any out of place or foreign odors on your decoy that it might pick up in storage. 

I strongly advise against the use of any sprays on your decoy.  When you use sprays on something that can potentially be in direct contact with the nose of a deer, you are asking for trouble.  That trouble may not come in the form of buck detection either.  Imagine this scenario, while I unfortunately recall it.  November 2nd, you are perched in a tree overlooking the great state of Iowa.  You have your decoy set facing directly away from you on a field edge where a point of timber juts out into the field from a drainage ditch.  Your set-up suggests a doe heading across an expansive field to evade an over eager buck looking for a hot date just a little too early in the year.  Just inside the timber down the tree line you catch movement.  Closer inspection with your optics shows a shooter buck following a doe toward your stand.  As is typical of truly mature deer, this buck is lingering behind the doe 40 to 50 yards.  She moves, he moves.  After what seems to be hours, the doe close the distance to under 75 yards, the buck lingers about 30 yards behind her.  She catches the silhouette of your decoy and decides to further investigate.  She reaches the decoy and the buck hangs up 30 yards out, one more step and you’ll be able to draw and shoot.  Her nose nears within inches of the decoy and for no apparent reason, she freaks, bounds a short distance away and begins to blow wildly and relentlessly.  The buck makes no movements except with his head to watch the unfolding events.  He turns and follows the trail on which came in on.  He’s lost total interest in both the live doe and the decoy. 

What could she have possibly smelled?  As I pondered this, I evaluated my approach.  My decoy had been left outside in the drainage ditch for months and I handled it with the latex gloves when setting it up, everything else seemed perfect.  Hours went by as I replayed the day’s events in my mind.  Then…it hit me.  While standing near the decoy, I sprayed myself with a scent-eliminator and there is no doubt in my mind that overspray had reached the decoy.  Although I don’t believe it was the odor of the spray that made her eventually flee, and yes most scent killing sprays do have their own odor, I do believe the spray may have put the deer on alert.  If I was a betting man, I would venture to wager that she eventually smelled something else she didn’t like, or she couldn’t smell something she did like.  It is my opinion that the main reason deer blow, is to moisten the nasal cavities to better enhance their ability to identify the odor.  If you have spent much time at all in the field with whitetails, you’ve probably watched deer blow continuously for no apparent reason.  You are directly downwind of them and they haven’t seen you move.  You didn’t walk in or out that way, nor did you see another hunter or predator cross their path.  So why all the ruckus?  In many cases, I believe this reasoning for the blowing to be true.  The bottom line is anytime you introduce a scent elimination spray, cover scent, lure, or any other scented item into the direct senses of a deer, you risk detection or at least alert on some level....

Part II coming soon....