No. 1 is his smell: They smell it all the time, and it lingers even after he is gone. If he feeds cows from a trough, then they associate him with feed that they may get after he is gone. Deer may even try to steal some feed before he leaves and before the cows are able to get there.

This is really the same when a deer is in the woods that has no contact with anyone. How is this, you ask? You come into his woods or home, and he knows that you are not supposed to be there. Now he searches out a new place to roam without you in it.

This is what the hunting books you read call “pressure.” When hunting season starts, there are all these new smells, and it spooks them. They start looking for new places to go and a new place to hide.

This is also the reason for the number of increased auto accidents and near-misses. Deer are looking for a place to go, and they can’t escape the new smells that they smell. They just can’t get a grip on the influx of new smells to their environment or why they are there!

Stay out of the scent game: no cologne, and try and use non-scented laundry detergent. Beware of going somewhere before hunting such as the grocery store or your local restaurant.

To a deer, you stink—trust me. I may not smell you, your wife or hunting partner may not smell you, but you stink to a deer! A deer can smell a thousand times better than you. Just keep in mind no scent is the best scent.

Stand placement

Where and how should I place my stand? I never thought much about this until I was watching some of those hunting shows. If I can write this article, I should have known this from birth, right? Not really. We are learning every day at everything we do.

The more complex the subject, the more we learn, and sometimes what we thought we learned, we have to be retaught. I hunted in many hunting clubs over the years, and some I liked better than others. In reality, some clubs seem to produce better than others. Not really! Looking back, some clubs had different road systems that afforded better approaches to stands than others.

You can actually feel good stand placement! That’s right: You can feel good stand placement. It’s that favorite stand that you go back to over and over because of all the deer you see and the thoughts of what might come next.

Looking at your favorite stand will reveal that the wind is favorable most of the time. It’s the stand that has the most concealed way of getting to it and the best wind as well.

There was a time at a club that we saw so much sign near this particular stand, but while in the stand we never could see a deer. I decided by one of the shows that I had seen that it could be the wind direction and the approach we took getting to it. I decided to cut in a trail that would require you to walk twice as far and leave the camp a lot earlier than everyone else.

If this is in the afternoon, you may miss a lot of the ballgame on that TV that someone had given to the club. It really payed off one afternoon when I got a good deer.

Stand placement and the smell thing go hand-in-hand! Keep him from smelling you and knowing that you are there, and it will always pay big dividends in the end.

Where should I place my stand? That depends on the direction in which the field lays! If the wind comes out of the north-northwest mostly, a stand placed on the east–southeast side will catch him in the cross wind or facing into the wind.

Just remember to look around your fields for well-traveled trails. This is usually the trails that the young bucks and the does have made.

Pinch points

Living on the land that I have hunted over the last few years has made all the things that I talk about more and more real to me. Pinch points are no different; they are just narrow corridors between where a deer is and where he wants to be.

Deer want cover, and they are no different than any other animal. They are trying to get from Point A to Point B, with Point A being a bedding area more than likely to Point B being a feeding area.

Deer are always looking for food, and the way in which they get there is a matter of life and death for them. In looking for a route to food, they are trying to take a route where they cannot be seen. This may be high grass or it could be a small clump of trees leading from one point to another.

Deer will always keep out of sight if possible, hence they want to go nocturnal when hunting season starts. The old saying that an old buck didn’t get old by being stupid is true! He learned how to avoid hunters and the general public in order to reach this age. An old buck took the best pinch points (corridors) to be able to avoid being killed.

This is where you start looking: a well-traveled trail that leads through some thick brush, tall grass that was never cut but leads to the top end of a green field. Those are pinch points and should not be overlooked.

Once I started hunting around the house, I noticed these things. I was in some ways forced to start hunting what would be the best hunting ground in my career by being forced to.

It all started when my job required me to work more, and I was just unable to travel and go to a club enough to justify the club fees and the dues that were paid along with it. I started concentrating on what I had, what I could do and what I could change. Pinch points were one of them.

I would always leave a wide strip of uncut grass or that row of sweetgums just so the deer would have something to travel through. This plays an important role when getting close into bow range with deer.

This season, think “no smell” because it is the hinge point in all that you do while you’re out there in his home!

Gary Mitchell is an outdoors enthusiast who spends much of his time with a camera. Visit him at GaryMitchellImages.com.