John’s Note: Deer do strange and unpredictable things when the hunting pressure builds-up over their range. This week we’ll look at how to modify your tactics to take these spooked deer.

According to Dr. Keith Causey, retired professor of wildlife science at Auburn University and a longtime avid deer hunter, deer fear man’s odor more than any other thing. “Once deer are able to make a slight association with man’s odor and the form of a man, one of two things happens. The deer either can become adjusted to the sight of men and lose their fear of them, or if the deer are constantly harassed by humans, they will learn to panic at the sight of man, whether or not they smell him. The hunter actually trains the deer to fear him. The whitetail fawn learns to fear man from the doe, which transfers these signals to her fawn, so that it knows what to run from and what to fear. Too, human odor may release a natural fear response in the deer as well as a learned response.

“Although there is no way to monitor the intelligence or thought processes of a deer, we can assume that the more human contact that the animal has, the more adept he becomes at avoiding human encounters. This may explain why so many 1-1/2-year-old animals are taken each year in deer harvests, and why the older deer are less likely to be killed. The older deer that are able to survive past 1-1/2-years of age have to be better at escaping humans from smelling their scent and seeing them in the woods than the younger deer are.”

From this scientific information outdoorsmen must realize that there are two options to take trophy deer. A hunter either can use the fear response of human odor and human sight to drive the deer to another hunter, or he can eliminate human odor and the sight of a human from the deer’s senses. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at how to accomplish these two tasks.

To get John E. Phillips’ Kindle eBooks and print books on hunting deer, “How to Hunt and Take Big Buck Deer on Small Properties,” “How to Hunt Deer Up Close: With Bows, Rifles, Muzzleloaders and Crossbows,” “PhD Whitetails: How to Hunt and Take the Smartest Deer on Any Property,” “How to Take Monster Bucks,” “How to Hunt Deer Like a Pro,” and “Bowhunting Deer: Mossy Oak Pros Know Bucks and Bows,” or to prepare venison, “Deer & Fixings,” click here.

For information on making jerky from your deer to provide a protein-rich snack, you can download a free book from https://johninthewild.com/free-books.

Next: How to Hunt Pressured Deer