This happened to me Friday morning. At about 8:15 am a doe with a fawn in tow came walking the usual path but then deviated a bit decided to cross the gully and crossed my walk-in trail at about 60 yards away. I always like to see their reactions when they hit my trail, but this one did something I'd never seen before. She sniffed, looked around, sniffed and looked for a while and then turned and starting working my trail and followed my exact path to the base of my tree. She even went through the downed tree exactly where I did. She stood at the base of my tree for almost five minutes until she finally decided she'd smelled enough and trotted off with the young 'un in tow. Strange....
Strange isn't it? I had that happen before. Of course I've also had deer spook at the first whiff. A really strange thing happened to me on Saturday. I accidentally dropped one of my chemical hand warmers out of the tree. I had a small 6 pointer come in under the tree and start sniffing around. He actually went over to that hand warmer and sniffed it for a good minute or so. Mind you, this thing was in my pocket with my stinky hands all over it for most of the day. He never once spooked and walked off as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
I've had a few instances like this. Last year I had a young buck cross my drag trail and turned on a dime and followed it all the way to my ladder. Then he saw my decoy and did a half circle around it staying about 20 yards from it never taking his eyes off. I've also two occasions where they have come and smelled a place where I had peed earlier, never spooking.
I've had that happen a few times. Started taking precautions on my entry/exits. Biggest help is not touching ANYTHING if possible, especially with bare skin. Step over logs instead of on top of them so as not to bring your scent closer to his nose.Also included is to have good boots that contain scent rather than emit it. Found this out when I finally replace my worn out favorites with a brand new pair of the same boot. The old ones were wore out and started leaking out scent and taking on water.
