When bowhunting, do you get busted by the deer more often from being seen or being scented. Due to my set ups lately playing the wind, when I know I have been busted it has been by deer seeing me more than by them smelling me. I've been caught drawing on one deer and have another to the side see me and blow em all out on a couple of occasions the last couple of years. And picking the wrong time to move or stretch has cost me a couple of close encounters too. Of course these are the times I know of. I would bet there are plenty of times when the deer saw or smelled me and simply snuck away without me ever knowing it was there.
I usually get busted after the deer wander off downwind, usually they just head on a little alarmed. You know there is always that one doe that smells you on her way out and has to stand there and blow for 15 minutes. Like you, I think we get busted alot by deer we never see, especially after Greg posted that knowledge game and they said deer can smell 450 to 600 yards. Even if you are downwind of your intended targets, you have to up wind of another area when they smell that far.
Definitely by sight. I'm not gonna lie there have definitely been times where I'm standing there holding my breath (literally, kind of out of instinct rather than thought process) with deer downwind. The majority of the time, I don't get winded... whether that be due to high winds, scent control practices or dumb luck I don't know.
Put me down for sight too. In the last two seasons, since I have become extremely conscious about scent-control, I have only been knowingly busted twice while on stand, and that was on the same hunt. But it's like you guys have said, I am sure I have been winded and been busted without even knowing it, but I definitely get busted more by sight, most of the time due to my careslessness.
I cannot think of a single deer in years that I KNOW busted me on sight. I trust my set ups and my camo. I can only think of one deer that blew at me in the last several seasons as well and it was a buck I called in down wind in IL. So with that and despite my strict scent control rituals, put me down on scent. I think realistically, scent will bust all of us more than be seen.
The bucks I worry about are the ones you never see and bust you. I think this happens alot more than hunters think. Most of the time its the Big Boys that do this. I have watched deer at a distance come up on hunters setting in a tree stand and stop about 200 yards away, trun and go the other way. I belive these hunters have been BUSTED and did not have a clue there was a deer around. They could have been busted by sight or smell.
honestly I don't get busted much at all, maybe once a season.. however, that is being busted by deer that I know are there, who knows how many deer I never see that bust me!! i WOULD SAY SIGHT MORE THAN SMELL.
I gotta be honest here......That I'm aware of I'm just not busted very often. Now please don't read that I never get busted.......because I'm more than certain I am busted by deer that I never see and never know were even there. I have deer look up at me occasionally, but they calm back down pretty quickly. I was busted once, last season, and that was visually.
