[catman529]

So me and a friend are going deer hunting sometime during the week of thanksgiving, on a tennessee WMA. It will be my first deer hunting trip. I bought the license/permit to hunt big game on WMAs and we're both tight on money for getting the stuff we need to hunt. We got the blaze orange requirements, but under that there may only be neutral colored clothes and maybe military camo cargo pants...the only hunting camo I have is a realtree short sleeved tee which won't help too much if it's cold out. I have noticed though while hiking through the woods like I often do, that no matter what you're wearing the deer won't see you if you're completely still. Even if they see you but you remain frozen, they'll probably get closer just to investigate (happened recently with a doe I was watching). We'll also be ground hunting and possibly moving around a couple times throughout the day. Assuming we use stealth when moving and use scent cover, do you think we'll be able to manage hunting without full camo?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[catman529]

Thanks, confirms what I was thinking...deer never seem to know what you are if the lighting is low or if you're frozen still. I got really close to an albino buck back in June and got a video...he was circling around me till he was downwind and when he finally picked up my scent he ran off. As for scent cover, will the spray be good enough if I spray all the clothes with it and not use scented deodorant? I don't know if I have the money to buy all the scent-away deodorant, shampoo, soap, etc. Will a bottle of scent-away spray work fine if I'm thorough? Then I could also pay attention to the wind and use it to my advantage.

 

[catman529]

Thanks Buckfever and tator for the advice. We'll be hunting on Yanahli about 45-50 minutes from my house. It'll be a couple days past the open of the season so the biggest rush of hunters should hopefully be past.

As for the scent I'll pick up some scent-away and also look into the homemade stuff since I always love making my own stuff (I figured out how to make my own grunt calls so I don't even have to buy deer calls).

Weather forecast looks wet for the weekend but I still want to try and do some scouting this Saturday. Just to find a spot near some food plots or something.

 

[catman529]

catman- you all will probably see the rain we're getting today and tonight (friday) here in MO

Probably so and despite the rain I still am going to try and scout out an area of Yanahli tomorrow if I feel like it. If not then we'll just show up at 5 in the morning the day we hunt. looking at Tuesday the 23rd hoping the weather is good. Starting at 5am-ish (like I said) and going as long as we feel like. If I dont see any good bucks for several hours after walking around / still hunting several places then a doe will be good enough (especially for meat). Hopefully there won't be too many hunters in the area.

 

[catman529]

Actually my clothes are washed in a scent-free natural powder detergent called Charlies soap and I doubt it has any UV brighteners in it and like I said it has no fragrance at all. So that shouldn't be a problem...as for human scent I'll hang all layers of clothes outside and spray them the day before the trip.

And as for scouting, we went yesterday through a part of the WMA and found one area that looks decent and we'll be hiking out there before sunrise to find a place to settle down.

 

[catman529]

Thanks, yeah blaze orange is required and I would definitely want it hunting on a WMA. Even though I'm going Tuesday with a chance of rain so there will probably be no other hunters around.