Interesting deer reaction

[critter]

I was hunting from a box stand yesterday from which I killed an 8-point exactly one week earlier. Temperature was near 20 deg and we had a very heavy frost.

About 9am, an old doe came down the same trail. When she got to the exact spot (I had marked the blood spot on the ground with a weed top to aid tracking), she stopped, carefully smelled the ground and slowly backed up several steps. Then she approached the spot from a different direction and repeated her actions. Then did the same a third time.

Finally, she backed off and passed the spot by by moving over several yards.

I was amazed that she could smell the spot created a week ago. Don't know if it was the blood, buck glandular secretions or 'people' she was interested in.

 

[Art Eatman]

Call it a clue about the sensitivity of a doe's nose. Good example of why wind direction is such an important factor in hunting.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

More than likely it was the lingering presence of human scent. I've seen deer walk up to gut piles and not flinch a bit. Even seen a few dig into a fresh one.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Was it a reaction to the blood, the human scent, or did she recognize some residual scent from what was the dominant buck in the area?

LD

 

[buck460XVR]

Could be she reacted to the scent of a predator that was attracted to the spot by the smell of blood/gut pile.

 

[DM~]

One time i had about 10, 12 does in front of my spot, along with close to that many turkeys feeding and walking slowly. Then all of a sudden, in another part of the field a REALLY NICE 8 pointer walked out, and i shot it.

The does scrampled around, but couldn't figure out where the shot came from, so i just sat there watching them. Then some of the does noticed the buck lieing dead on the edge of the field and quickly trotted over to it, stretching their necks/noses out to smell it from about 20/30 feet away. Then the rest of the deer came over and did the same thing... Then the turkeys went over and they had their necks stretched out, doing the same thing too.

This went on for over 5 mins, when i finally got bored, got up and went out to retrive my buck, which of coures, scared everything out of the field.

DM