Dr. Ken Nordberg explains the importance and benefits of proper concealment while stand hunting whitetails.

During the past thirty years, my sons and I have discovered that the mature-buck effectiveness of a ground-level blind is determined by much more than its appearance. For example, wearing a camo headnet or mask (under your cap) and dark gloves to cover your exposed skin is a precaution that magically keeps whitetails as near as ten feet away from noticing you while you are sitting very still. Another is, absolutely never wasting our time at a stand site that’s not within easy shooting distance of fresh tracks or droppings made by a mature buck. Always sitting where well hidden by something completely natural (in appearance) and unaltered is still another. Sitting ten or more yards back in the woods from the edge of a clear-cut or farm field, where well-hidden by intervening forest cover, rather than sitting close to its edge, greatly lengthened the period of time that many of our stand sites remained productive.

Whitetails readily detect telltale human trail scents up to four days old (some scents, such those emitted by fuels, bar oil, engine exhaust and rubber tires last longer). To keep these scents from repelling deer from our stand sites, we keep well away from trails or sites where we expect to see bucks, prepare our stand sites quickly, depart quickly and don’t return for two weeks before using them. We also avoid making manmade sounds every mature buck today recognizes as bogus or dangerous, including the sound of an ATV approaching that suddenly becomes silent, meaning to a mature buck, a hunter will soon be near.

Where whitetails are nocturnal because desperately hungry wolves are hunting them day and night, the effectiveness of a stand site must last up to three days, requiring great skill and good sense to keep it from being quickly discovered. Obvious human destruction, construction and undiminishing trail scents at the site are certain to make it a dud for hunting mature bucks. To get to your stand site, using an existing deer trail that courses through 50 to 100 yards of dense screening cover, rather than a manmade trail cleared of dead twigs and branches two or more weeks before hunting, is hugely important.

Instead of clearing a shooting lane, use natural openings in intervening cover as small as a foot in diameter to fire at deer. Avoid making bright-colored axe and saw cuts at a stand site, because bucks older than yearlings readily spot them and recognize them as warnings of a human ambush site.

Never approach a stand site from upwind or across an opening. Approach and sit downwind of where you expect to see deer feeding in the morning, because they will already be there. Approach crosswind in the afternoon because you’ll get there before deer arrive, with them almost always arriving from downwind.

While scanning for deer at a stand site, always turn your head very slowly. While one or both eyes of a nearby whitetail are visible, don’t move. Always wait to raise your gun or bow until a nearby deer’s head is pointed straight away or hidden behind something. Never stare long at nearby whitetails, because they can sense when you are doing it, and will then discover your presence.

Always lift your feet clear of the ground, and no matter what covers it, put your feet down lightly while approaching a stand site. While walking to or from a stand sire, always use the wolf ruse—walking nonstop at a moderate pace with your head pointed straight ahead the entire way to keep from seriously alarming nearby deer.

Always approach and sit downwind or crosswind of where you expect to see a buck and other deer. No matter how high you are above the ground, your invisible odors will soon reach the ground, spreading vertically as well as well as horizontally, throughout an ever-widening triangular area downwind. Mature whitetails may angle toward you from one side downwind, outside of that downwind triangle, without smelling you. But those inside that triangle, beginning 25 to 30 yards downwind, can smell you hundreds of yards downwind.

I have long felt that nothing could beat a pop-up blind that completely hides the hunter, the hunter’s movements and highly visible blaze-orange clothing, as long as the blind is covered with a camo pattern that closely matches the natural foliage and trees in my hunting area in November; and that its silhouette being not oddly different (such as having straight edges and right angles) from other natural objects surrounding it would be a wonderful new hunting aid. Until recently, there was no such a blind, but I finally found one on the internet. It’s a two-man pop-up blind with a round top that closely resembles the many round-top boulders in my hunting area. and it is covered with a camo pattern (Realtree Edge) that I know will closely match foliage and trees in my hunting area in November. So, I ordered one and can’t wait to use it.

By placing it next to or behind a natural object that is much larger, where at least 50 percent of it is hidden by natural intervening cover with a solid natural background, I believe it will be indistinguishable enough to remain unnoticed by deer passing within 30 to 50 yards upwind or crosswind. All the while, it will protect me from frigid winds, rain, sleet or snow while seated in a comfortable chair, and while standing to stretch now and then without being seen by nearby deer—all of which seems especially wonderful to this old buck hunter.

Even seasoned hunters can learn new methods to make their hunt more successful. Find more in the fall issues of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.