Just a question for the experienced bow hunters out there... I have one 70 acre piece of property that I have one stand and one feeder. Early november had 4 or 5 deer on camera every morning and evening. Now there have been significantly less. Even at night. I hunt every day that I'm able to. Probably been 15-20 times this season. Is this strictly due to my own hunting pressure on the stand?

Couple side notes: I always go in scent free but I seem to stick out like a sore thumb in the stand. Sometimes deer will see me or notice somethings up and they wont blow but they wont come into the feeder either. What have yall done to be better hidden in your tree stands?

Thanks

Sometimes they just know something is out of place. I’ve dealt with this on smaller properties where the deer have a small home range. They know every detail and when something changes.

And don’t kid yourself on bring scent free. You’re not, regardless of the effort you’ve put into it.

Don't underestimate many of those deer already having met their demise as well especially with lots of surrounding hunting pressure....

Yep. They could have been picked off.

Deer also know when it is hunting season and change their patterns. Something about continuous gun fire every weekend, coupled with their brothers and girlfriends getting dropped near the feeders will make them stay away.

Get out of the stand and hunt on the ground near a trail or close to bedding area. They have you patterned.

It is a bow only county and the surrounding properties don’t hunt. I know you’re never 100% scent free but i definitely do as much as possible to be as scent free as possible

They have patterned you. Once they wind you they are listening and on the smell alert hunting a small place. I suggest adding more stands if you are hunting that often. One stand isn’t always going to be right for the wind that day. How far up off the ground is your stand? Is there cover behind you or can they profile you?

Yeah next year we’ll be adding another. It’s 15 ft up. Beginning of the year i realized i stuck out pretty bad. So we added some netting around and behind the stand but i cant tell if It helps or hurts because now there’s a permanent box in the tree instead of the occasional figure in a stand.