I bought a thermal scope last spring for use on varmints and hogs. I have been using it as a scanner this bow season to get to and from my stands during the dark. I never realized how many deer I have probably pushed over the years trying to get to a bow blind. I am sitting in a rifle blind at the moment because there are 5 deer close to my bow set. Better sit here and watch from a distance than bust them outta here.

Like going scuba diving....

Not sure there's anything we can do about pushing deer when going to our stands short of spending the night in them, which I'm sure some of the truly obsessed ones have done for that reason. I suspect it's more common for guys to reach their stands about an hour before first light for the same reason. An hour before sunrise is plenty early enough for me, given I don't hate the deer as much anymore.

I'm in the "get there early and let things settle down" school of thought.
I figure why get up early and lose sleep just to get there as the sky starts to light up and just minutes before shooting time, and the deer are already cruising around, only to scare everything out of the immediate vicinity.

I find a lot of the deer you might push will come back once everything calms again. As long as you aren’t terrible careless walking in, the deer don’t go far and return.

This is after years of what you just started doing, scanning for deer prior to just going in. Now I just go in. Gotta get there to hunt during archery season anyway.

Once that big old does starts blowing you are hosed anyway, no matter when you get into the stand.

I use mine in the stand during the day time to find animals I can’t see with naked eye or binoculars. It’s amazing how many are creeping just 200 yards away through the brush.

Just not true at all. I was sitting in a new pop up blind with the wife last night. About 15-20 minutes after feeder went off, around 6:10, we hear blowing and see two doe jumping off. There was no way they could see us, just spooked by the new pop up and probably the associated smell. It was brushed in pretty decent but not perfect.

Fast forward to sunset and two bucks roll in, one is a target buck about 160 with a split drop and split g2’s. They feed for 15 minutes and then just walk off like nothing was different. They stayed just beyond my crossbow range and didn’t give me a shot but I was ready had they come a little closer.

Anyway, the minutes before those bucks rolled out the wife was asking if we should go since “nothings coming” and even texting my son about how the deer are blowing at our blind and all kind of non sense. I told her patience...there was still shooting light left. Glad the deer proved me right.

Long story short, doe blowing does not always mean an end to the hunt

Edit: the morning before this story took place I was hunting a new stand and had deer in front of me for about 90 minutes. About 45 minutes in a doe starts blowing for no reason, and she stuck around just blowing. They stayed for another 45 minutes and slowly walked off. Some doe just like to hear themselves yell. I woulda shot that one had it been later in the season.

Funny I remove my pulsar off it’s quick disconnect mount at the first of season and use it in blind during the early morning hours to see what’s out walking.

I never thought about using it in the middle of the day

Me on my way to the deer stand.

I like to use one as the light is fading in the evening. Can give you the edge when looking for animals before they pop out, you know they are there. However, I have stopped doing that unless pig hunting. For deer hinting I just found it frustrated me seeing deer in the outskirts not showing and they would almost always seem to come out right as it got dark dark.

I bet it would be interesting as heck to see what critters are out there and how close some of them might be that you normally would not see at all