Another thread from popa45 prompted this post.

I have a box blind about 100 yards from a feeder. I built it about 15 years ago. I haven't used or even opened it in a couple of years. I've noticed that when sitting in the brush away from the blind the deer always stare intently at it. Recently saw a young buck with a doe come to the feeder and eat a little corn. They kept raising their heads to stare at it in a nervous manner. They quit eating and left. Other deer have done the same. Some of those deer are too young to have seen me use it. I guess it's possible that a poacher has used it. All non resident landowners seem to have this problem. I can't account for their nervousness.

I have 6 feeders and have some brushed in pop ups at other feeders that they don't get nervous about.

Are there any loose pieces that make noise in the wind. I had a piece of plastic that would make noise on one of my blinds. After I cut it off they seemed to ignore it.

I could buy the poacher theory. We have seven box blinds. Unless they see movement or smell you, it's rare they pay them much attention. Most have been in place 10+ years. Some are tin, some are wood.

That is interesting,,, I don't find that the deer pay any attention to my box blinds. One even has a door that sometimes rattles when the wind is right and they seem used to it. Like previous post, is there maybe something hanging that moves with the wind? Or maybe a glint that reflects in the right sunlight?

Only times I have seen deer pay much time to an established blind is when they have been shot at from it a few times.

Last year one of our blinds the tin came loose on the roof. It would make a loud banging noise in the wind every time it popped up and smacked back down. The deer never once looked at it, they were used to it.

Sitting in a blind under an oak tree the deer never looked at the sound of acorns falling to hit the roof.

One of our tall tower blinds has some wind bracing made out of metal bracing from an old garage door. It makes some pretty crazy and relatively loud noises when the wind blows or when the sun starts heating it up in the mornings, deer never look at it.

Will routinely have buzards, hawks, and various other birds on the metal roofs of our blinds that make a considerable ruckus and the deer pay them no mind.

Drop something in the blind and they are looking at you. Open a window that makes noise and they are looking at you. We put up a few new stands over the years before we took the old stands down. You could sit in the new stand and make a noise and the deer would look at the old one. Its pretty comical.

Was it a windy day? Deer at my place were skittish this last weekend because of the wind.
I've also had a new group of deer coming in lately that had the old group on edge for a few days. It seemed like they were looking at my blind but they could have been looking passed it. There has also been a pack of dogs roaming around that seem to be coming out of the thicket and going under my stand and out into the field. My neighbor has seen this happen while fixing the fence.

Nothing loose that would make noise. And, this is the first year that I've observed this. No wind.

I'm thinking that I may have a poacher. Next time I'm there and it happens I'll walk around a heavy brush area and take a look.

Put a couple of trail cams in likely spots to catch his ingress/egress.

After hunting on our current lease for well over 10 years, My Dad FINALLY decided to build a blind for his little corner. It got built, but for various reasons it did not get set up until a couple of weeks into the season. And while Dad had help getting it loaded into the flatbed trailer, he wasn't going to be able to unloaded it from the trailer until help came to the lease a few days later. No problem. Dad just parked the trailer where he wanted to hunt and just hunted from the blind on the trailer.

Did it work? Well, there is one less buck on the lease. He shot an OLD buck that walked by the second day he had the blind there. Help showed up the next day and we all unloaded the blind from the trailer. Dad headed home. And I decided to "test" out the new blind. I shot a big doe out the next day. And a couple months later, I missed a nice spike out of the same blind.

Good idea

I have a no flash that I'm going to put on it

You can test for people coming by a place by tying a piece of thread across the door so that some one would have to break it to get in. Or you can find a way to put a stick or leaf stuck somewhere that they'd have to move but wouldn't notice.

It's also possible the deer are used to seeing other deer come from the direction of your blind.