I have good friend that has a small ranch set-up for hunting. I help him move blinds, feeders & such. He is very particular about creating a special parking place for the ATV near each blind. He finds a clump of trees or brush & we cut a nook out big enough to hide a parked Gator. These parking spots seem to be getting further & further away from the blind - not a big problem except in the dark. Do the experts here care a lot about this detail?

I park right next to ours and cover with some of this, takes about 3 mins. and seems to work good on a 2 person sxs.

I park farther away and try to hide it a little.

I park about 10 yards from most of my blinds, some less.

You bet. I park right out in the open, full sight, so far away that it doesn't matter. When I'm not willing to walk 1/2- 1 mile in and out I'll be done hunting.

We have 247 acres, and unless I am going all the way to the back of the property, I walk during deer season. If I am going all the way to the back of the property, I might take a 4 wheeler halfway or I might walk all the way. Where I hunt in OK, it is a much bigger property, so we do drive (trucks, not ATV's) to the stands much more often. We still park about a half mile away in most cases.

I watch the deer and their reaction everything every day for several hours. They could care less about my UTV, ATV, truck or either tractor. If someone is visiting in a vehicle they don't know, they will be messed up for an hour or so until they are sure it's not going to hurt them. That large bucks won't come around on day one of a new vehicle. If someone is coming over to hunt, I have them park in the barn. Folks think they don't notice or care but they do notice and care.

I often pig hunt sitting in the back of my truck. I've had deer come right by me - within 25 yards or so - and not care a thing about me if I am still. Granted, not any huge bucks. But if there are vehicles around a lot I don't think they even think about it.

we have enough commotion from sxs/4 wheelers running around for various purposes that they run about 50 yds. and stop to see which way we go. I have 6 regulars out back and 3-4 of them sleep in the yard a lot.

there are 3 I can walk up to within about 25' if I am talking to them, they know.

and no, I don't hunt the deer out here.

Yard deer that don’t get hunted act different. I’m guessing that’s not what the OP is talking about.

even the bucks don't seem to care when we are out, they run but not in panic. almost no pressure on them, no one has hunted our blinds for a couple of yrs. now.

The older I get, the more I think walking a long distance disturbs the deer more than driving close to the blind. I walk plenty, and like it, but at pre-dawn, it's getting more and more silly. Deer just ain't that smart. If some wanna beat their chest about being able to walk 1/2-1 mile to the blind, well, you can have your little victory.

There is one set on my place that I've been meaning to cut a little alcove into the brush/oak mott, directly behind the blind 'cause it just makes sense. On the others, I walk a few hundred yards. On the Sanderson lease, in that open country, I'd walk further, but not a whole lot. 'Had plenty of success.

The difference here is that the old mature big bucks typically don’t show themselves if something is out of place. The local doe’s and average bucks are more tolerant. The older bucks didn’t get old by being stupid.

Yes, I park far away because I always enjoy hunting on my way to the blind.

I've killed plenty of old bucks. Right at the feeder. Truck 200 yards away.

Same here. My stands are on the far ends of our lease. More often than not I leave the truck at camp and walk the entire way in and out. Each of my stands I have maintained trails near each stand that lead through trees, gullys, along creeks etc into the back end of each stand or tripod. I have old chairs dropped on those trails at strategic overlooks, creek crossings, and pinch points and often will see something to cause me to stop and hunt before I ever make it to my stand. It is not unusual for deer to be under my feeders that ignore me as I climb into my stands. One of my stands has a live creek right behind my stands ladder with a makeshift canoe dock buit behind it and a canoe permanently stored there. I often paddle a canoe back and forth to the back of my tower blind for the last 1/4 mile. The other half of why I do all this is for exercise. Life is busy, so I adapt to get every bit of extra exercise every chance I get. I am even known for parking at the backside of parking lots when I don't have to just so I can walk farther.

Google Earth measure tells me I park 228 yards from my stand. I park down in a draw that's right before I walk into the area I hunt. We generally park 200-300 yrds away, depending on bow or rifle hunting. Our bow spot I think is a little further walk in. I have parked my 4 wheeler right behind the stand with my daughter on several occasions, and we still saw plenty of deer. They did look up more towards us and were more alerted, I think. But I'll almost always park away and walk in when I'm hunting.

Folks don’t know what they don’t see.

I have hunted a couple of specific bucks over the years that I knew where they were bedding. 99% of people would have drove past those deer alerting them someone was in the area. It became pretty obvious what was happening when I studied the game cam pics and how the bucks always showed up when I wasnt on the place. I changed my parking habits and my approach to the stands on those deer and was able to close the deal on one of them and was one bad wind swirl away from sealing the deal on the other one.

So yes I pay very close attention to where I park when hunting a specific deer. When just hunting any random deer that may be out there I will just park where I feel the best place to park is.

Depends on the activity on the property as to whether or not an atv, truck or UTV will scare them. But it’s been my experience that walking always scares them.

I drive to the blind, the deer may see me and run a little ways, 50 yards or so. I walk to the blind and they see me, they flag and haul [censored].

The vehicles scare deer movement got started when off road capable vehicles first got popular and it became an option to drive to the hunting area instead of taking a horse or walking in. In most cases, they will only associate vehicles with danger if you start shooting animals out of the truck. I have hunted properties ( ours was one of them) where they did not like the sound of a 4 wheeler. You could drive around all day in a MULE, truck, tractor, but fire up the 4 wheeler and the animals would not come out.

I have been fortunate to kill a ton of mature bucks. I was able to kill them because I hunt in places where they exist. They get old by not getting shot, not killed by other bucks or not starving to death. They don’t cheat death because of some supreme intellectual ability.

The smartest and wariest deer in the woods isn’t a buck anyway, it’s an old nanny doe.

Just a sample of the volume of deer that sleep in my yard every night. Number of times I’ve seen a P&Y class buck snoozing in it…zero.

They are probably snoozing in your neighbors yard

"There's none so blind as those who will not see."

Road feeding tripods worked well when I was guiding. But, it has to be consistent. Don't just blow it off until you want to use that stand. They get used to certain vehicles.

We used to take our 3 Wheelers (a while back, obviously) about 3 miles from Dad’s house to the woods. I walked in one morning before daylight and got up in a ladder stand. Deer started moving around on a road that passed through the woods. All does. Then I could hear the engine of a late hunter coming our way. He was a good mile away, but the deer moved to cover. They knew.

And back in those days, I decided that the deer knew where the stands were, so I got my trusty stool out. Parked the 3 Wheeler in some tall weeds. It wasn’t till I sat down and the sun came up that I realized the 3 Wheeler wasn’t totally hidden. Nothing I could do but sit quietly. The Honda was maybe 100 yards to the west of me, in the weeds just off of a gravel road, on the north side of the road. I was just off the road, on the same side, down in a shallow ditch, and hidden in the underbrush. All of the ladder stands were west of me, well past the Honda. Just after daylight I heard tiny noises…a deer tipping up on the road. He was to the west of me, between me and the Honda and the ladder stands. He sneaked through the ditch, looked carefully to see if anyone was in the ladder stands, and they weren’t. Nice big 8 point. He stepped out in the road, saw the back end of my Honda, was immediately on full alert and ran into the brush on the other side of the road. He was looking at my Honda when I shot him in the back.

If you hunt the same place all the time, the old bucks know where you are and will avoid you. Old hunters and old bucks know stuff.