I am a firm believer that deer hunting isn’t nearly as complicated as some hunters like to make it.  In my opinion, once you have located the deer on your particular hunting land the key to taking one home is the ability to remain undetected. 

 This leads us to the Three S’s of deer hunting (sight, sound, and smell) that are critical to success.  If you can fool a deer’s sense of smell, sight, and hearing you will take an animal this year.  We’ll cover each S individually, and start this week with sight.

 Last time I checked there were 2,873 different camouflage patterns on the market and all of them work.  That’s right; every single one of them works.  Heck, that plaid polyester jump suit from 1972 you used to wear when you were trying to impress the ladies would probably work (note to self, get plaid jump suit and kill a deer in it just to prove it can be done).  Just the other day I was bow hunting while wearing Realtree pants, some random camo pattern shirt, a Texas Rangers hat, and my daughter was with me in an old school generic camo shirt… and we had deer within 50 yards of us for an hour.  The point is that just about anything will work as long as it’s not a solid color and breaks up your silhouette so that you don’t look like you.

 This is the whole point behind a box blind.  Do you really think that the deer don’t realize that there is a huge wooden box in the middle of the woods? They know it’s there, they just don’t care that much because they don’t associate it with a human because they can’t see you in it.

 If you’re not in a box blind then wear camo, any brand, from head to toe.  Face mask included.  It doens’t even matter if it matches.  Your bright shining face, even 20 feet up in a tree, is enough to get the white flags flying.

 The second part of fooling a deer’s sight is probably the most important.  Keep movement to a minimum while hunting.  Sounds like common sense but most of us move too much while on stand.  If a deer is standing perfectly still it’s almost impossible to see, the same is true for you.  Put some brush in front or behind you to break up your outline, don’t move, and 99% of the time the deer will never know you are there. 

 In a nutshell, to fool the first S (sight), break up your outline with head to toe camo, put natural cover between you and the deer (and behind you as well), and don’t move.