#fun fact did you know deer shed their antlers every year? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itemcrash · 4 years ago

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fun oc facts

ciaun:

has 4 siblings. where are they now? haha, who Fuckin knows,

is 6′8′’ post-timeskip (same height as dedue)

his favorite (rl) flowers are zinnias & (black) dahlias

his favorite teas are pomegranate & chamomile. genuinely doesnt have a preference on drinking them sweetened or unsweetened. depends on the mood.

can grow fur around specific parts of his body (bottom of the face, lower neck to the chest & back, back of arms and legs)

his birthdate is the 30th of the ethereal moon/december

out of the whole cast, would get along with these characters the best (in a hypothetical scenario where he got a chance to know and get close with like, everyone): linhardt, bernadetta, petra, dimitri (pppprrre timeskip. post-timeskip dimitri and ciaun, uh. Jesus christ. There’s a lot of negative shit going on there. Complicated), dedue, ashe, mercedes, ignatz, marianne(?), flayn

can make these [1] sounds [2], tends to make a little weird meowing sound when he yawns

he hates actually killing, but isn’t afraid to be violent as a first resort post-timeskip and is edgy as HELL whenever he’s irritated both pre and post-timekip (“I have eaten the flesh of man turned demonic beast as reward of my victory. I fear no ‘beast’, especially not the kind that you think you are. Nothing but prey pretending to be a predator to me.” - “But lucky for you, as I’ve said, I consider myself pretty tame. Which means, if challenged, I’ll only beat you within an inch of your life instead.”)

farren:

stays 5′3′’ after the timeskip... sorry bud

may or may not have some dragon-people blood goin on in there who knows

afraid of horses pre timeskip, warms up to them a lot post timeskip, but is a total wyvern lover at heart

doesnt have a favorite flower! just likes any cause they look pretty

favorite tea flavor........ do you think they have salted caramel tea in 3h’s world? god i hope they do

he keeps his birthday a secret! he would only tell people he really trusts, though the range of people's guesses is anywhere from october to january.

who does he get along with best? Yes and no. Everyone and no one. pre timeskip he basically avoids everyone and will go as far as to run away from people to avoid interacting with them unless they need his help. post timeskip he is a Friend To All (goes from tripping over every word and running to “My friends! It has been far too long- Please tell me you are all well! Oh, I cannot wait to catch up, perhaps over a feast? Ah, after the battle is done, of course! You have my strength. We will not fall as long as we are together!”)

heulfryn:

same species as ciaun, different variant! but he has no interest in transforming at all. if he did he’d likely look like a weird fucked up mix between some sort of canine and various deer species

5′9′’ pre & post timeskip.

the only animal features he has pre-timeskip are his ears, which he uses magic to hide. post-timeskip he doesn’t care. he’s the opposite of ciaun in which he preferred to keep his true nature a secret pre-timeskip

he does shed his antlers, and its terrifying.

i dont have a ton on him but he’s a friendly guy. in a modern au he’d be making videos like this

brenni:

LITERALLY A JOKE OC i just love having him around. he was just the dude i made to represent my first blue lions playthrough where i was overleveled and murdering everything with an axe or my Bare Fucking Fists

he’s an absolute MORON. again a JOKE. but i Love adding more shit to him, so you get facts anyway

he does not think Anything is real. extremely good at murdering because he thinks the FIVE YEAR WAR is just ONE VERY ELABORATE, BIG PLAY

if he messes up your name thats Your Name Now. some of what he calls ppl r nicknames and others are just fuckups he doesnt understand are Wrong. this ranges from calling dimitri 'mimi', his most normal name, calling felix ANY type of species of cat in Existence, and callying sylvain 'silly' becuase he genuinely does not grasp thaat his name is Sylvain

he’s 6 ft and doesn’t have a concept of whats appropriate to do so if you are smaller than him he’ll likely pick you up like. like you know how longcat’s owner held her??????? Like that. if he’s around and you’re small and you need to Get Somewhere he will carry you to the location

he does not have a favorite tea. he probably chugs like, the early beta version of coffee, which really explains his hyper murderisms

#long post #kinda #i got so focused on this i forgot to eat again

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kittykittycatnip · 6 years ago

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RUBS MY LITTLE EVIL HANDS TOGETHER

daisy you already know them and have literally drawn them before but w/e

GABE’S OCS: CLUTTERED HELLFUCK EDITION

RICHARD - 44 - WHITE-TAILED DEER - HE/HIM

Ricky is a kind soul- he's never hurt a living creature on purpose, and he rarely gets angry. He's a family man at heart, and cares deeply about his wife and children. He prefers to stay in quiet places, and can more often than not found nestled in a good book. He loves to read and tends to dress repetitively, all of his clothes being the same patterns. He's very anxious and tends to be a bit shaky, and has bad handwriting (then again he does have hooves).

YES that is the only picture of rodeo i have

RODEO - 20 - VIRGINIA OPOSSUM - HE/HIM

Rodeo is a wild guy. He is extremely erratic, sometimes bordering on chaotic and unpredictable. He's unhealthy and tends to eat a lot of junk food- literally. He eats other peoples' garbage. He can come off as a bit rude and uncaring, mainly because it's true- there's very little you can say to interest him. He's a party animal and loves to scream. He's never been seen without his trademark sunglasses, even indoors and at night.

these were my main two oc’s original bios but theyre a bit outdated (especially rodeo’s) SO ill add notes for the incorrect stuff

Ricky is a kind soul- he's never hurt a living creature on purpose [INCORRECT, he has attacked things in self defense]

, and he rarely gets angry. [kind of correct? he doesn’t show it and bottles it up but he actually does feel rage! sometimes.]

He's a family man at heart, and cares deeply about his wife and children. He prefers to stay in quiet places, and can more often than not found nestled in a good book. He loves to read and tends to dress repetitively, all of his clothes being the same patterns. He's very anxious and tends to be a bit shaky, and has bad handwriting (then again he does have hooves). [this all still holds up he’s a soft boy]

mainly because it's true- [hes a fucking gremlin but he aint a jerk]

there's very little you can say to interest him. He's a party animal and loves to scream. He's never been seen without his trademark sunglasses, even indoors and at night. [this also holds up]

aside from those, that’s very very VERY little of their actual character traits!

ricky and rodeo are also both based on two skulls i actually have!! since theyre Fwiends i have rodeo sitting on top of ricky

some fun facts and trivia: -ricky’s family is mentioned but i have no idea what they look like and they don’t have names -ricky hates being called dick. he finds it annoying and obscene please be nice to him -rodeo’s real name is also ricky. rodeo’s his lifelong nickname and people just accept that’s what he was born with at this point (the reasoning for this is at the end of the post) -rodeo has those super beady opossum eyes and that’s why he wears sunglasses all the time, he’s self-conscious! -rodeo is a kleptomaniac. his fellow criminal buddy socks is too, sometimes they meet up and show all the cool things they’ve snatched from people’s pockets -rodeo always wearing sunglasses is also kind of projection! i wear a hat 24/7 and don’t take it off around other people, it helps with my dysphoria -rodeo is gay as FUCK and aromantic. ricky is cishet and probably neurotypical but he’s trying his best and im so happy for him -i’m so bad at drawing antlers that i usually draw ricky without them. i blame it on “oh deer shed their antlers every year!!! dont call me out” it only works a quarter of the time -as all my ocs from this universe are based on skulls i own, there are obviously gonna be a few that are banged up, broken or even shattered into fragments sometimes: -rodeo lost one of his closest friends (another criminal buddy) in a car wreck. this mirrors how the raccoon skull i was about to get was from a roadkill victim. it was broken and i wasn’t able to get it unfortunately. its name was bandit :[ -rodeo has ptsd as a result of the loss and blames himself for bandit’s death. he hates himself but he’d never admit it, he covers it up with fake pride -ricky really doesn’t like being involved with lawbreakers like rodeo, and would really prefer he just leave him alone. rodeo originally just did stuff to bother him, but now they kinda consider each other friends of sorts -the skull ricky is based on is from a doe, not a buck! this is another reason he usually is drawn without antlers -i have no idea what rodeo’s sex was when he was alive -my brother gave me ricky, and originally thought he was a dog skull. now that i know what those look like i can see how obnoxiously wrong he was. he was originally a badass biker wolf with rodeo’s personality more or less -after realizing he was a deer, his design was changed to match that; his new name was sputnik, a deer with the colors of the bisexual flag -sputnik is still technically an oc i guess, but his colors were lightened big time when he was basically converted into ricky -sputnik’s personality was very similar to ricky’s though with much MUCH less development. he was more of a hippie -rodeo was my first skull ever and after realizing opossums are also badass bikers, just more like rats, i projected ricky’s original personality onto him and it’s stuck ever since! -since ricky was rodeo’s original name, i kinda just tacked that on as being his real name -sputnik doesn’t --- wait hold the FUCK UP i can ditch ron gta 5 deer skull edition in favor of an actual oc NICE -socks doesnt even have a real name theyre just named socks BDGHJBFGJ -this is rodeo in real life! -and here’s ricky in real life!

okay holy FUCK that got long. oops!! ahh rant over

#my ocs #my skulls #oh god this is so bad and cluttered and infodumpy :pensive:#my art

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the-comfy-wildkratt · 6 years ago

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Deertaur Chris from my Chimera AU (aka CPS Malfunction B). Featuring: the first time he shed his antlers and temporarily forgot that antlers shed every year. (Written part below the cut!)

Fun fact number one: While he has his antlers (aka most of the year) Chris has to wear shirts that zip or button up, or else stretchy wife-beater tanktops, because trying to put on a normal shirt is virtually impossible with those antlers. When he can get away with it, though, he just doesn’t wear a shirt at all

Fun fact number two: I have no idea where this little cutesy style came from, but I love it

Being part deer made Chris much more aware of a lot of deer biology and behavior than he had been before, but at times he also completely forgot about some traits, such as when his antlers shed for the first time.

From an outside perspective, as Jimmy had, it was both an amusing and somewhat worrisome series of noises from the other room. Silence, a sudden noise of alarm, the clattering of both hooves and something bony-sounding, and then a loud, muffled thump. All of which was shortly followed up with a startled cry of, "my antler!"

Frowning, Jimmy got up out of his chair and walked to the door, which slid open automatically at his approach. Chris was standing on the other side, looking surprised and holding one of his antlers in his hand, his head tilted slightly with the unexpected weight difference that came with now having only a left antler.

"What just happened?" Jimmy asked.

Chris looked a little embarrassed. "I just shed an antler. I...I kind of forgot that happens."

Jimmy blinked. "So what was all that screaming?"

"I didn't scream!" Chris protested, "I was just startled. I was putting on my shirt and it got stuck so I tugged on it. I guess I tugged a little too hard and this thing was ready to go because it just popped off and it surprised me. I mean, it fell and poked me all over the arm as it went."

"And that big thump?"

Chris's ears twitched in embarrassment. "I, uh, I jumped backwards and ran into the wall."

Jimmy couldn't help but start laughing at that, and Chris frowned for a second before joining in lightheartedly. "You just forgot?" Jimmy chuckled.

"I don't know how! It's the middle of winter, I should have been expecting it."

Shaking his head, Jimmy peered up at Chris's remaining antler. "So are you going to just pull that one off then?"

Chris reached up and gripped it, giving a little jiggle. He pushed his lips out in a thoughtful pout. "I guess not. Now I can tell that it's loose, but I'll just have to wait for a bit." Shrugging, he walked past Jimmy and into the main room, suddenly sighing. "Oh great, now Martin's gonna' come back and laugh at me for having a lopsided rack."

"I can see why," Jimmy teased, and Chris gave him a halfhearted glare. "I do wish they both stuck around till Christmas, though," he continued, "I was looking forward to putting tinsel and ornaments on your antlers."

Chris blinked. "Seriously?"

"100%. Koki and Aviva had a whole plan to ambush and decorate you and everything."

Chris rolled his eyes. "Of course they did. Well, they can just settle for decorating my antlers without them being attached to me."

At that moment, Koki walked into the room and looked over, catching sight of Chris and Jimmy. For a second she didn't realize, looking away again, towards her console, then she did a double take, eyes widening a little. Chris grinned wryly and held up his shed antler.

"What happened?" she demanded, looking a little worried as she hurried over.

"It looks like it's time for my antlers to shed," he explained.

Koki just looked at him blankly for a second, then smacked her forehead. "I completely forgot about that."

"So did he," Jimmy told her, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Chris with a grin. "He scared himself." Being part deer meant that Chris spooked more easily now, but scaring himself was something the crew never failed to find amusing, especially if it happened where they could witness it in any way.

Koki grinned a little. "Sorry I missed that," she said, ignoring Chris's snort of annoyance. She reached out and gently touched the tip of one of the spikes. "Is your other one just going to fall off too?"

"Supposedly. It's loose right now but doesn't want to just yet, it seems."

She stretched up on her tiptoes and tapped his antler with a knuckle. "Looks like it. You'd better not let Martin pressure you into weird schemes to try and get it off, Lefty."

Chris gave her a bland look for the nickname. "I don't plan on it."

Jimmy wandered back to his programming and Chris went back into the tiny room where he and Martin stored their stuff and sometimes slept to get a zip-up hoodie; it was a bit chilly in the Tortuga, and as usual, his favorite pullover was unusable due to having antlers that wanted to get stuck in absolutely everything.

"We're back!" Martin's loud call was accompanied by the squeak of claws extended at the last second as an emergency brake, and Koki's indignant yell followed immediately after.

"Stop scratching up my Tortuga!"

"Sorry. We've got groceries!"

Chris trotted back out into the main room, setting his shed antler onto the center console almost absentmindedly as he hurried down to the garage to help. Aviva was kicking the Createrra's tailgate back up, holding the last two bags in her hands, and she gave Chris a smile of greeting as she handed them to him.

"Would you mind grabbed those two over...." She trailed off a second later with a confused expression, registering that something was different but not sure what. A moment later she realized and exclaimed, "Hey!"

Chris jerked his head in her direction, and immediately regretted it as his whole head overbalanced and a sharp twinge of pain shot down his neck. "Owww! What's wrong 'Vivs?"

"What happened to your right antler?" she demanded, pointing.

Rubbing his still throbbing neck, Chris gingerly shook his head. "It popped off. It's about time for them to shed, anyway."

"Oh," she said, looking a bit relieved. "I...I forgot that."

"Apparently so did the rest of us," Chris chuckled ruefully. He bent to pick up the grocery bags again and together they trooped up the stairs to the main room.

Martin was rifling through the groceries with Jimmy, chattering about the purchases they'd made, and he looked up and gave Chris a small wave, but looked away again immediately. Chris exchanged amused looks with Koki and Aviva. Martin kept shuffling through bags until he suddenly happened across the antler that Chris had left lying on the console.

"Hey, where'd this come from?" Martin asked to the room, picking it up and turning it over in his hands. "Hey, Chris, this looks a lot like," he looked up at his brother, trailing off as he finally realized, "...yours...."

"It's that time of the year, bro," Chris joked with a shrug, then winced as his neck twinged again.

Martin's tail curled up over his back as an evil big-brother grin suddenly exposed all his teeth. "Well, well, well," he said, and Chris gave him a wary look, "I kinda' forgot about the fact that you shed your antlers. But you know what this means?"

"I can wear real shirts again?" Chris guessed halfheartedly.

Setting the antler down, Martin prowled around the table, trying to act casual, but Chris knew a predator when he saw one, so he started sidestepping too, keeping an eye on the exits. "This means," Martin said, "you can't hold me at bay with that thornbush on your head anymore."

"Oh."

With a sudden clatter of hooves, Chris bolted for the door, his tail springing up like a flag as his hindquarters disappeared around the bend in the stairs. Martin was in pursuit, laughing delightedly. Jimmy, Koki, and Aviva watched the brothers go and then exchanged wry looks.

Chris lost his left antler three days and half a dozen play fights later, but surprisingly enough it wasn't due to roughhousing. Instead, it popped off without warning while he was walking across the main room. He was heading towards the showers, running his fingers through his slightly sweaty, post-adventure hair, and the antler just...fell off.

It fell off backwards, raking across his flank, and that was enough to set Chris off. The entire crew was around to witness this time, and all of them looked up as Chris gave a muffled squeal and lunged halfway across the room, his hooves skittering madly on the smooth floor. Martin immediately burst into raucous laughter. Chris's tail had gone up too, standing at an almost perfect right angle to his back.

While the crew laughed until they were red in the face, Chris stood by the door, hand on his heart like an old church grandma, trying to settle his high-strung nerves.

"That's pretty much how it happened the first time," Jimmy said between chuckles.

"No it wasn't," Chris tried to protest, but they just waved him away and he rolled his eyes before going down to shower.

Thirty minutes later, he trotted back into the main room, and Aviva actually did a double take. It'd been a long time since she'd seen him looking so...normal. He hadn't been able to wear his favorite olive green pullover due to his antlers. His large ears and half-deer body weren't 'normal' by any means, but if he just didn't have the ears, Aviva was sure she'd be convinced that he was fully human again, just so long as he stayed seated.

Chris was tired after a long day of adventuring and having his heart rate suddenly elevated, so he just walked over to his brother and flopped down next to him on the 'chimera couch,' as Jimmy had dubbed it.

"Perk number one," Chris announced, "I can wear normal shirts again. Perk number two, I can actually use Martin as a pillow again and not have him complain about me poking him." And so saying, he tucked in his legs and rolled over on his side, resting his head on Martin's withers with a smug expression.

Martin rolled his eyes fondly. "Okay, that is a perk."

"Yeah, too bad your horns don't shed, because you are not using me as a pillow with those two bony lumps on your head."

"Okay, fair enough, I'll let you use me as a pillow because I'm going to take full advantage of the fact that you can't poke me with your antlers in any other circumstance either."

Chris sighed in mock resignation and closed his eyes.

Koki smiled at the brotherly moment and then went back to the task she'd immediately taken up one Chris had left his antler on the floor. She rested her hands on her hips for a moment, regarding it, then got back to work again, busily mounting the set of shed antlers on a wooden plaque. One day Aviva was going to find a way to return the brothers to normal, so it would be nice to have a little memento for this misadventure.

#Wild Kratts #WK #Chris Kratt #comfy draws #comfy writes #traditional art #I did part of a page of Martin doodles in class today in an attempt to stay awake #so hopefully I'll ink those in soon #Also still working on Nature Spirits! I want to post about it sometime soon!#CPS Malfunction AU #CPSMAUB #(weird tag but whatever)#Part A just features Martin with a different malfunction design

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judefan823-blog · 4 years ago

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get a couple of suspensions and injuries

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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How To Use Decoys To Fool Big Bucks

Many things aren’t quite as they seem. Flip through a fashion magazine and you’ll see how drastically someone’s appearance can be altered if enough time is spent and enough cash changes hands. From silkier hair to whiter teeth, fuller lips, thinner thighs and so on, the available tweaks are all but endless. Whoever first said life is but an illusion might have just laid down a copy of Vogue.

There’s also a lot of fakery in the hunting world. Generations of waterfowlers have tossed wooden ducks onto the water. And over the past few years, many hunters have begun using turkey decoys. Bird hunters regularly employ such fakes, in combination with calling, because their sharp-eyed quarry can be notoriously hard to coax into lethal range of a thimbleful of pellets.

Mimicking waterfowl and turkey sounds is something with which nearly all whitetail bowhunters can identify. Over the years, innovative deer calls for making grunts, bleats, snort-wheezes and even “roars” have become standard gear. Around the rut, few archers would think of heading afield without some sort of call in their packs. Being able to make sounds that lure bucks into bow range is often a huge advantage.

But what about the visual fakery? Where’s the deer decoy? Most bowhunters have heard of them, and even seen them used on TV hunts, but they aren’t using one themselves. If the thought of decoying has crossed their mind, it evidently was but a fleeting notion.

I don’t claim to be an expert on whitetail decoying. But maybe that’s why I’m pretty sure I can help you. Because while I don’t decoy that often, I’ve still had great success over the years. That tells me you could, too.

The Point of It All

Decoys work for different species for different reasons. Fake ducks and geese are effective because those birds are gregarious and associate other flocks with safe places to feed and rest. A migrating flock might never have seen the pond your spread is on. They’re relying on other birds to tell them it’s a good place to land.

Of course, with a turkey gobbler it’s all about reproduction. Come spring a tom wants to mate, and few things ignite his passion the way the sights and sounds of a breeding opportunity do.

What we’re looking to do with a whitetail decoy is much closer to a setup for turkeys than for ducks or geese. Even during the rut, when many bucks roam widely, they likely know where the food sources and bedding areas are. They don’t need other deer to confirm it. But they do keep their eyes open for other whitetails, whose presence might signal a chance to reproduce.

If you’ve ever had a 3-D buck target mangled by a yard-invading buck, you know how strong the visual attraction can be. When a feisty buck sees what looks like a rival, there’s potential for an aggressive response. What influences whether or not he comes all the way in is more complex. But you need not be a master decoyer to make it work.

As with most other whitetail tactics, entire books could be written on this one. In fact, my friend the late Gary Clancy did just that a number of years ago. But you can have fun decoying, and fill tags with good bucks in the process, if you follow a few simple rules.

OK, “rules” is too rigid a term. Let’s go with “guidelines.” Which means go by them, but be willing to amend or even ignore them as conditions dictate.

Guideline 1: Buck vs. Doe

You might assume that for a rutting buck, a doe standing by her lonesome, waiting for him to join her, would be the hottest ticket to success. Every nerd’s dream at the school dance, right?

That setup can work. In those rare places where the sex ratio is super tight, resulting in a short window of breeding, every doe is getting checked constantly. There, when the time is right a standing/feeding doe decoy is a real attraction. I’ve seen one of these work on mature bucks even without a buck decoy as part of the setup.

But a doe isn’t what I normally use. Most of the time, I feel, you’re better off with a buck decoy. Maybe with a doe in the setup, but often not. I’ll use a lone doe only if I don’t have a buck available.

The main reason I don’t like lone-doe setups is that real does don’t like them. Put a fake doe in a food plot or field and when the old herd doe arrives, she’s likely to freak out. She’ll often stomp around indignantly, then try to lead the rest of her clan back off the plot. If they don’t follow, she’ll become even more agitated. Prepare to listen to “blowing” for a while, as that doe prances around with her tail hairs flared. She just doesn’t like having a strange lady on her turf.

Replace the doe decoy with a buck and things tend to go better. Yes, it’s still a “new” deer, but the matriarch seems to accept that he’s an outsider just passing through. That sort of thing happens during the rut. In many cases, the boss doe quickly calms down and goes on about her business.

You might feel there’s no harm in letting that old doe lead her pack out of the area. You aren’t trying to shoot a doe anyway. But having live deer around can be helpful. They’re living decoys. Yes, too many does present can distract a buck that otherwise might have come to your decoy, but that’s when a little calling and/or rattling can come in handy.

So in most cases, I feel a lone-buck decoy is best. And in most places, a 30-day window starting around Oct. 25 often is the time to try it. After that the libido of most bucks begins to drop, with less aggression displayed.

I know of a few big deer shot over buck decoys right before velvet shedding and of a few others shot deep in the post-rut. I assume a blend of dominance and curiosity explains those approaches, as it’s unlikely they were related to breeding interest. But we can never be sure just what any buck is thinking.

Maybe because it’s often a chore to lug two decoys, few hunters use the deer equivalent of a “spread.” However, I’ve arrowed two bucks while using buck decoys standing over doe decoys. One of the fake does was a full-bodied model, minus legs and antlers, mimicking a bedded doe in heat; the other was a standing cardboard doe silhouette.

Guideline 2: Positioning Matters

Just sticking a decoy in front of a stand is a good way to educate deer. You’ll get educated too, but it could prove costly. So let’s try to get it right the first time.

Does it matter which way a buck decoy faces? I think so. Young bucks often sheepishly approach from the rear, but a big deer rarely will. He wants to intimidate this intruder, not simply gouge him in the ham. So most big bucks will come in from the side or swing around in front. Position the decoy so that either of these approach angles eventually will result in a close broadside shot.

I always have a buck decoy face me. Maybe not straight at me, but within 20 degrees one way or the other. While broadside can work, I’d rather not set it that way. One thing you’ll never see me do is face a buck decoy away from me. Again, I want to encourage a buck to see the decoy, swing around it to make eye contact with it and, in so doing, offer a good shot angle while looking away from me. Folks, that’s about as easy as bowhunting big whitetails ever gets.

How far? I like to put a buck decoy at least 22 yards out. If picking an ideal range, I’d say 25-27. But what matters most is that it be several yards inside maximum comfortable bow range. We can’t control from where a buck will come or which line he’ll take. If he goes a few yards behind the fake and stops, it might be the best shot you’ll ever get. Make sure that distance isn’t too far.

On the flip side, if the decoy’s too close to you, there’s not much room for a buck to get in front of it. If he starts in from somewhere beyond the decoy, with a tight setup he might never turn broadside until he’s right under your tree.

Be extra careful to avoid this “too close” error if you’re on the ground, as I often am on hunts for North American Whitetail TV presented by Quick Attach. Sure, I want a chip shot if I can get one — but at eye level with a mature buck nearly in my lap, all sounds and movements are magnified. I really don’t want him close enough to spit on.

In general, the more open the habitat, the better for decoying. A roaming buck might be hundreds of yards off when you spot him, and at that point he might not yet have spotted your decoy. You can rattle and/or call to get his attention and hopefully get him to see the setup. Once I know he’s seen it and is showing interest, I call very little, if any.

Don’t assume that because a decoy is easy for you to see, it’s just as visible to deer. Not only cover but also small humps or dips in the terrain can hide it from passing bucks. Even an alert deer’s head is much lower than a person’s. When in doubt, I often kneel where I’m wanting to set the decoy, then just look around. If I can’t clearly see a certain corner or other spot from which I think a buck is likely to appear, I’ll assume he couldn’t see my decoy, either.

Is there such a thing as too open? I’m not sure there is. Naturally, it can help to place the fake so a buck will feel secure in approaching. But I’ve seen how much trouble deer often have picking up decoys in timber or brush. And when their first glimpse is at close range, it can spook them. I’ve watched even big bucks bolt upon spotting decoys they felt were too close for comfort.

Setup and takedown can be tricky. If you put up a decoy long before daybreak, you risk having it approached, and even attacked, as you wait for light. This also can happen if you leave it up too long at last light. So I cut both ends of the hunting day as close as I can.

When decoying a field or plot, I’ll wait until right at legal light to pop my decoy into place, assuming no deer are in sight. In the evening, I’ll use the same approach. (Escaping any feeding area at day’s end is easier if a friend bumps deer away with a vehicle as legal light ends.)

Guideline 3: Scent Solutions

I’ve never found that big bucks insist on getting downwind of decoys, as many do when coming to rattling. Still, I often put scent on the ground, to reinforce the ruse. I’ve had great results with Evercalm, from Conquest Scents — but I wouldn’t hesitate to use an estrus scent or buck urine along with it.

Wildlife photographer Mike Biggs once told me that when he began using decoys in his photo setups, he couldn’t tell handling them with bare hands was a negative. He made no effort to keep his decoys clean and still got a lot of great photos of big, hunted bucks coming right up to them. My experience has been similar. Of course, there’s no advantage to pushing your luck on human odor. You can clean a decoy with ozone, a spray-on odor neutralizer or even a garden hose.

Guideline 4: Don't Overdo It

Next to spot-and-stalk, decoying is the most exciting archery tactic of all. Once you’ve seen it work, I think you’ll be hooked. But that’s why I must caution you: It can take serious self-control to keep from burning out a spot.

As with rattling and calling, constant decoying in one location tends to grow less effective. Yes, often we’re trying to intercept bucks roaming a wide area, and that can extend the life of a setup; the buck you fool today might have been two miles away yesterday. But over time, resident whitetails grow leery of seeing the same “frozen” deer standing in the same spot. The young buck you educate to a decoy in 2018 could be the giant that keeps his distance in 2020.

Last Nov. 10, I decoyed a big 9-pointer into crossbow range on my Missouri farm. He came in from an unexpected angle, and grass blocked any shot before he reached the Dave Smith Posturing Buck. He then bumped off a few steps but didn’t bolt. At that point I was able to get on him with my TenPoint, and within seconds it was lights out.

I doubt that buck had ever seen a decoy. Why? Because nobody had used one on the farm since 2009. The deer I shot hadn’t even been alive then.Find a place where deer haven’t been decoyed much. Should you have an encounter there but not fill your tag, maybe tweak the setup or move on to another group of deer. At a minimum, rotate stands often. Try to keep things as fresh as possible for as long as possible.

If you have a big piece of land to hunt, or a number of smaller ones, in theory you can decoy a lot. But if you’re hunting one small property, take care to limit the technique to the times, places and weather conditions in which you feel it’s really likely to pay off. That won’t be every day, and it won’t be every stand. But it doesn’t have to work every time.

In Conclusion

Some bowhunters still see decoys as gimmicks or too much trouble to bother with. But a decoy is a valuable tool. For the time, effort and dollars invested, no other tactic yields as many good shots. Around the rut, I’d far rather go bowhunting with one arrow and a decoy than a full quiver but no decoy.

Figuring out what the conditions call for is the art of all deer hunting, not just decoying. The details vary by time, habitat, weather, hunting pressure and more. But decoying isn’t just some fad. It works. So if you’ve been on the fence about trying it, hop over to the “unreal” side of whitetail bowhunting. See for yourself what all the buzz is about.

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docayin-blog · 5 years ago

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How To Use Decoys To Fool Big Bucks

The Point of It All

Of course, with a turkey gobbler it’s all about reproduction. Come spring a tom wants to mate, and few things ignite his passion the way the sights and sounds of a breeding opportunity do.

OK, “rules” is too rigid a term. Let’s go with “guidelines.” Which means go by them, but be willing to amend or even ignore them as conditions dictate.

Guideline 1: Buck vs. Doe

You might assume that for a rutting buck, a doe standing by her lonesome, waiting for him to join her, would be the hottest ticket to success. Every nerd’s dream at the school dance, right?

Guideline 2: Positioning Matters

Just sticking a decoy in front of a stand is a good way to educate deer. You’ll get educated too, but it could prove costly. So let’s try to get it right the first time.

Guideline 3: Scent Solutions

Guideline 4: Don't Overdo It

In Conclusion

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