Shut up! Those frantic words silently shrieked in my mind as a whitetail doe continued her alarm snorts from across the field. Blame me for tripping her alarm. I knew at least a half dozen deer were feeding on the hayfield at dusk, but after a few minutes of complete darkness, I thought my Batman moves would allow me to slip from my treestand perch with silence and tiptoe out along the edge without alarming the homeowners. I was wrong and now paying the painful price.

The simple act of leaving a treestand or blind without being detected has plagued hunters for generations. Deer expect to see danger in their homeland, so the occasional startle should not rattle your nerves, even with a prolonged snorting event occurring in the background. What should concern you is repeatedly surprising deer at your favorite stand. Events that happen again and again cause you and your animal relatives to be apprehensive.

Would you continue to walk down the same dimly lit sidewalk every evening if a shadowy figure followed you? Deer form that same conclusion when phantoms appear recurrently from the same shadows. Even though you have no desire to pursue these deer that you encounter on your trek, they don’t understand your intentions. Fight or flight runs through their mind, and flight takes precedence when the danger can quickly be put in the rearview mirror. Of course, for good measure, deer seem to always add in a good dose of snorting just to rub it in that you are not Batman. 

Every stand and blind situation differs. No right answer exists on how to be undisruptive in your ingress and egress from a stand. As you formulate a plan, consider deer schedules. Are they entering a field at dusk after daytime bedding? Are they returning to bedding after an evening of browsing? Do they make pit stops on their daily travels to water, mast sites or minerals? Answer these questions to help you avoid as many unforeseen surprises as possible.

Stage Door Right

Take the stage door refers to the back access actors and theater works utilize to stay out of the way of the public. Scout for your own stage door when placing treestands, staking ground blinds or shoring up a permanent blind. This becomes a true test in topography-challenged environments. Do not worry. There are more options in the following text, but think creatively as look for a stage door.

Instead of placing your ambush hideout on the edge or even in the field, search for areas where you might back it into a clump of brush that connects to a depression, draw or coulee. By trimming out a tunnel to your ambush, you utilize the brush as concealment and then drop into the depression to disappear.

You might need to give up a few yards of shooting comfort (think 30 yards instead of 20), but backing your stand into the edge by 10 yards or more, surrounds you with timber for escape. Shadows, brush, dense timber and hopefully another depression afford you a bandit’s invisible getaway. A hunting app, such as the popular HuntStand, aids in mapping out your escape from there to stay clear of deer travel routes they use to enter a field, plus utilize predominant winds as you backdoor it out. Marking your trail out with reflective tacks creates a stress-free exit as does marking your trail on your hunting app. A flashlight energized with new batteries and your smartphone combined make any nighttime trek a breeze.

This tactic works for both morning and evening sits. In the evenings, access your stand straight across a field utilizing ample scent elimination, such as Scent Killer, on your boots and gear. At dark, after the field fills with deer, exit out the back. In the mornings, carefully sneak into your ambush hide via the backdoor extra early to allow the area to settle. After your sunrise hunt, exit across the wide open. You will need to hike a bit farther using this system depending on your parking logistics, but under the cover of darkness and geographic features, you win the Batman award.

Hang Out in the Shadows

If an edge set or one just inside cover does not compute for invisibility, consider going farther into the shadows. Unlike an obvious location such as a field edge where you know the time and arrival points of your quarry, it is more of a challenge in the timber. Deep-woods sets offer many advantages to maintaining a cloaked presence, but you need to acquire as much intel on your target deer as possible for success. First, you must determine approximate daytime sanctuary. You need to ascertain travel routes in and out, plus timing of trail usage. Lastly, you must determine if other elements may sidetrack their routine such as visits to mast, water or even bedroom adjustments due to weather variables. Wind swapping 180 degrees almost always guarantees deer bedroom substitutions.

With help unraveling the deer movement pattern, rely on a partner such as the Moultrie Mobile Edge Pro cellular camera. Real-world updates on movement around these areas in preseason and during the hunt help you know when to make your sneaky moves at an interior ambush location. Don’t forget to combine topography into your interior moves as well. Small ridges, dry creeks and hillside undergrowth all aid in keeping you out of sight, along with a downwind approach.

While bowhunting along a South Dakota alfalfa field, the intense presence of deer relying on the field for nutrition created an army to slip past day or night. After brainstorming options, mornings seemed best and I utilized a dry wash on the field edge to access a stand in a funnel of willows that led to a heavy timber sanctuary. Two sits later, a group of deer with a mature 5x5 in its midst left the field and at daylight passed directly underneath, oblivious to my presence. It was a great start to the day.

Variety Is the Spice of Life

Maybe you hunt a large property. You might also be lucky enough to manage multiple food plots. Nirvana could be your saving grace. It is not the answer for most of you, but multiple stands and multiple food plots equal multiple options to keep deer guessing on your next appearance. Even though you may bump deer on occasion, the unpredictability is your redeeming quality. The bounty of habitat improvements attracts deer, disperses them throughout the various gardens of Eden, and cements an unwillingness to leave. 

Depending on the makeup of the property, having two or more food plots provides options for at least two stands on each plot for wind variables, maybe more. Then you have alternatives for interior stands and specialized stand placement in oaks when mast drops or at a waterhole if water is a rare commodity. Create a calendar to rotate hunting locations for yourself and hunting partners to keep deer guessing. And it never hurts to throw in other secretive routes to further keep deer from deciphering your true intentions.

A farm I hunt in Kansas offers the perfect example of this strategy. No less than four large food plots exist on the farm, with at least two ambush hides per food location. Interspersed on whitetail paths are another dozen stands. Deer have no willingness to leave the area due to the plethora of nutrition combined with deep draws for sanctuary. By alternating the use of stands, deer never gain a true perspective of ongoing hunting patterns. Several years ago, I keyed in on a heavy-beamed buck that stayed on the eastern edge of the farm. Three different stands offered opportunities to meet up with this buck on an upland food plot. It took me the better part of a week, but I ended up tagging that brute, my best yet with a bow, through a rotational use of stands. He never knew where I would show up next.

Call an Uber

Believe it or not, “sneaky” and “trucks” do go together in the right venue. Using a vehicle for drop off or pick up can be less spooky, especially if you condition deer to the activity. Around a busy farm deer may already be accustomed to the presence of tractors, trucks and particularly side-by-sides. Throughout the seasons, agricultural life demands the use of combustible engines to keep things going. Mimic the land managers’ patterns and expand on them slightly to create a sense of occasional vehicle normalcy in your hunting area.

Dropping off in the afternoon and picking up in the mornings creates little chance of fear in deer if the routine is subtle and smooth. The sound of distant motors humming along with only the slightest stop hardly makes deer look twice on many busy properties after daylight. 

Your stress arises from the dreaded nighttime pick-up where your chauffeur must drive in the dark past untold numbers of deer, particularly on food plots. Take a breath and consider what I have experienced and my peers repeat. Your chauffeur will see flagging tails in the headlights, but deer have superpower confidence in the dark. Most bound to an edge, wait in the dark and shortly after you leave, they return to feeding. Even most mature bucks react this way after reviewing evening trail camera images. The greatest factor to reduce fear is to not shut an engine off and make the pickup almost seamless in time with no loitering at the stand site. Get in and go — and no talking with a door or window opened. 

For years I guided whitetail hunters in eastern Montana and used this style of picking up daily on the large hayfields found there. Today, my hunting partners and I routinely pick up each other after dark using a side-by-side and our success rate keeps a steady trend of tagging bucks.

Wait Them Out or Blow Them Out

Finally, you do have two last options: Wait them out or blow them out. Both have risks and are mainly associated with egress at night. First, waiting them out has cons in the fact deer may not leave a field after arriving. Your trail cameras and ample research indicate deer often browse on a field and then simply plop down and bed to digest food in the assurance of darkness. Add to that fact you likely have family and career obligations waiting for you. Your spouse may not appreciate you sitting in a tree all night like a great horned owl. Speaking of owls, you can blow deer out with some fakery. Back in junior high, I tested my thespian skills and did okay. I revive them occasionally while trying to sneak out of an ambush site when surrounded by deer.

Another option in this murky setting is to mimic various animals to create the illusion of nature with a touch of anxiousness. Create just enough of an incident to make deer back off or make them believe the noise they hear is just part of a PBS Nature documentary. The hoot of owls, chirping squirrels, chattering raccoons and the likes all can cover your exit down a tree or to reach a brush line. And since nobody should be hunting well after shooting light (I keep telling myself this) I even hump over to create the form of a deer and grunt my way out to imitate a rutting buck. All of these have worked for me more than not.

Sidebar: A Pack to Pack It All

I split my time equally between elk and whitetail country. There are vast differences between the environments, even when pursuing western whitetails. One element I do see some crossover in is transporting gear. To date, I have yet to find a daypack capable of being an elk partner and surprisingly, even a whitetail support system. I just find that most packs are of an inadequate size, especially once cooler weather sets in. Hiking in and out of your whitetail ambush sites, particularly while trying to minimize disturbances, could add up to a mile or more of hiking. For me, that means packing in my clothing layers in addition to calls, lunch, first aid and other necessities of the hunt. Packing reduces sweating and increases your ability to stay on stand longer.

Fortunately, ALPS OutdoorZ produced the customizable Elite pack system. This innovative system allows you to purchase the pack frame separately and then you can customize it with the purchase of a pack. Currently, ALPS offers two packs, an 1,800-cubic-inch and a 3,800-cubic-inch pack bag. Packs attach and detach with ease utilizing an aluminum hook system. Both are lightweight with the 3,800-bag and frame weighing less than 6 pounds. 

The pack frame’s contoured lumbar design, torso adjustment, air mesh and construction from rugged 500D Cordura guarantee the pack will tame any experience. Packs are hydration compatible and include a rain fly, plus a bow/rifle carrying system. Strap your bow on the back after stuffing the pack and your hands are free to scramble up the next whitetail ridge.