opinions on whether or not ATV's spook mature bucks

I have killed a lot of deer where I drove my Polaris to within a few hundred yards of my stand. However, I am beginning to think that mature bucks (4-5 yr old) may be very hard if not impossible to hunt when you drive near your stand. I am not talking about the rut, just everyday hunting between bedding/feeding travel routes and using the wind properly. Your thoughts?

for sure think the sound (immediately) and scent (for the entire hunt) effects the hunt.

would for sure plan parking around wind if driving a gas vehicle.

I think if people are blowing by them all the time and getting real close to there bedding regular it doesn't help. One thing I have noticed, anytime I have been hunting a new area or maybe the roads have gotten real bad, and I end up having to walk a lot further than I normally would have parked. I usually see way more deer. I am trying to make a habit of it now and my fat a$$ could certainly use the exercise anyway!

It effects them IMO. We went to all electric vehicles at our camp and our sightings went up. Way up actually

I am 100% sure that they spook bucks. They spook does too. I have seen deer get spooked and run or bounce off from the sound of an ATV on a neighboring property or even on the highway a half mile away. After seeing that a few times, it was enough to make me not use one anymore during the season unless I need it to drag a buck out.

This. I use them only for recovery .

Will go a step further than ATV's. On our club we have a lot of gas well roads - so our deer are familiar with trucks being in/out regularly. Yesterday, I was watching a mature buck in a food plot when a guy drove in one ridge over from me. From the time the guy left the gate off the main road, the buck grew more and more tense - and finally bolted out of the plot when the truck was about "equal level" on that ridge to our ridge. Didn't totally bust with blowing and "scramming"... but quickly turned and loped out of the plot.

most of the folks where I hunt drive their UTV or gas-powered golf cart all the way to their stand. Literally parked AT their stand. there are 5 of us hunting this property...you can count the total number of deer seen this year, by everyone combined, on 1 hand.

ymmv

I killed a mature 8 point on Skyline once and my atv was at the base of my tree. It was a year old cut over. It was straight up luck because the only reason I done that was to observe a spot you could see from the tree I was in. Luckily he walked right to me and I shot him at 40 yards.

^^ bingo

Recovery only.

We banned them on our property with the exception of deer recovery. Walk in, truck or electric vehicles on the main spine road only. It does make a difference I promise.

YES YES YES. I have physically watched a buck for 45 minutes beneath my stand. The buck stood up from his bed after a 4 wheeler was cranked 3/4 to a mile away. The buck preened his neck and cocked his head toward the sound. The buck turned around, tucked his tail and headed off in the opposite direction of the 4 wheeler sound. The buck had ignored road sounds and people playing in the distance. There must be something to the pitch of a 4 wheeler that SCARES DEER!!!

Same for me.

I think to some extent it depends on what they are used to, if there are trucks/ATVs running around the property on a regular basis it don't seem to bother them as bad. I also think they are individualistic animals, may spook the daylights out of one deer and another just stand there and watch it drive by.

I also think the mature deer have a lower tolerance level for it. One place I hunt I drive up the backside of a very steep hill and park downwind and below the stand. Have watched small bucks walk right by my truck and not even give it a second glance.

I believe so as well, and no doubt it affects turkeys. I will not hunt turkeys from an atv.

My hunting buddy has a bad boy buggy and we drive right up on a lot of game. I do on my atv too but not nearly as much. electric cart is the way to go. If you have an atv park along way from the hunt and walk. I will get an electric eventually. I just don't like it when they run out of juice!

Yes.

Yep, electric would be great if it weren't for the whole battery deal.......

If you hunt somewhere that is flat, with really good roads, then you'll probably be ok. If you hunt somewhere that has a lot of hills and/or less-than-ideal roads, it'll drain batteries quick.

Snow killed my cart super fast Saturday morning. Glad that's a rarity

People don't realize just how much rolling resistance snow and mud can cause.

I think bucks that make it past 3.5 are on alert 24/7. They know the roads we travel, when we travel them, and where the stands are. They know they are under the most danger when it's daylight. I don't think ATV travel significantly alters their travel patterns as far as where they go, but I do think it can affect their daylight movement. My personal opinion is that in my part of the state, this is the reason so many good bucks are killed the first week of the season. As the traffic and commotion on a piece of property steadily increases you will see an corresponding decrease mature buck sightings and kills until the rut in mid-January when bucks seem to just pop up out of the ground like popcorn for about 10 days. They've been there the whole time but just laying low until dark and stay back in hard to access areas. Of course you will still have some nice kills as evidenced by the photos on Aldeer. Heck, on Saturday, one of our members in our Lowndes club killed a 205lb 8 point on a food plot 100 yards off THE main ATV road through our property.

Dr. B

If you drive the fourwheeler around often in mid day or times they're not feeding they get used to it and pay it not attention. Hunting pressure is gonna be the biggest denominator always. I personally don't think the fourwheeler bothers them.

I haven't seen any adverse effects. Some deer don't like anything, some don't care about nothing.

We used to drive a pickup into the center of a large field (about 30 acres) and park it so it would be centrally located. That driving added a lot of noise to the silence of early morning. I didn't know just how much noise until my buddy had to drop me off and then go back to the camp for something he forgot that morning. I walked on to my stand, which was about 300 yards from the parking spot, and was set up waiting by the time he returned and parked. Sitting there in the dark, I heard every gate chain rattle, hinge squeak and truck door noise. And we thought we were being as quiet as possible. Since that day, we walk in every time. When hunting, we only drive to retrieve a deer.

Heck ya it bothers them. Next question.

I was exactly 1 mile from where my uncle was hunting a couple weeks ago and I knew exactly when he was on his way out because I heard his buggy crank up. I was a little surprised at how well that sound traveled. You would never hear a truck that far with normal exhaust.

I prefer walking but it's probably a toss up.

The deer on our property are like cattle except the mature bucks. When they hear the sxs leaving from filling up the protein feeders they immediately come sometimes within minutes. But the mature bucks even the ones who would come in within minutes when they were younger tend to shy away until nightfall. It is of my opinion that they get a little more cautious and a lot more lazy. they wait for the other deer and coons to knock the feed on the ground and feed in the coolness of night. As for whether it affects them from a hunting stand point I would tend to believe as long as you didn't park directly by them or have the scent of the atv blowing to them it would be of minimal impact. I figured some loggers would give their stories of big bucks walking up to their equipment because of their curiosity but I think that has more to do with the smells of the disturbed earth than it does their machinery

Here's my problem. I have and atv and a electric cart. Our club is 2000 acres and the main road from the camp to the "back" is over 5 miles. Plus when it rains the first mile or so is real muddy which the cart can't handle. When I get about halfway back there is a real steep clay hill that would kill the cart dry must less muddy.
My perfect solution would be leave the cart at the bottom of the hill and then use it from there but I have no way to charge batteries back there. Plus I guess it's useless when the other club members would drive their atv back there anyway.

My dad farmed for about 20 years and has told me numerous stories of deer coming in the field just to investigate, with 2 of the bucks being the largest he had ever seen. Something about the smell of diesel exhaust and the low RPM smooth running diesel doesn't bother them. I also have a friend who uses a kubota RTV diesel to get to the stand, drives through the middle of their food plots and still kill good deer every year. A gas 4 wheeler though, they run for the hills.

I think it depends on how much you use them. I used to hunt deep woods deer where any motorized noise would spook deer.
I now hunt on two farms where we use atvs regularly for checking cattle, fixing fences, pruning peach trees, almost daily. The deer don't seem to pay much attention to them at all. I've got pictures that show mature bucks walking a firelane just 10 minutes after I drove down the lane checking fences.

I am convinced that if deer are accustomed to sounds, it doesn't bother them at all. For evidence of my assumption - drive down the interstate at night and count the number of deer standing on the side of the road.

I killed a very large 8-point a few years ago within 2-minutes of the property owner leaving. He had pulled up to my stand and talked to me for about 20-minutes and left. After he drove off, the deer walked straight to me without a care in the world. The deer on this piece of property hear that same truck every single day driving around the property.

And probably thought the farmer had gone home and was safe to come out and lay lol.

I seriously think you are correct. I wonder if the sound of whatever vehicle departing and getting quieter makes them think the associated danger is gone.

I like to stay late on fields. I will be the last person back to camp usually. I can’t tell you how many times I have watched a distant 4 wheeler clear the whole field.

Correct.

However, older bucks waaaay back in the big woods that have never seen Farmer Brown a wheeler bugs them a lot.

They are the absolute best thing ever created for deer recovery, and the absolute worst thing ever for hunting.

It obviously would bother them. One of the properties I hunt stretches 3 miles. It would be impossible to hunt without some sort of transportation. We've killed good deer using fourwheelers to navigate the property and will continue to do so.

I'll hike much more and much further then most normal hunters would consider, but I ain't about to hike a 6 mile round trip in hillbilly land.

Years ago I was in a CLUB WITH A PIECE OF LAND IN fT dEPOSIT.
Opening morning a fella was in his shooting house early. when the other members came in on their four wheelers they ran a mature bachelor group by him. He killed three mature bucks that morning. That afternoon he killed a four point. Typical Bama buck hunter.

If they hear it all year and dont get harrassed then i dont think they care too much. But if you are never on the property then come hunting season, you show up and drive every weekend, it bothers them more. Id rather have them get use to me always being there, then hunting is no different. Maybe ifyou left feed each time you drove out, but took different routes the stand they would think of an atv as a dinner bell.

Mature deer are just like us, each one is different. Mature deer that live where they seldom hear atv's, i'm sure are more scared than ones that here them all the time. One thing to think about, is when you walk a long way to your stand you are leaving a lot of human scent behind. I have watched deer in thick cover haul ass when someone walked by, and then just stand there when someone drove by. Do atv's put off scent, yes, but not so much human scent. I don't drive to my stand, but I also don't walk 500 yards to it either. Usually I drive slowly to within 200 yards of my stand. This limits my scent, but doesn't get too close.

If you're scaring deer off with your 4-wheelers, then you need to use a gasoline with a higher ethanol content.

Deer will become use to their surroundings. That’s why you see big deer in subdivisions just like that show in Atlanta where the guys are hunting near houses. At Swan Creek I have watched deer right beside stopped trains or close by when a train comes by blowing their horn. Didn’t phase them. I don’t drive up to my stand but walk anywhere from 2-400 yds from my ATV. I know in clear cuts they sure do use the ATV trails to move about.

I believe it all depends on situation.. we have a main road that runs through our property that we have shooting houses on. I have been sitting in one of the houses, had one of the members drive by me and not 5-10 minutes later have deer step out. We also had a member a couple of years ago that had foot problems that couldn't walk distances so he would drive to the shooting house, park 4 wheeler under or behind it and he killed 2 of the bigger deer that we have killed. So it all depends.

I choose to believe it doesn't spook them. This is largely in part to me being a fatass and really, really, really, really not wanting to walk a mile to my stand.

I do think hunting land that has roads/highways nearby does help to get the deer used to the "sounds of man", but I've got no data on that

Mine won't run on corn juice, guess that's why they high tail it!

To be honest, I have no idea. I will say this, a few years ago, I booked an outfitter in Pike Co, IL. He drove a full size suburban. As we approached a greenfield, it was already loaded with deer. He drove me to the base of my stand. He said "they will be back". I got out, climbed the ladder stand, he left, and in about 30 min, all deer were back, and walked right under my stand. Granted, none in the field were shooters, but, it did happen none the less. Here in AL, I think they are extremely "weary" and whatever we can do to mitigate sounds, can only help.

Gotta admire the honesty!

a few years back i was hunting a food plot about 150 yards off the highway. woods were between plot and highway. At dusk i had 2 does in food plot. I heard an atv crank up and was heading in my direction. I could see the camphouse from my stand and thought one of the guys was coming back early. The does looked in the direction of the sound and changed their direction and started feeding back towards the way they had came. Took about 10 seconds to leave the field. Turned out it was the neighbor who was scared of the dark and always left his stand early. Even though these deer were use to the road noises, that atv spooked them a little. His 4 wheeler sounded just like the sxs we used.

That being said later that year, i shot my biggest buck to date after some of the other guys in camp drove through all the plots pulling sd cards, on the SxS. He followed doe out into ag field.

conclusion, they definitely are aware of it and are more skittish of it than normal vehicles. but it doesnt run them out of the county. Mature deer can definitely pattern the hunter who uses them though.

I completely agree!

The quieter, the better! Gas powered ATV/UTVs are louder than my Tundra. I'm looking into a UTV and seriously considering going electric due to the noise factor

anyone try those ATV/UTV silencer deals? basically looks like a 2nd muffler........always wondered if they made a substantial difference

Years ago I had some friends the had a place in coosa co on hatchet creek. They would see a few deer and kill a few but nothing like the other people around them. The hunted with ATVs and would drive to about 100yds from the stands. They would always notice deer tracks in their boot tracks when they would go back in the afternoons. They tried hunting mid day and still nothing. An old nieghbor told the to go to the stand in the morning with 2 people. Have one leave on the ATV around the normal time they would leave and one stay in the stand. They did it and he told me that he could still hear the ATV when the deer came out into the plot. The deer had them patterned by the sound of the ATVs. They started using the trucks and walking all the way in and they started killing more deer. Got to remember we are in their world.

watched a show on african safari high-$$$ hunting where the guide said their SOP is to run the truck up to the ground blind/stand & drop the hunter off while they got into the stand & got all settled in, their noise & scent covered up by the truck -- and then they'd leave on the truck & voila, here came the wildlife back into the area ...