David Blanton on Deer Hunting Tips
Dr. John Woods 02.09.17
Sometime around 1991 a young guy named David Blanton left his job and joined a new company. That new outfit was Realtree owned by one Bill Jordan, who was fresh out of playing football at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. And they are still making history.
Fast forward at light speed and David today is known internationally as a white-tailed deer hunting expert among other species of wild game. He has been featured for years on Realtree’s various outdoor hunting television shows and is a nationally recognized seminar speaker.
Accordingly he just presented at the Mississippi Wildlife Federation’s annual Wildlife Extravaganza. He held the crowd in suspension with helpful deer hunting tips, stories from his many exciting hunting trips, and a number of humorous stories that kept the audience in stitches.
Blandon opened up his seminar by confirming for me a long time theory of mine about peeing off your deer hunting stand. I have been doing that for years with no apparent detrimental impact. Blanton says over years of deer hunting, filming hunts, and consulting with science officials related to hunting that urinating off your hunting stand does not disturb deer in the slightest. So, you can leave your pee cups, bottles, bladders, and such back in camp.
According to Blanton after discussing the issue with a medical doctor he was told that urine has no particular scent quality or definition that offends other animals. Scents like gasoline, tobacco, or such are foreign in the wildlife environment and do spook deer, but urine does not.
As I have noticed, too, human pee actually seems to have a curiosity factor that deer seem to be attracted to just to check it out. I have had does walk right up to my hunting stand and stick their nose right on the plants I just peed on. Blanton stated it did not seem to have any negative impact on bucks either. So, if the urge hits, relieve yourself and the pain of waiting.
Blanton talked at length about the primary tactics to use in deer hunting. He spent considerable time discussing the impact of wind. He will not hunt any stand where the wind is not in his favor. If it changes during a hunt, he will move. If the trend continues, he will relocate his stand altogether.
It is nice to experience the knowledge of another deer hunter. And David Blanton of Realtree is one of the best.
