The answer to whether smoking scares deer is still up in the air.
Hunters have debated this topic more than once. We often approach it with our minds already made up. As a result, we overlook the fact that this is a far more complicated question. The question really leads to a discussion about whitetail deer behavior.
When dissecting this question, there are three aspects to consider. First, the conditioned behavior of a whitetail deer. Second, the individual personality of a whitetail deer. Lastly, the location of the scent itself. There is no doubt that scent matters in deer hunting unlike other pursuits like small game hunting.
Conditioned Behavior
In an article last year, we discovered one very unusual aspect of whitetail behavior:
“Whitetails need to be exposed to a scent in order to associate an experience with them…In suburban America, this becomes more complicated. If deer ran in panic at every trace of human scent, there would be nowhere left to run in the suburbs. This forces whitetails to create complex views of humans and the scents associated with them.”
Not everyone smokes. Very few hunters smoke. In a large number of cases, whitetails will have no previously established association with smoking. In some other cases, they may have been exposed to smoking from non-hunters. That means they do not likely associate smoking with a previous negative experience. Smoking is probably far more often associated with non-threatening human behavior.
Individual Personalities
As we exposed in the first book,The Urban Deer Complex, whitetails like humans have vastly different personalities. Each individual’s reaction to the scent of smoke could vary within the same context. An overcautious or timid whitetail will react in a very alert manner and be afraid of engaging the situation. Other bucks are so curious that they are far less likely to live long.
Varying Locations
The location of the scent matters, too. Like we have said before, if a whitetail smells cologne on a walking trail, they might dismiss it but become alert regardless of human presence. If you took that same cologne scent and moved it one hundred years off the trail, you would probably cause the same deer to panic wildly.
Whitetails are able to distinguish the same experience by its location. A deer or groups of deer might be unafraid of smoking on walking trails, in backyards, or other areas with regular human traffic. That same scent detected in an area with no human traffic will result in a dramatically different reaction from the deer.
We have all known the hunter that smokes. Some of us even know hunters that smoke who are also successful hunters. Any number of factors could contribute to this success despite their smoking. Wind direction and thermal currents could be to thank and so could aggressive urban tactics like hunting from walking trails. Maybe it’s a case of dumb luck or the perfect storm.
The true lesson to learn is that whitetail deer behavior has many layers. We need to understand the overall complexity of these deer. There is no simple answer. There is only simple inspection of deer behavior—from individual personalities to conditioned behavior and the whitetail’s varied responses depending on location.
A.J. DeRosa founded Project Upland in 2014 as an excuse to go hunting more often (and it worked). A New England native, he grew up hunting and has spent over 30 years in pursuit of big and small game species across three continents. He started collecting guns on his 18th birthday and eventually found his passion for side-by-side shotguns, inspiring him to travel the world to meet the people and places from which they come. Looking to turn his passion into inspiration for others, AJ was first published in 2004 and went on to write his first book The Urban Deer Complex in 2014. He soon discovered a love for filmmaking, particularly the challenge of capturing ruffed grouse with a camera, which led to the award-winning Project Upland film series. AJ's love for all things wild has caused him to advocate on the federal and state levels to promote and expand conservation policy, habitat funding, and upland game bird awareness. He currently serves as the Strafford County New Hampshire Fish & Game Commissioner in order to give back to his community and to further the mission of the agency. When those hunting excuses are in play, you can find him wandering behind his Wirehaired Pointing Griffon in the mountains of New England and anywhere else the birds take them.
