Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Rubber Hunting Boots

Le Chameau.....the sky's the limit

English text book in high school had a sentence " Children, don't forget to wear your rubbers." A few did, three cheerleaders turned up pregnant. One of them lives at my house. Damn, that was 47 years ago. Time flies when you are having a big time!!

I wear Redwing waterproof leather slip-ons. Don't see myself going back to my rubber boots unless I need to cross deeper water.

My Dad swore by those old Red Ball boots. I like LaCrosse Granges and Alpha Burly 800's. Current Granges have some cracks that have started to leak. Luckily it was a dry deer season this year. They gotta be 12+ years old. I have high arches and Mucks just don't give me the support I need. Course I haven't tried any on in many years; they may have changed. Southern and Eastern AR (the Delta) demand rubber or neoprene boots extremely wet and muddy conditions most years.

Scent free rubber boots... LOL. Give it some more years you will figure it all out. Took me many to also.

The mucks Carolyn has are neoprene up top... that damn sure holds scent...

I kill deer as well as I ever did. I wear rubber boots when its wet. Beyond that I wear whatever I have. Obviously I don't have em doused in gas, but the fire boots I wear daily may have some funk on them some days too...leatehr.

Years ago, after setting up my ladder stand, I climbed in to see what I could see. A 7-point came through, following my trail and obviously sniffing my tracks. He kept coming down the trail and then proceeded to chew the branches over a scrape about 30 yards away before moving on. I killed him, or his twin brother, on opening morning from that stand.

He obviously smelled my tracks and obviously didn't GAF about it in the absence of other danger signs. Maybe a older and wiser one would have.

I killed a buck in November with my ML. A spike that was with my buck fidgeted around after the shot, smelling the fallen deer now and again, and in general acting confused about the situation. He finally wandered off in the direction from which they had come. I got down from my stand and my son came over and helped me dress out the buck. Then we went back to our stands, leaving my pack lying next to the dressed buck. Soon after, the spike came back, repeated the sniffing business with the deer and my pack, actually touching it with his nose. Again, he eventually turned and went back the way he'd come from, agitated, but not panicked.

I don't know how you wear your boots but when I wear mine the rubber part touches the ground I'm sure if I brush against tall grass are brush with the top it may leave a scent.
sometimes you could smoke a stogie cigar on stand and deer don't care, I've even heard of them coming up to smell a smoldering pile of crap a hunter just took near his stand (emergency crap couldn't get any further) But I have seen deer, hogs and coyotes repel and run off as soon as they hit my trail too. I just know that my deer sightings went up when I started wearing rubber boots.

I've seen similar behavior. I've never seen a mature buck do such though.

Pigs are the answer. Rubber boots and scent blocker stuff rarely rarely fools pigs noses. That's enough for me.

My sightings have gone up because I know more about what I"m doing, even though I figured out camo and rubber boots and scent blocker stuff isn't where you should spend your time.

I will add though, on your side of the argument, none of the above can ever hurt anything.

Never mind the part that I have yet to have a dog that could not follow me, in rubber boots, even in the days I was anal and would wash them in baking soda and hang em in a cedar tree during the day while not hunting...

Much better to keep teh wind in your face, the sun at your back, and approach from safe areas...Thats about as foolproof as you can get.

We all gage mature differently at times. What I can say is we've shot a trash buck, and had it fall over for some reason instead of run off on the place where we have to hunt out of stands and with feeders.... and later a more mature buck will come by and eat next to the dead one. 5.5 is about the oldest I can age one on the hoof IE guessing, and for sure I"ve had 4.5 year old ones do it.

Years ago I had shot a spike and a 4.5 year old buck came by later, not large enough for my tastes and kicked the arrow out of the way while eating the rest of the evening...

This is not common though from what I"ve seen.

Abnormal sights/scents/sounds is what gets them IMHO. Around our house, you can hunt without having taken a shower or changing clothes generally without a worry, although from the bow stand up close now and then it will get you.

One of the best bucsk I've shot with a bow over the yeras, shot at 15 steps, and had come downwind of me coming into the stand, I'd just drive home in the drizzle, put on a pair of ski pants and an old goretex mil jacket and sat down 5 minutes earlier... that deer was aged at 6.5 He was not full downwind, but he was about 90% of the way there, when he angled and came on in.

But that stand is at the house, couple hundred feet away, the dog barks at the deer half the time, we go in and out of the house, barn etc... drive in and drive off and most of the time the deer don't care. Obviously the mature ones are a bit spookier than the young ones but thast to be expected overall.

That spike's lack of reaction to his dead companion might be due to the spined buck's instant demise without any fuss or commotion. A red fox was hunting mice a few yards from the buck at the shot, and he returned to his work while I sat in my stand trying to reload without spooking the spike (thought at first that it was a legal doe). No doubt that deer in this area get a nose full of human stink on a regular basis, and a lot of them probably don't get too riled unless the danger is confirmed by sight or sound, merely alerted, at least until hunting pressure starts to wise them up. Older deer, as noted before, are probably spookier.

I did go on and order a pair of the Cabelas duratraxx they have on sale. I have had deer hit my trail and spook recently was the reason I asked. I had wandered into a new stand at dark through some brush and probably didnt take the best route in. The deer fed through the flat and one of the deer I couldn't see spooked, so all the rest of them spooked. The only thing I can figure is that one of them hit my trail I walked in on. Also 5 years or so ago I had a pair of cabelas rubber boots I had purchased for waterfowl. I wore them to my deer stand one day and walked right in to my stand like I always did. A while later a few does came by and when they hit the path I walked in on they stopped. They freaked out but didnt run, they walked up and down the scent trail but wouldn't cross it. Finally, they just turned and went back where they came from. I agree with the playing the wind, but a lot of times where I hunt it is swirling, the deer come from all different directions, whatever. I try to do whatever I can to get that deer as close as I can. 10 yards could be the difference in seeing the trophy of a lifetime or it slipping away without you knowing it was ever there.