Throughout my 74 years of whitetail hunting, there was always something new each year that was supposed to improve deer or buck hunting success. Back in the 1940s when I first began deer hunting, everyone was filing the buckhorns off their open sights because it was claimed they caused hunters to shoot high and miss deer. Soon after that half the hunters in my deer gang had peep sights, guaranteed to improved accuracy when taking quick shots at bounding deer (during drives). Then came scopes, difficult to use at first, especially when takng aim at bounding deer. The next new innovation of note appeared in the early 1980s, namely portable tree stands. These soon convinced hunters everywhere things could be purchased in stores that actually do improve hunting success. From sighting few deer short distances away per day, most of them bounding, early first time tree stand users were commonly sighting as many as twenty or more deer per day, including trophy-class bucks, and most of them were standing or moving slowly within 50 yards, providing easy shots. Then came doe urine containing doe-in-heat pheromone which could be used in every imaginable way to take a buck. This set the stage for a growing tidal wave of new and different innovations claimed to improve deer or buck hunting success. Like everyone else, I purchased and tried many of them, including rattling antlers, various calls, varieties of portable stands, gadgets that required the use of great quantities of doe-in-heat lure scents and more. Some enabled me to take trophy-class bucks from the outset but within 10 years no buck in my hunting area older than a yearling (except a couple older bucks that were drawn near by the conservative use of rattling antlers) could be fooled by them with one exception. Our portable tree stands were the exception, continuing to be productive if located at well selected, mature-buck-effective stand sites never used before during the first first, second and sometimes a third half day following 4–5 days of no hunting at one site.

Why do hunting aids lose their effectveness, especially for hunting older bucks? As we later discovered (via tracks in snow), unseen bucks 3-1/2 years of age or older and many mature does were almost routinely discovering us at our stand sites within 1–30 hours after we began using them, thereafter avoiding them even during following years. This makes sense. Contrary to what is commonly believed, mature whitetails have excellent memories, meaning, once learned they are unlikely to make the same dangerous mistake twice. Moreover, because younger whitetails readily imitate actions of older whitetails taking unusual precautions to avoid sites, sounds and scents used by hunters, they are likely to continue taking the same evasive actions despite never knowing why.

In time I begin to wonder if the once very effective grunt call and/or lure scent I continued to occasionally use, perhaps imperfect to begin with, was now actually making it easier for mature bucks to identify me and pinpoint my location without seeing or smelling me, thus making it easier to avoid me. Whatever the reason for waning effectiveness, it was becoming more and more obvious it was a consequence of overuse—continuing to use them too often, too long and perhaps improperly (blowing on a call too loudly, for example) at same or new sites throughout our hunting area because they worked so well initially. With this probability in mind, I began a new series of studies to discover ways (precautions) to overcome any damage we had done.