To pee or not to pee

theox

Very Active Member
Messages
2,278
Ok so talking to whitetail guys many swear that urine doesn't effect a deer coming to an area.

I've always felt it was more scent in an area and figured it would be a predator scent. So I've never peed in an area that I hunt.

How do U guys feel? Do deer and elk shy away from
Human urine?

I'll probably still avoid urinating within a few hundred yards of where I sit because it just makes sense to me.

Well let's hear your thoughts on this one
 
Old wives tale! There is really no difference in urine since it's sterile and once it's excreted it turns to ammonia pretty quick. I've killed a lot of whitetails over 50+ years of hunting and if I have to pee I let it fly even up in a tree stand.
 
LAST EDITED ON Apr-26-16 AT 04:21PM (MST)[p]I'd like to be able to hold it, but not. When I gotta' go, I gotta' go. But I do try to plan ahead when stalking into a spot.

New Business Idea! Little bag hunters can strap to their pack and attach it to their..........and there you go. Water bladders and urine bladders on packs.

Brian Latturner
MonsterMuleys.com
LIKE MonsterMuleys.com on Facebook!
 
>
>New Business Idea! Little bag hunters
>can strap to their pack
>and attach it to their..........and
>there you go. Water bladders
>and urine bladders on packs.
>
>
>

Just don't get them mixed up
 
LAST EDITED ON Apr-26-16 AT 04:34PM (MST)[p]Years ago I peed, went down a ridge and circle around to have two small muley bucks running away from where I pissed.
 
So i guess taking a healthy dump is out of the question? :)

Drs have me on water pills. If i'm hunting, i'll have to go, never effected my hunting that i know of, one way or another.


Joey

Keep your slimy Paws Off My, Yours, Our,.. Public Land!!!
 
If I'm on the ground I dig a little hole with my boot heel and pee or poop in there and cover it up. In a tree I usually carry a gatorade bottle to pee in.
 
Guess none of you Hunt Elk much!

Just Take a Whizz!

And You'll Send them to the next County!

I used to Buy Cow Elk Whizz in Quantities!

Guaranteed they'd never confuse me for a Human!

You Guys probably Piss in the City Pool Too!











[font color="blue"]HUNTIN,FISHIN,AND LOVIN EVERY DAY,I WANNA SEE
THEM TALL PINES SWAY!
[/font]
 
A few years back, I was waiting for a buck to stand up, since all I could see were his antlers sticking above the sage. The buck was a 190 yards out, and I had waited for an hour and a half. It got to a point where I had to pee so bad, and all I could do is pee while on my knees. While I'm peeing, I glanced over at the deer; damned if he didn't decide to stand up and take a stretch. I quickly dove back down, laid the rifle on my backpack and let it fly. It happened so fast, I forgot to zip up!.....but I got him.
 
This is getting off topic a bit but it's related. In the last 10 years or so, i've had to way adjust in not being able to hunt like i had, i needed to stay closer to my camper rig. Through the years, there was many a time i'd be getting back to my rig and i'd see deer not too far off. I back then got the idea in my head that i could park my rig, in certain spots i had found thru the years, and kill a buck just as easy as walking out the back door of my Pop-up.

Well i did/have done that a couple/few times, shot a decent or better representative buck from within 50ys of my rig. Seems these deer, as long as they have plenty of cover, still live their lives and do occasionally expose themselves to our hunting, even if the strong sent of people is nearby.

All bets are off on pack way back in hunts, my experience there has not been enough to form a educated opinion.

Joey

Keep your slimy Paws Off My, Yours, Our,.. Public Land!!!
 
Stalking and tree stand hunting are two different things in my book. In a tree I use a jug every single time. Not that hard to plan ahead if you're stand hunting.
Some say it doesn't matter and that's okay for them but for me I'll use all the tricks and a urine jug isn't that hard to plan for.
There's my 2 cents,
Zeke
 
Growing up in MN, we would sit in the stand from 1 hour before sunrise till 1/2 hour after sunset. We would carry a empty water bottle with us to pee in. as far as #2 you went in the morning or you held it all day!
Not sure if it actually helped or not but that's what we did.
Now hunting out west I just go when ever I need to, mostly due to I am constantly moving and glassing vs sitting a stand. However when I do sit a stand I try not to go there, old habits die hard.
Mntman

"Hunting is where you prove yourself"
 
Rapp'en about Urine and not Turnin a big Bruin, isn't a Sin Your in, it's sips of Gin, that made you Grin, so now you're ask'n, elkassassin, how to fix the smells of Your own Piss'en, as he's hold'n bags of Cow Piss'en so he doesn't do, any miss'en. Think it's time we Hunt some Swine, Though some may wine, the Winds weren't so Davine and finds out, someone is Pissen, down your Spine.
 
I don't think it affects whitetails as much as muleys and elk. Couple years ago we were hunting whitetails in Kansas, got to my stand first thing in the morning and had to go #2 bad, didn't have time to get far from my stand, bout 10 yards. Did my business thinking I probably screwed the morning hunt up. About an hour later here came 3 does that went straight to where I went, they stood there and sniffed it for a good 5-10 minutes and wandered off un alarmed.
 
We used to back pack a lot into the Mable Mountain Wilderness in CA. 100% blacktail deer country. If you peed near camp, here would come the deer. They would eat the dirt where you peed. They must have been after the salt I guess. They would sneak in and pull sweaty socks off the clothes line too.

So, in some locations, pee works better than Trophy Rock.
 
I would say whitetails are 100 times more paranoid than muleys. I have lived and hunted in whitetail country for the last 13 years and I found just letting it go out of the tree stand didn't have much effect. Maybe it is because whitetail live in closer proximity to humans and their structures in general. Of course I I have also seen them cross my trail coming in and bolt just from the smell of my rubber boots. If I am on the ground I usually try to kick dirt over it.
 
Very interesting replies! Sounds like there is no conclusive evidence either way. I think I will still pee away from where I am sitting or hunting a big one. Maybe I'll set a cam up and pee near it and see how the deer react to it.
 
It's all about "inherited instincts" (borrowed from Jim Horn). Obviously, the animals can smell your urine, heck I can smell it with my bad nose. Then it's association. Once they make that association of human urine with human danger...the gigs up.

When you see animals unafraid of human urine, it's only because they haven't experienced an association of it with danger...yet.
 
While hunting in Iowa a few years back, my buddy who I was hunting with there was telling us that pee had no effect whatsoever on whitetails.

He had found a scrape on a razorback ridge a couple days before we arrived to hunt. We took a ladder stand into the location and set it up above the scrape. I had to piss before we left, and my buddy instructed me to do so on the scrape! I did so.

The next morning, I arrowed my biggest whitetail ever from that stand. Pretty obvious piss has no adverse effect.

My buddy from Iowa pisses whenever he needs to while hunting. His record of large bucks speaks for itself...
 
Many a time I have seen deer in the Uinta back country lick rocks and even tree branches that had been peed on. They must be really hungry for salt.

Near my home once I crossed a small canyon and later saw a doe on the opposite side. When it came to the spot where I came down the opposite ridge, it wheeled around and tore off in the opposite direction as fast as it could go due the the scent I had left behind just passing through.

The place I used to bow hunt in south central Utah was crawling with deer on the opener, but they got scarce after a couple of days. By then, hunters had hung their butts across every log on the trails and dropped a big one. You had to be very cautious when you stepped over a log in the trail because you never knew what was laying there, and maybe that is part of the reason the deer always cleared out of the heavily hunted areas.
 
>We used to back pack a
>lot into the Mable Mountain
>Wilderness in CA. 100% blacktail
>deer country. If you peed
>near camp, here would come
>the deer. They would eat
>the dirt where you peed.
>They must have been after
>the salt I guess. They
>would sneak in and pull
>sweaty socks off the clothes
>line too.
>
>So, in some locations, pee works
>better than Trophy Rock.

Ive seen the same in the Yolla Bollys, took a piss during camp setup and later that night had a buck in camp scraping.
 
I've never hunted whitetail. All western hunting mostly backpacking for blacktail, mule deer, elk, and bear. When in an area I want to leave low impact but have to go I find a rock preferably about the size of a basketball half buried and roll it out, do my business under it then roll the rock back on it then kick a little dirt around it. Works good.
 
Strictly talking whitetails here, I've never had a problem with urinating around and having it bother deer. When I set trail cameras over scrapes I refresh the scape by peeing in it myself and have never seen any negative effects.
 
Steven F Austin Universilty has a Whitetail research station that conducts research on all aspects of Whitetails. A number of years ago his was the subject of a research project. They found urinating around a whitetail stand had no affect on deer use.

If you think about it. How do deer learn to associate the smell of human urine with a threat. Do they follow a human around the woods til he/she pees, then smell it and determine, yes this is bad. It is even more suspect in the wide open environs of the west.

Bottom line, I pee where and when I need to(which is often).

from the "Heartland of Wyoming"
 
You beat me to it Eel! I have seen the same in Blacktails. Had them come into camp next to the tent and eat out potato chips in a bag left open on the kitchen table. Even saw one chewing on used toilet paper one time.

Bill

People who work for a living are quickly being
overwhelmed by people who vote for a living.
 
LAST EDITED ON Jul-16-16 AT 09:52AM (MST)[p]100% what Sherlock said.

With a couple exceptions.
Some game animals are habituated to tolerate humans. They don't give a hoot about our scent, lawnmower noise, cars, lot of stuff.
You may come across these animals or animals that are used to living with campers, or near urban environments. They probably wont be as effected as others.

Animals that are in situations of high caution may also be more effected.
Ever watch a nervous elk or deer approach a water hole? Slow, high step, head snapping left and right.
That kind of animal very well may spook off a human urine scent. Its already on high alert.
Its probably had many sketchy experiences at water holes.

A relaxed animal, in very different circumstances may not give a hoot.

Lots of critters habituate.

In Olympic national park they have problems with mountain goats being aggressive towards humans because the goats have learned that humans pee along trails.
The goats have become accustomed to searching the trails for "pee sites" where the goats can eat the salt deposited in the urine.

Obviously they don't spook off urine scent, they seek it out.

It all depends on habituation, situation, circumstance.

There is no question that they can smell it. If it has a negative, positive, or neutral effect is dependent on the animal.
Why risk it? It may not hurt, but it probably wont help either. Just depends.
 
Doesn't bother them. You can pee in their ground scrapes to re-activate the scrapes, or make mock scrapes that way. I've ran camera surveys on them the past few years.
 

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