The right light settings, and other factors to help get in and out of the deer woods undetected

Anyone who has hunted whitetails long enough knows the feeling. You’re almost to your treestand after moving slowly through the woods in the dark when the sound of an alarming blow and scattering hooves running through the leaves break the silence.

Many hunters wrestle with the best ways to get in and out of a hunt location without being seen or smelled by deer, and for good reason. You may get away with more during the rut when bucks throw caution to the wind and travel longer distances, but entrance and exit strategies are critical to consistently filling tags.

“No one likes going into the woods in the morning to your stand and you hear snorts and deer tearing through the woods,” said Lindsay Thomas, Jr., chief communications officer with the National Deer Association. “You immediately feel like, ‘Great, my day’s ruined.’ Of course, usually it is not. Many, many times I have walked into the woods and bumped deer and went on to the stand and had a good hunt. But you want to be as stealthy as you can going in and out.”

What light setting is best?

Part of the equation for getting in and out effectively has to do with our lights.

Some hunters opt for going without artificial light by using what little natural light is available in the dark. That can work under ideal conditions, but it often leads to cracked branches and a loud entrance that is anything but stealthy.

Most hunters use some sort of artificial light on their entrance and exit. The question we can ask today when so many headlamps and flashlights come with multiple-color light options is which settings might tip the odds in our favor in the quest to go undetected?   

To answer that question, think from a whitetail’s point of view.

Thomas, an avid hunter, has looked at countless deer studies for his work with the National Deer Association. He is quick to say that there has not been a study done with deer that specifically tested their vision using different colors or intensities of light. But we can glean something from what we know about how whitetails see.

The National Deer Association published a story in 2022 titled, “Seven facts about deer vision hunters should see.” Detailed in that piece is the fact that deer have more rods and fewer cones in their eyes than do humans. So deer see better in low light conditions than people, but they also see with less clarity and how they perceive colors is different from us.

Deer see in blue wavelengths 20 times better than humans, but red/orange appears as brown or gray, says the article from NDA. 

“It’s just my guess based on that knowledge that a light moving through dark woods is going to be very obvious to (deer) just like (it is to) you and I,” Thomas said. “But we can guess or theorize that a red-tended light might be less obvious or somewhat more subtle to a deer’s vision.”

There is some support for that in human applications. In the military, for example.

“At night when they’re trying to be covert and secure, they use red lights,” Thomas said. “Apparently it is less obvious at distances than a white light to other people, and it has the added advantage of not ruining your night vision. In other words, your pupils don’t dilate as much. They don’t open up to take in more light when you’re around a red light as when you’re using a white one. It’s apparently just a more subtle way to operate in the darkness.”

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Thomas has used the same flashlight for years that offers a white- and red-light setting. He uses white light when needed if he gets turned around, or when bringing a deer out, but the red-light setting is his go-to when moving in and out of the woods while trying not to bump deer.

“It’s just bright enough that I can see what’s at my feet,” Thomas said. “I don’t shine it around the woods. Having that red light just pointing down at my feet helps me make sure I don’t break limbs, break structure, or trip and fall or anything else.

“I haven’t measured this, so this means nothing in terms of anything concrete, but I believe I have had fewer instances where I have spooked deer going in and out of the woods with a red light than with a white light.”

Understand the landscape

Of course, there are other factors that increase your chances of bumping fewer deer on your entrance and exit. Understanding the landscape and where deer frequent at specific times of day is near the top of the list.

Where are the likely bedding areas that offer security? That’s where deer are spending much of their time in daylight. Where are the primary food sources that deer frequent under the cover of darkness? Knowing those answers through scouting or previous hunts is a good start when trying to avoid the eyes, nose, and ears of a whitetail when planning entrance and exit strategies.    

“Thinking about where you’re hunting, thinking about where deer move most and trying not to walk through prime cover or bedding areas to get to your deer stand if you can avoid it,” Thomas said. “Trying to use the landscape and features on the land – roads, rivers, whatever it might be – to get to your stand without going through an area you’re likely to encounter a deer.”

Avoid ‘gray’ light

No one loves getting up hours before shooting light to be set up in the tree under the cover of complete darkness, but going to those great lengths can be a benefit.

Thomas notes that deer are not pure nocturnal animals.

“Deer are crepuscular. They operate mostly right around dawn and dusk, and their eyes are built for that to help them see in low-light conditions, so they are not nocturnal,” Thomas said. “They do move at night, but that’s not when they are most sharp in terms of avoiding danger. Same with daytime. They are not built like we are for full daylight vision. So yeah, going in earlier certainly can help you.”

Remember that voices carry

Another factor Thomas emphasizes? The power of keeping conversation to a minimum.

Voices carry, especially in calm conditions, so even conversation at the truck may be doing more harm than realized.

Thomas points to a study out of the University of Georgia from 2018 where researchers used cameras to monitor the reactions of deer at bait sites where an audio system was set up to play the sounds of different predators. Audio clips were played of calls ranging from birds, dogs, people talking, coyotes, cougars, and wolves.

More than 820 videos were analyzed in the study to examine how the whitetails responded to each sound. Overwhelmingly, deer reacted negatively to the sound of human voices more than any other sound from another predator.

“It wasn’t even close. When the audio played of people talking, those deer were out of there,” Thomas said. “We are the No. 1 predator to deer. Part of (getting in and out effectively) is remembering that. Don’t talk, use the wind, don’t be loud, try not to do anything that says there’s a human predator here.”

Personal light choice

There are situations where a flashlight works just fine in the woods, but there are many times in hunting, fishing or back in camp where the ability to use a light hands free is important. That’s why a headlamp gets the nod by the writer, Eric Morken, on his hunts.

Morken has had good luck hunting with the Black Diamond Storm 450. This headlamp features red, green, blue, and white light settings, along with the ability to dim the light to your desired level. Morken uses the red-light option when going in and out of the woods in the dark, and dims the red light to its lowest level when setting up in the tree.

It’s anecdotal, but Morken feels the use of a red light and going in and out during complete darkness (avoiding gray light at dawn and dusk) offers the best chance of not spooking deer. Deer in areas he hunts do not seem to spook as dramatically in the dark when encountering a hunter as they do during periods of light.

Another handy feature on the Storm 450 is the ability to lock it when not in use so that the headlamp does not accidentally get bumped and turn on while in a pack.