I have taken 50 plus deer from the ground during archery season, I like to set up on travel routes where the deer just steadily move through from feeding to bedding and vice versa, I like to use skunk essence as cover scent, i carry Q tips and sit at the base of a rougher barked tree, I use at least two q tips dipped in skunk essence and stick them in any break if find in the tree bark on both sided of me, if I have some underbrush I may add a third or fourth q tip on the underbrush. there have been very few times where I've been busted by deer smelling me. Another thing that worked well for me years past was I had a family that I was friends with that raised deer, the deer would bed in certain areas of the fenced in enclosure and eventually the ground was bare in those areas, so I would gather dirt from the bedding areas and dumped the dirt into a big tote, I put a couple pieces of brick in the bottom on top of the dirt and then cut plywood to fit inside the tub and stored my hunting clothes inside of the tote. That worked very well in addition to the skunk essence. The key to ground hunting is seeing the deer when they are way out. I whole heartedly believe that a deer is scanning at least a hundred yards ahead of themselves out through the woods, so if you can pick them out way out you already have the advantage, it seems like once they are into under 40 yards they are scanning well beyond your location for movement and kind of become complacent to their immediate surroundings and more concentrated to the areas in which they are headed.
