The deers knowledge of guns

[ozark]

I select No. 3 because I have fired at squirrel in the presence of deer. They alert and in a couple minutes continue their normal activity.

[whyohe]

IMO it depends on how hard the area is hunted. i have gone small game hunting and shot and had deer scatter. and some it alerts and they get "spooky". also i think that it depends on how close the noise is. ive shot at deer 250 yards with a 30-06 and with the echo they didnt know where it came from and i got the second shot. alot of variables on this one.

[RAF]

Nov 10, 2008 14:04:06 GMT -5 whyohe said:

IMO it depends on how hard the area is hunted. i have gone small game hunting and shot and had deer scatter. and some it alerts and they get "spooky". also i think that it depends on how close the noise is. ive shot at deer 250 yards with a 30-06 and with the echo they didnt know where it came from and i got the second shot. alot of variables on this one.

Gee that's a tough question and the deer aren't talking .
I've watched deer and shots were fired close by. They were immediately on alert but then continued on they way. I've also shot at deer at distance and after the miss they have actually moved towards me. I'm sure they heard the echo.

[ozark]

I can state that a bullet passing nearby creates a crack much like a whip and shortly thereafter you will hear a boom from the location of the shooter. A deer out at say 150-200 yards will jump at hearing this whipllike crack the sound will come a second or two later. If the deer has spotted you before the shot it will flea from your location. If not, it may come toward you or simply alert and watch a bit before continuing doing what it was before. You can easily understand this by getting in a safe place and having someone shoot a rifle over your head. You would then hear what the deer hears. OZark.

[youp50]

Two different observations.

I am in a tree, maybe 20 feet up, A doe and fawn pass under the tree, they are followed by a buck. They walk out on the grade and turn and walk straight away. The buck stops and looks back. At about thirty yards I put a 140 gr 7mm Mag between his eyes. He flops down and spins about. The doe and fawn are 40 or 50 yards away and stand and look at him, then walk off. They were not relaxed, nor were they in hurry.

I watched a doe come by. She was followed by a blatting fawn. Still in spotted hide and stopped to nurse. After nursing the fawn left out of sight to the north, still blatting. A shot was heard in the direction the fawn went. At the shot the doe got very alert and ran towards the fawn.

In the last case I am sure any fawn acting like that around here now would be predator poop. We are do for a mange or parvo outbreak to get the coyote numbers down, hopefully there will be a species jump nad the timbers will get sick, too.

[whyohe]

i have had deer do all different kinds of things. i wonder if it depends on what happened before it gets to you.

examples: 1) i was ML hunting and saw 2 doe at 11:00 am, i shot and droped the one. the other jumped and ran 20 yards and then came back to the first. well you guessed it it went down next to its buddy.

2) during rifle season i had 7 doe come past me at a trot. i waited and they stopped at apx 50 yards. picked the biggest one and droped her and the others scattered in every direction.

3) i shot at a lone doe at a distance at apx 250 yards and she disapeared. me and my friends went to look for her and i must have missed. no blood for 100 yards around. no sign of the deer. she must have BOOKED out of there.

4) my dad and me where huning of a mound in the middle of a ravine on a big mound and had does 230 yards a way and my dad was using a 30-30 single shot over and under. so i watched while he took the shot and watched it hit way low. the deer just stood there. the second went just under here belly and saw dirt fly behind her. she looked around and took 2 steps and went back to graizing with the others. the third hit its mark and i saw her hunch up and shw walked into some pines below. we got her.

5) in the same spot as above i shot at a doe at 200 yards and she turned and all ran away in different directions. she went 70 yards and dropped.

6) shot at a big doe out of 3 at 40 yards she droped and all ran to the field and to my right , the way they where facing. only one stoped and looked back.

so why the different responces? could some have been shot at before and may be seen one of it herd drop before and is now skiddish and others where not pushed or shot at? why on the last one did only one stop and look back and others take for the hills. i think some of it is experiance. some IMO may remember the sound and a bad experiance. that is the only reason IMO that explains the different reactions.

[petev]

whyohe, that is basically my experience also. And I might add that deer seem to know when it is hunting season or not, based on the fact that they will stay out in the open in the day and feed if it is summer, or disappear if it is hunting season and they see you. Also, I am convinced that they know where the "safe zones" are- they will stand unpanicked in a posted, or park area, right next to where there is tons of deer sign, but no deer to be seen.They will circle around and get behind hunters as they move into an area. As for a rifle shot, I think that some know what it means and some dont, but also it is one of the harder sounds in the woods to determine how far and what direction it came in, for either a human or deer. There is a lot of risk to a deer that panicks and just runs randomly at every noise. I think that game is much more panicked by the sight of a hunter than the sound of a rifle, after having been shot at previously. My vote is ahead now, unlike the election!

[ozark]

Two bucks I have shot (one at 60 yards) (One at 170 yards) made panic type runs directly toward me. One folded five yards from me and the other about 90 yards from me. I think the deer that is hit reacts to sound differently than the unhit. I personally doubt when a deer sees a member of its group killed that they are able to associate that with the human and his gun. It is fun to ponder the question. Ben

[petev]

Today I was on a stand bowhunting. 2 does and a buck came in and at the adjoining property someone shot a high powered rifle once. The buck stopped and looked for about 15 seconds and then resumed his business of checking around the scrape area. When rifle opens Saturday (2 days) I will bet the deer will react totally different to gunfire. I dont know how they know what they do, but I do not second guess their ability to adapt to changes in the environment, including a threat. Oh, by the way, my arrow went a couple of inches over the buck's back at 35 yards. This was an hour ago. The thrill, adrenaline is still going! The deer are in rut here in N.Y. It's a great time of year.

[brigg]

While on stand bowhunting...I hunt a lot of swampy areas adjacent to waters that duck hunters hunt at the same time of the year. I have seen over & over that the deer here in my AO are very acclimated to the sounds of shotgun fire. they hardly even twitch an ear...and I am at times less than 100yds from the duck blinds so the sounds from their guns are pretty loud. I have also been on islands in the Mississippi River where for whatever reason the sounds echo & reverberate severely. I have seen over and over deer that have been shot at but missed...get almost frozen in their steps, by what appears to be a lack of knowing which way to run. They almost seem overwhelmed by the sound.
I think, as with most situations when dealing with nature, that there are no absolutes, and that on any given day with any set of circumstances the results will vary. It is an interesting topic to ponder however.

Good hunting everyone...
Brigg

[ozark]

I have a rifle range on our property and permit the public to use it to zero their rifles and shotguns. I can't tell that the deer associates these sounds with danger. I was told by a nephew that a couple came up within 200 yards and didn't appear alarmed. Maybe we have some stupid deer in our area. Ozark.

[petev]

It sounds like the deer associate the gunfire with lack of danger, which it is in the case of your rifle range!

[whyohe]

may be what it is that like in my area the deer are not bothered so much by the sound as may be it is the ammount of scent in the woods of us being in there that makes them more alert and skiddish at rifle sound during the rifle season.

[ozark]

A deer will watch a coyote with interest but without alarm until the coyote goes into its hunting mode clearly indicated by body language. Deer watch farmers, timber cutters, people out walkig for exercise without being afraid. But, let that hunter start looking, creeping along, walking bent over and trying to keep themselves concealed and the deer will read the body language and go into their self preservation mode. The hunters actions instills fear and if the hunters gun sends a loud report the deer will flee as if it is fully aware of what guns are all about. They are quick to pick up on what is likely danger and what is just normal activity. I believe that they do associate vehicles, guns and voices with man and recoginize that man can become a predator. But, except in wilderness areas they see mans vehicles and man himself daily. They come into our gardens, flower beds, lawns and into housing areas. They will become gentle and eat out of our hands if we give them the correct body language. I used this knowledge in Washington state hunting blacktails. Three days of sneaking brought nothing but failure. One hour acting like a timber inspector crashing about while keeping a sharp eye out I spotted a nice Blacktail buck watching me from brush. I continued on until I was behind a large tree and cheated him. Ozark

[petev]

It's so true Ozark! It is one of the most non-intuitive truths of deer hunting, that if we creep along stealthily we are less apt to see deer than if we move along like a normal person does.

[dka]

Some know and some don't. Sometimes you can shoot at a deer and he will just stand there if he is missed, then again he will take off.

[getonit]

I have had deer walk out on our gun clubs shooting range while we were shooting high power rifles- and we would have to wait while they meandered through our shooting lanes- it didnt seem to bother them at all.... but this was before hunting season- once season starts and about every woods has hunters going through the deer seem to go more into preservation mode- any human is potentially hunting- they seem more que'd in to the sounds of gunfire- an interesting thing Ive found is that while hunting with a revolver the deer doesnt know which direction the shot came from- I see them looking all directions and unsure which way to run- the blast from between the cylinder and barrel puts the sound left and right along with the direction you shoot...

[youp50]

I too have had deer walk across the range. Lots of good habitat there and with a rifle, pistol couple of sporting clays and several traps there is a lot of powder burnt there.

Several years ago I took to using 'pop up' style blinds. This year I had one doe walk into the grade and take one look at it and do the back up, head bob, and blow and go routine. Two does were together. Five minutes later the other finally stuck her head out and turned and fled.

A number of years ago I was at a camp that fed the deer right out a window. Nobody poached there, but everyone looked at night with a big spot light. One night I looked and there was a buck there, when the light hit him he got low and gone at 40 mph.

I think these are probably the result of a learned behavior facilitated by a near death experience.

[petev]

I guess the most unusual experience that I have heard of was 4 years ago when a neighbor sighted in a couple of rifles on my land (with my permission), and he said when he shot his last round he heard a ruckus and about 30 yards away two bucks were fighting, apparently oblivious to all the rifle rounds being shot. The area of the fight is used as a scrape almost every year, so I don't doubt what he was saying. Pete