What sort of distance will a typical deer travel in a day? Do you think it's based strictly on need, i.e. "I need food or I need water or I need to sleep"? Do you think deer just like to take a stroll through the woods? It may sound like a silly question, I don't know, but I was just watching a hunting show on tv and the guy was lamenting a missed shot with a muzzle loader on a monster deer only to discover another hunter killed him 2 miles away a couple of days later.

2 miles seems like a long way if movement is need based only. I mean, how far do you have to walk through the woods to find deer food of some sort or other? I see puddles of water all over the woods. Does it necessarily have to be a lake or a river before a deer will drink? I've seen plenty of video of deer just flopping down on the ground at seemingly un-special locations to catch a few zzz or simply rest.

What in the world would compel a deer to walk long distances? Unless, maybe, do you think they get bored? Do they just like a change of scenery? Do deer possess the weaknesses of restlessness and curiosity? We know that they get hungry, thirsty, sleepy, and at certain times randy and all these things work against them when their being hunted but what if they get predictably restless and/or curious, and how do I use these attributes against them?

Have any of you hunted based on the idea that a deer gets restless, if in fact he does? If a deer is in fact naturally curious (and I'm not saying he is because I don't know) what tangible thing can you do to appeal to that curiosity?

Again, not trying to bore anybody, just trying to understand this animal?

I know for a fact a mature buck will travel more than 1 mile in a matter of minutes for basic needs. He will travel much farther than that when the woods are awakened with does in estrous.

They travel a lot. Much more often than most hunters realize, and at farther distances.

I've had several bucks on camera get killed several miles away from the area I was getting pictures of it in. Deer can travel miles like we walk to our kitchen when they want to.

If you want to understand whitetails 2 things , understand they are individuals and what you read and see on TV is almost always different than real world Alabama.
Some mature bucks may not travel off a square mile during peek breeding some may travel several miles in a day, they make their own rules.

I've always thought of it like this, I can run s mile in 6 minutes, they can do it much faster. If they fill the need, they can get gone if they want to. We have them on cams in the same night hour apart on both sides of property. Probably mile the way a crow flies.

Absolutely, Matt!!
I have seen it over and over on trail cams, and in person. Last year on the last afternoon of Season, I had my nephew Beau sitting in a food plot right on the river bank just over 1/2 mile from the camp. I had limited out and was just sitting at the camp with my wife. He saw 6 different bucks cruising for does that afternoon and 5 of the 6 came right on through the field at the camp searching. One of them made the trip a couple of times that afternoon and we both saw him several times each. They cover a LOT of ground!

I've got a couple of big nocturnal bucks that come thru on camera every couple of weeks. I killed one last year that was 3 miles from where his last pic was taken.