some do !!!!

welll educating the dead ones is ok

CNC , I’m with you! I had this discussion with a guy one time and offered this….IF gun fire doesn’t bother deer and they will come right back….then the next time a shooter buck walks out , miss him intentionally with your first shot, then just wait a few minutes he will come back….my guy didn’t take me up on my offer or try to prove his point…but for the ones so sure of it, try it next season and report back to us. Sure, some people miss and still hit the deer with the second round …but if it doesn’t bother them, then in theory they will be right back? Yeah I’m not buying it sorry……really quality land with low pressure might stand a better a chance but 95 percent of us do not have that option .

lot of difference in hearing a far off gunshot and having a bullet whiz by yer head

I had one kid miss a really nice 10pt this past season that was a regular on the game cameras... and I think I got 1 more picture of this deer at the end of January on the furthest game camera on that side of the farm on some random deer trail.

he went somewhere never to return. We will see if he is still around next season and how he acts but I doubt he will be killed in the spot that he was missed. I would guess he's never going back there.

I'm going to find this deer if he is still there and this kid is going to kill him next season so I'll let you know in future discussions how 1 missed opportunity plays out on a farm with about Zero deer pressure. So far it ain't looking good.... but I'm going to get this kid back in front of this deer. That would be something for him to get a 2nd chance and kill it. It's one of the biggest on the farm it's a really nice deer.

Goatkiller, I had a similar experience this year. I had a 10 point and a big wide 7 point that have been running buddies for at least 3 seasons. I killed the 10 point opening morning. The 7 point was with him in the cutover. He has only been on camera once since and it was it night. They were on camera almost daily in the general area where I killed the 10 pt. and in the daylight.

How does one get a Cades Cove hunting permit? That sounds like the only positive that could come from reading this thread.

I’ll say this too…..Deer know you’re in the woods a lot more often than you think they do. I’ve watched my dogs pick up the scent of a deer leg on the air from WAY down through the woods…..To the point I’m thinking…”There’s no way they smell that from here”…..Yet they go straight to it…..It gives me a whole new appreciation for how far away the deer are picking up on our scent as we sit there for hours with the wind swirling and flowing down hollers. They know we’re there a lot of times without us knowing they know.

Some folks give an animal way too much credit when it comes to them thinking and reasoning. God did not create them with the same type mind and reasoning abilities we humans posess. He did create them with instincts though.

I killed a mature buck on my place this year and there were 20 other deer around him when I shot him. After the shot, I remained quite and still and those 20 deer went right back to feeding.

I sat until dark, got down, walked out, and returned to get my buck with my 4 wheeler. It was at that time that those 20 deer finally departed. The buck was laying 60 yards from them out in the open.

They were not gathered up in a bunch, having a conversation amongst themselves, saying, " Dang, I hate ol' Bradley buck just got kilt from that rifle shot we just heard".

We have had deer stand 100 yards from my shooting range and watch us while we shot rifles repeatedly. It's all about what they get used to, and about how you apply or mis-apply the pressure. It can be done wrongly or too much by either a bow or a gun hunter.

They aren't on our level...

Its survival instinct responses to positive and negative stimuli…….Apply negative stimuli and cross the threshold of “severe”, imprint avoidance response.

I hope they make rifle season a week long and outlaw corn…i want it as hard as possible…no more easy rides for fat people….keep up or play golf…old folks an handicapp folks an kids under 12 get some special attention…other than that…we need a dang weed out program🤠

This ^^^^^^ is where the difference in bows and guns comes into play.......just like with the gun shy dog.......Close range BOOOOOM!!!...really helps flip that switch

Deer experience something similar with coyotes…..They arent specifically scared of coyotes at birth…..We’ve all seen the pictures of someone showing them feeding together……They adapt or respond to how “coyote” is being applied. In some areas coyotes have packed up and learned to target deer as a food source. In doing this they chase deer and condition them to avoid the thing that is “coyote”. This can cause the deer to adapt their behavior in the same manner as they do to human pressure……traveling less and reducing travel ranges……Negative stimuli being applied and crossing a threshold that modifies behavior.

Lets say it is the day before hunting season opens and you decide you want to go sit in a field to scout an area but leave your gun or bow at home and just go to watch. This was common practice before game cams became so prevalent, I'm sure some folks still do it, but all you hear about anymore is scouting with cameras. You can sit 150 yards off the field and watch with binos, or you can set up right on the trail leading into the field. Which do you choose?

Deer arent born knowing what a coyote is…..what a squirrel is…..or what a human is…. These are all just things that the deer learns to form a positive, negative, or neutral association with. To take it even a little deeper……..How much of this behavior can a fawn learn from its mother…..Meaning if the mother has had a severe negative experience with something like a human, does the fawn have to experience it too or can it just learn the avoidance behavior completely from mom? How many generations will that continue if no more negative stimuli is applied??....Will the fawn teach it to its own fawn one day?

Well is a good thing my deer can tell the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. I would never kill one with all these duck hunters blasting

As my kids would say, BOOM ROASTED!!


My lease is adjacent to a shooting range, and the deer out there don't even flinch at a gun being shot. Unless it's aimed at them. They don't seem to like that as much.

If you’ve never watched them before, check out some of the videos on Temple Grandin and how she describes the way animals perceive the world. Its very sensory based…..smells, sounds, sights……This is the same with deer……Their world heavily revolves around their senses…..with smell probably being at the top. That being said, if I had to guess….these negative “events” that make humans perceived as bad probably have human scent heavily associated with them……Its probably a combination of scent and sound with other deer being taken out kinda thing.....imprinting a permanent behavior change....(imprint may not technically be the right word)……If you’re not considering sound as having negative impacts with a sensory based animal then I don’t think you're looking at the whole picture.

im sure most deer/animals are aware of how a human sounds when they walk to help alert them to what they perceive as danger..