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Got Me Thinking

Hortontoter

Hortontoter

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Live in Portage County - Hunt in Carroll County
Brock made a statement in Jesse's Captain Jack thread that I read over and over.

Brock stated "Deer don't even know where they are going to wind up, best you can do is be where you know they have been before as they are likely to go there again".

Now that is contrary to my way of thinking about deer movement. My mind constantly works trying to figure out why a buck is here today and there tomorrow. I study thousands of trail cameras for hours, using the photos in conjunction with temperatures, time of day and wind direction to try to be in the right spot at the right time. I'm thinking I'm wasting my time doing this.

If the deer don't know where he is going to be how can I figure out where he will be. I always asumed a deer had a reason for every movement he makes, now Brock has me wondering about it. What do you guys make of his statement? Does it all boil down to just dumb luck?
 
bowhunter1023

bowhunter1023

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I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of both theories. However I tend to agree with Brock when you think of thins in terms of a buck going from Point A to Point B. He may get up out of his bed with a mission in mind, but there are a dozen different ways for him to get to Point B in most cases. I have a "loop theory" that basically says mature bucks have a loop that acts as an I-270 around their stomping grounds. When does start to pop, they will use that loop to find them. It may not be the same loop using the same trail, but there will be spots along that loop like an I-270 and I-71 interchange that you can bet he'll hit more often than not. That's your pinch point you need to be sitting this time of year. If I had more time, I throw up some maps showing what I mean here.

I've been hunting specific deer since 2004 and IMO, 99.9% are not patentable to the point of killing them with ease. However they do have tendencies to travel here or there and those are what we need to find and capitalize on.
 
Jackalope

Jackalope

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I've ran cameras for about five years now and had the pleasure of watching some dandy bucks for three years in a row. The one thing I can tell you with certainty is there is no such thing as a day today or even a week to week pattern. The only discernible pattern I can find is in blocks of about three months. I can tell you this deer will be within this area during the summer, within this area during the fall, and within another area during the winter. This seems to be consistent regardless of crop rotation.

The most important thing to a deer is security, water, food, and sex I believe in that order. I relate deer movement more like a trip to Cabelas. When you go to Cabelas we can consider that your home range. Now you kind of have an idea of things you're going to look at. But odds are you were going to look at a lot of things that you didn't plan on. For example I may go in to look at archery gear, and I will probably stop by the gun counter, but I can't begin to tell you why I spent 45 minutes crawling around on boats. Or why I spent 30 minutes looking at goose and duck calls when I don't even waterfowl hunt. While I believe a buck has an idea in his mind of I am going to go from food to bedding. I believe there are many things that can change in between. He could decide that he's too lazy to walk up that hill today so I'm going to sleep here, it's safe. Or halfway to his bedding area he could decide that he would rather go look at bass boats. Or he's going to go cruise by the woman section to see if there's any hot girls, but then decides he's kind of thirsty and ends up in the food court. I don't believe they wake up in the morning with an itinerary in a day planner. I really think they just bumble fugg around and do what they want. Now they are always being cautious and keeping security in mind. But I really think they just wander around like little three year olds at toys r us. Or grown men at cabbalas.
 
brock ratcliff

brock ratcliff

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Sorry to throw a wrench in your thought pattern, HT. Its my firm belief deer have no idea where they will wind up due to watching them in wide open country for the last 20 years. They will start across a field, seemingly on a B-line for the next woods or creek and make a 90 degree turn for no apparent reason. And they may do that a half dozen times in the short time they are in view. That is why I hunt funnels only. Even though they wander where they please, eventually they will walk through those time-proven pinch points. Most of the deer I see are never even in gun range, but given enough seat time I'll kill one. Those pinch points are like a hallway in a big house. That deer has ten bedrooms, ten kitchens, etc...but he'll eventually come down the hallway to go from one to another. That's where I wait. Its used to frustrate me years ago, until I figured out they are just deer, and deer do whatever the choose on a whim. Hunting over a cornpile or other bait would be the only exception. That makes deer far more predictable than they naturally are. Deer are made to eat a variety of foods, and they do usually. Their heads are turning with every step they take through the woods. They will pick up a few acorns, turn left and naw on some greenbrier, back to the right and munch honeysuckle...they browse, and by nature they move about as the feed as mother nature doesn't want them to "overharvest" anything. A cornpile changes all that, makes 'em lazy, and killable because it takes a good deal of the randomness out of their feeding habits.
This is all just my thoughts on deer of course, but it would take a good deal of proff to make me think differently...
 
brock ratcliff

brock ratcliff

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I should add that I am NOT the guy that can pattern and kill a particular buck. I've hunted specific deer on a number of occassions. Last year was the first time I put an arrow in one of them, but I had known him for four years. He was like a pet sort of. Two other deer were killed by a man I took to the farm to help me kill them. He had less than an hour wrapped up in those two hunts...I'd spent over 100 hours each trying to kill those deer. They were both killed where I told him they would be. It was just random, dumb luck that I was not the one in the tree. That, my friend is frustrating. He of course thinks if you get the chance to hunt my farm, you will kill the buck of a lifetime...he has done it 3 times in total. Joe and Jesse knew about my hunting two of them at the time I was, and they also know what a pile of luck it was for them to die as they did. You can KNOW a deer and still not kill him. Especially if your dumb enough to consistently put your buddy in the stands you set to kill particular deer! :)
 
brock ratcliff

brock ratcliff

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cotty16 said:
It's the properties that lack a pinch point or funnel that drive ya nuts. The private property I spend most of my time on is like that. Deer just wander around wherever with no method to the madness.
Click to expand...

I hunted my Fayette Co farm for 18 years before I got access to "the funnel" I wanted to hunt. I'd set and watch deer go by it everyday and couldn't hunt it. My landowner bought that ground last year and I hardly sit anywhere else now. They don't know I'm there, ever, and I know they will come by eventually.
 
Milo

Milo

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good posts...last night i got home around 10 pm....pulled in and low and behold there is a buck bedded in my back yard...kept the lights on him for 10 minutes watching him.. just a random "I'm tired" place to set down. there is no reason he would lay down where he was.
 
Bowhunter57

Bowhunter57

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I'm kinda hit/miss on where and when I'll get into a particular tree. Yet another reason why I take my treestand in and out with me, every time. I tend to move with the deer, IF I can figure out where they're moving to and why. Usually, it's food related, but the upcoming weeks will produce another option, sex, which will have the buck in areas that they don't frequent.

Bottom line: It's called hunting, not getting. Getting is at the grocery store. :smiley_blink:
They're called wildlife for a reason. They do what they want, when they want and there may be no rime or reason to their motives.

I believe in Murphy's Law and being lucky, rather than being good. :smiley_bril:

Bowhunter57
 
finelyshedded

finelyshedded

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Great posts fellers! Spontaneous comes to my mind! The wind changes their minds a lot!

Just because I saw a monster stud of a buck having a doe pinned down in my front yard doesn't mean I'm going to hang a stand there and wait for it to happen again because it prolly never will.

That's why I seek out pinch points because like Brock and others have said, its one of the few settings that guarantee something is coming through. You just have to hunt it smart and wait for the one deer you're after comes by.
 
cotty16

cotty16

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Woods or baseball field... take your pick.
Ric, that reminds me of the "WTF?" moments I get when I see a rub on a tree right beside busy RT 7 or something. Who would've thought of putting a stand there? 20 feet off the road.
It could happen in downtown Cleveland right now. Never know.
 
finelyshedded

finelyshedded

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Yes Mike, I've seen huge rubs like that on thigh sized trees in town that are in those long medians between streets going opposite directions before. Most likely they are always done at night but dang!lol
 
Jackalope

Jackalope

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Curran said:
This all makes me think even more that deer just might have rational thoughts.
Click to expand...

Nah. They can't reason or use logic. Their strength is they're unpredictable. I think they're like Amish. Hey something shiny.
 
Mike

Mike

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Ted Nugent, rock star and avid bow hunter from Michigan, was being interviewed by a liberal journalist, an animal rights activist. The discussion came around to deer hunting.

The journalist asked, 'What do you think is the last thought in the head of a deer before you shoot him? Is it, 'Are you my friend?' or is it 'Are you the one who killed my brother?'

Nugent replied, 'Deer aren't capable of that kind of thinking. All they care about is, what am I going to eat next, who am I going to screw next, and can I run fast enough to get away. They are very much like the Democrats in Congress.'

That ended the interview.
 
CritterGitterToo

CritterGitterToo

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Jackalope said:
Nah. They can't reason or use logic. Their strength is they're unpredictable. I think they're like Amish. Hey something shiny.
Click to expand...

They can reason. They just can't solve complex problems. In other words, go into the same ladder stand stinking like a human and every single deer in the area will reason that there is danger in that spot and avoid it. Though, they can't go into the next woods and see a ladder stand (no obvious human smell to it) and recognize that random ladder stands are potential for danger.

As far as movement, deer go where they feel safe, where they want to eat, where they want to drink and where they want to find doe. At any given time they are going to choose to go to one of those places. They are creatures of habit, but I don't think they are very patternable. At times, maybe. However most often they use their senses to react to their environment in a way that they will be able to remain alive.
 
Hoytmania

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I don't think they reason. I say this because where there is reason there is also logic. We have both reason and logic (unfortunately a large majority of our populations uses niether). What a deer or any wild animal has and uses Is instinct.

Logic and reason would say that if a deer was hungry and really liked the berries it ate a couple days ago on the east ridge and that sounds good then that is where the deer would go to fill that hunger, but from my experience if a deer is hungry then they are browsing on what ever is available in the area that they are in. That is instinct. I have a need I fill the need as readily available as I can.

Mike I think you are somewhat right. I can see deer being very ADHD. They can be heading somewhere and all it takes is a odor or odd sound to change the direction of said deer.
 
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