I can totally believe it.

As long as the cover right, and the deer is in the right mood, they can hide in anything. There is a small outcropping of brush near a barn down the road from my house. This out cropping may be 15 yards long, and I am betting that it is only about 5 yards wide at the widest spot. It is made up of grape vines and multi-floral rose bushes. You would think that this is so small that it wouldn't hold deer, well, wrong. Last year, while scouting, I watched three does and a small 8 point get up out of that brush (as if they just appeared from thin air), and walk out into a field and start feeding.

I have had a bunch of instances like yours. There is a small patch of woods near my house, maybe 2 or 3 acres tops. It is pretty thick with deadfalls on the ground. Well, two years ago while doing a drive, I saw two doe jump up. My grandfather was posted at a point so he could watch both sides of the woods (the woods were shaped like a triangle). Well, I was starting at the wide end when I jumped the does up, and I zig-zaged my way through there trying the absolute best I could to not let a deer circle back on me, but, you guessed it, those doe never came out past him.

Like I said in the other post, a deer can sneak around a human in any amount of space, it just depends on what type of terrain. You could be hunting a 10 acre field of lawn grass, and sure, if those deer have nowhere else to go, you are going to see them. But, you could also be hunting a 40X40 yard thicket, and those deer could sneak right around you.

Also, like I said in the other post, I have seen deer do some crazy things to disguise themselves. Alot of times, it seems like a deer will much rather just go somewhere that you can walk right up on them and never know, than go to somewhere that when you jump them up, they have plenty of cover. Like I said, I have seen deer bed down in dried out creek beds, underneath a "bridge" of multi-floral rose. I have seen deer "make" a bedding area in the middle of green briar patches, but, they don't have any trails leading in. They jump over the lowest part of the edge, then have a trail leading into the center. I have seen deer bed in alfalfa fields that were just a foot high, and when they bed down, they laid their chins on the ground so they disappeared. There is another area I hunt where the is a HUGE rock pushed on top of another rock, making a "cave" of some sorts. It only goes back a few feet, but, deer bed in that area all the time. Heck, I have seen deer do just about everything except climbing trees to hide from humans.

So, to answer the question, yes, a deer can EASILY hide in 5 acres of woods. 5 acres is actually pretty large, about 100X250 yards. It all depends on the terrain.

P.S. Neat story David