Deer Myths
 

I chose to write my major college paper of the semester on whitetail deer myth's. I know that many hunters have their own myth's about deer and was wondering if you all could share some with me. For instance, deer can see color. What other myth's about deer are their?

Thanks you for the help.

I can't help but want to criticize the grammar mistakes I see in your posts. I won't. I do think it's important though. Many myths I see are the products out there claiming to keep the deer away from people's yards. People are having their plants and shrubs dined on by deer and they fall for products to help eliminate them:

1.) Hanging soap bars from trees
2.) Hanging human hair from bags
3.) Place a decoy of a dog or coyote
4.) Hanging white sheets in trees nearby
5.) Peeing around the shrubs (LOL!)
6.) Pouring commercial coyote urine around

The list goes on. Yes, some of these methods work, but only for a very short time because deer around people's homes are already acclimated to human sounds and smells. If you add something nearby to the plants being eaten, the deer may notice, but quickly get use to it and back to munchin' they go. LOL!

The myth? That these products are effective as a deterrent to keep deer away from people's valuable plants.

Things that work: Erecting tall enough wire fences around more valuable shrubs. Planting only shrubs that aren't as appetizing to the deer. Well placed shots with a suitable weapon. LOL!

Good luck on your paper.

iSnipe

Another myth is: Only bucks leave large clumped droppings.

Yet another: Only bucks leave the large tracks. Contrary to that, is that many a hunter found the track maker of the large track to be a large doe. LOL!

More: That deer have 5 senses. Au contraire, mon amie. Many a hunter here can attest to the fact mature bucks have a 6th sense. They just seem to know something is wrong and are quicker to high-tail out of an area... and for no apparent reason. Yeah, there's a reason, they can mentally sense it.

iSnipe

Here's one of my favorites..."Bucks are smarter than does." I think that's a bunch of bull. First of all, almost hunting areas have less bucks than does and so naturally bucks are going to be harder to find. I hunted an area where and old mature doe would seek me out and stand off at a distance and warn other deer by snorting and blowing and all the while staying out of range. I can't say I've ever seen a buck do that. Come the rut, an old mature buck lets his guard down and gets as silly as a button buck. That ain't smart. Does tend to herd together and their safety is in numbers because of more eyes and ears to detect danger. I think wisdom comes with age and does probably live longer on the average than bucks.

6th sense my arse. they are just a helluva a lot better and quicker at processing the stimuli that their 5 sense pick up. They no something is up not because of magic, but because one of their highly tuned 5 senses has put them on edge.

As for the paper topic, sure you might find it interesting and all, but you really need to evaluate the topic for the ability to write a major college paper about. I just have a feeling that this will be a difficult topic to acquire enough info on as anecdotal evidence from hunter will acceptable can't be your only source of research. Plus, the audience you are writing for will be largely unfamiliar with the myths you are writing about and will make the paper harder to read and evaluate. There are plenty of topics related to deer and deer hunting that will be easier to wrie about and maintain your interest will also giving you a much better opportunity to get a better grade. I wrote my W132 college reasearch paper on the need for deer hunting. It was twenty pages long. Profressor said it was one of the best ametuer research paper she had read (my brothers prof said the same thing 3 years later when he submitted it to his proff at a differnt school). The topic was clean and directed to my prof that had no understanding of anything deer other then they hit her care last fall. Personally, I feel you got to get your audience to see the need for hunting deer in a pro veiw before you jump them into reading evidence (myths fact fiction?) that you as a hunter will use to your advantage to harvest deer. Not trying to discourage you on the topic cause I would find it neat (but then again I am on this forum so what does that say). Just offering you my opinion based on my college experience.

Good Luck!

PS I don't have the paper anymore so don't bother asking (heheheheheh!!!)

I am pretty sure statistically there are just about as many bucks as does. Not exactly sure of that, but am pretty confident that the ratio is close to 1 to 1 or 1.5 to in the natural order of things (also counting button bucks as bucks).

Not in West Virginia pal. The ratio here is about 10 does to 1 buck. They just recently changed the law on the bucks you could take here to 3 per season. It used to be 5 or 6. Hunters were and still are killing way to many bucks and not enough does.

That's right. It just may beyond something you are not willing to believe. Be in the woods as long as me and foiled many times over when there's no way any of their 5 senses could of beaten me and you'll quickly see why it leaves more questions than answers. Yeah, sure, there may have been times I swear I couldn't have been detected with their normal senses and it was. But to have it happen several times in a scenario that doesn't seem right, then those experiences start to leave questions. Leaves a man thinking "how the ****" could he have known something's up?

My experiences with mature bucks are not out of the ordinary. Hunters like Raglin, Mark and Terry Drury, Alan Altizer, the Wensel brothers, Jay Gregory, Nabors, Shockey and Greg Miller have all talked about bucks having an uncanny ability to sense something's not right. Go ahead, call Greg Miller and ask him why he doesn't like to stare at a buck when it's coming in. Matter o' fact, there are several hunters here who have experienced the same things and don't know why... and may not want to bring up their thoughts for fear of someone accusing them of believing in magic. I don't, but if someone else, that's their thing.

Plus, like I said clearly, many hunters know their experiences to be true and appears almost unexplainable. For a non-believer, it's like saying the Holocaust never existed... for some believe this, but it's the survivors, the ones who were there to experience it first hand, are the ones who know it to be otherwise.

With the big buck hunters I know and talked to, many of them have out-of-the-box thinking strategies that have gotten them bucks they probably wouldn't have got if it were not for their open-minded thinking.

Yeah, "my arse" alright. LOL! Like I was about to call someone I haven't talked to in a long time and I get a busy signal, only to find out they were calling me at the same time! Yeah, that's just a coincidence, right? Especially when it has happened several times.

iSnipe

I still chalk it up to their superior senses. As hunters we think we know how good their sense are but it is a guess at best. All rections are are the result of stimuli. deer just can process those stimuli more accurately then we can.

And Halocaust denier (spelling stinks)??? You just linke with that nutjob in Iran. Not cool.

That statement in itself is a guess at best. LOL!


Rections? You aren't talking about what I think you are, are you? If so, then of course they are a result of stimuli. LOL!

:barmy: Yea! By George, I think you've got it. I agree!

LOL! What? !!

That's fine. Your opinion is noted and nothing wrong with that...

...except when I'm straight downwind of where they are...
...and I haven't made a sound walking in that even I couldn't hear...
...and I haven't stepped near where they are...
...and I haven't moved a muscle...
...and I haven't made a sound...
...and I blend in the treetops like a pine cone...

...and somehow they exude an uneasiness about them with obvious body language they are not comfortable at all, then all of a sudden start buggin' out like they can't get away fast enough...

...then I believe it had nothing to do with their "superior senses". I just chalk it up to "coincidence". NOT.

C-yah. :wave:

iSnipe

As university studies have repeatedly proven, deer have limited color vision. They see blue, green, and yellow quite well, and they can also see into the UV spectrum somewhat. Their acuity for color begins to peter out just around the upper end of orange(605 NM), they can't see red at all.


Courtesy of Atsko

I agree totally. I also have never believed any deer has a 6th sense. That is giving the deer way too much credit. They react and respond to changes in their environment and what they have learned over the years, nothing more. Just because a hunter believes a deer could not or should not sense there was something out of the ordinary, believing any deer has a 6th sense should never play into the equation.

That deer decided to move away because he sensed there might be danger or a threat if he continued on. Not because Jupiter was aligned with Mars. Hunters must appreciate that the deer knows everything in his woods. Every tree, every rock, every trail, ect. He travels it every day of his life. He is soon to pick up even the slightest change. Whether he see it, hears it or smells it. There is nothing mystical about the senses of deer. They simply have much greater senses than man's, especially the deer's sense of smell. Plus they are using their senses 100% of the time, every hour, every day, every year.

Why would a deer suddenly move away when a hunter thinks he has all bases covered? Maybe it was the sound of squirrels making a racket that the deer has learned may be sign of danger. Maybe it was the scent of man when a hunter touches branches, leaves and twigs and deposits his nasty, oily human scent on his way to his stand. Maybe it was the scent of other deer that have previuosly left that same area earlier under alarm. That same deer the hunter was totally unaware was even there. Maybe the deer has patterned the hunter who uses the same trail to enter and leave his stand every day. It may be a number of things a hunter may never understand. But it was not because the deer has that 6th sense. It simply does not exist.

iSnipe,

I see you're a grammatical expert!

Well, good for you. Noted. However, you sit in the very same boat as me when you say that. You can't prove it nor can you substantiate with real world results, your encounters bucks busting you are a direct result of his use of his traditional 5 senses.

There's no playing with that as an equation. That statement makes no sense. ?? It's a possibility when nothing else can't be explained with rational thought. That's a practical, traditional and obvious statement when one thinks everything has to have an answer that needs to be quantified with something that makes sense, when in fact the questions left behind such odd encounters only leaves one to believe animals have senses beyond what most people can conceive... or believe. Humans too.

In the majority of the cases, sure, absolutely, but that doesn't come close to answering all the other times when perceived rational answers are not a possibility either. Practical answers to questions why a buck bugs out are not suitable 100% of the time. Practical meaning it has something to do with their 5 traditional sense. I too can think of MANY reasons why a buck may have busted somebody and they may think "there's no way", but those reasons don't always resolve the questions "Why?".

LOL! This has nothing to do with Jupiter, the stars or something else you think people are referring to when they mention a 6th sense. I'm with the many other hunters here and the notable well known buck hunters who believe bucks have more than just 5 senses. If you don't believe it, that's your thinking, that's your belief and that's how you resolve questions why big bucks bust hunters, but that wouldn't work at all explaining some of the oddities in my deer woods.

Yes, we know. It's been mentioned at every forum, demo, magazine, video, hunting show and seminar.

However, I don't believe they know every "rock", every tree and travels every trail every day of his life. LOL! He's a buck, not an omniscient being. Gee, now who's giving the buck too much credit? LOL!

Like I said earlier, we reside in the same boat. You can't prove your statement above, but to strengthen the hunter's belief that they do, at least our answers fill a void to questions that come up in these situations.

I believe the answer to be if the 5 senses are ruled out as a viable reason for scaring a buck, although highly improbably in some people's eyes, any left over unanswered questions can possibly be resolved as a result of a 6th sense.

Exactly! That's my point!

But when an encounter arises where a buck busts myself or another hunter and we can't seem to figure why, we don't automatically assume it has to be one of the buck's 5 senses! We believe that sometimes where traditional answers do not fit the bill, then the chance they do have a 6th sense...

...is a possibility.

iSnipe

If I'm in my living room watching TV and decide I need something from the kitchen, I need to go through 2 rooms in my house to get there. So I get up and get to room #1, while an axe murder is hiding in room #2. For some reason as I step into room #1 I forget why I got up (be honest, this has happened to you). Since I forgot why I got up, I just go back and sit down on the couch.

Or maybe the axe murderer is in the kitchen, but while I'm in room #2 I get distracted by something my wife is looking at on the computer and don't actually get to the kitchen until after sunset (because that's when imaginary axe murderers leave kitchens).

I imagine that both of these scenarios would be examples of my 6th sense. Or more likely, I just changed my mind or got distracted by something completely unrelated to the axe murderer.

I don't mean to be insulting at all with this post. I just think sometimes we give the wildlife we hunt too much credit. Isn't it possible that the buck just changed his mind and didn't want to go that way?

dude just cut and paste alot of the stuff from this thread right to your report...

here in texas, i know for a fact, that if you drive up on a deer and you talk spanish to it, it will not run oft!!!!

Straight. LOL! Interesting scenario.

Anyway, yes, it's possible what you say, but I'm referring to an instance the buck's reactions are showing he's ALARMED in some fashion. If you are attuned to a deer's body posture, it will reveal many things and establishing a deer is alarmed or uneasy about a situation is not that hard to decipher. We're referring to situations where we can just about swear there was no way the buck could have known we were there. And I'm not talking about every single time it happens. LOL! Just those times where everything seemed to have gone right, as far as doing the things a hunter needs to do to be successful.. and the conditions are right, yet still get picked off some how.

Also your example doesn't show something that could be explained by a 6th sense; more so a lucky chain of events that went your way. LOL! A "coincidence" if you will. If you want to further an example, it could be you were doing the Clinton and not "inhaling" and got the munchies and forgot what you were doing because of you doing the Clinton. LOL!

All kidding aside, it's agreed then; the unexplainable is explainable by a buck having a 6th sense. LOL! :poke:

iSnipe

[quote=halfbakedi420;3478932]dude just cut and paste alot of the stuff from this thread right to your report...

here in texas, i know for a fact, that if you drive up on a deer and you talk spanish to it, it will not run oft!!!![/quote]

Lol nice one!

The 6th sense you're speaking of is kind of like that gut feeling you get when you know somethings going to happen before it actually does. I get those from time to time and more times than not it just gas....:kt:.....Sorry, I just had to throw that in.....:poke:

The unexplained busting of a hunter being attributed to a 6th sense and such is akin to intelligent design as a rationale as to how humans became what they are. A BS theory with no evidence to support it. Lack of evidence is not enough to support claims of a mythical 6th sense.

truth be known, hunters screw up all the time and don't know it (or do and don't want to admit it). In 25 years of hunting I can't think of one time where I was busted by a deer that was in my sight that was not directly related to me. I screwed up and can man up and say it was my fault. Can you???

Yep, I agree. It was your fault...........:poke:

Seriously, I believe you're right. Our senses aren't near as sharp as the animals we hunt and we get busted a lot without even knowing it.

You be right, I'll be rich.

iSnipe

Here's a different spin on your paper's topic that may be interesting. Try to research factual researched information from whitetail researchers and then compare that to the anecdotal information that you collect from hunters. The interesting thing would be making conclusions on similarities and differences from your finding. I'm sure there are plenty of seasoned hunters out there that have stories that some researchers would find it difficult to explain. Here's one for you. On a unseasonally warm Oct. afternoon while ML hunting I decided to take a little nap in the warm sunshine. I placed my hunting chair against a tree in a warming sunbeam and proceeded to nap away. When I woke about an hour later, I awoke to a doe standing directly infront of me looking me over from about 3 feet away. I wish I would have had a recording of my snoring for it must of had just the right tone for an excellent deer call. I'm sure that there are some PhD whitetail researchers that would have a hard time explaining that experience. If you reseach some answers, I'd love to know. Please PM me if you find anything out.

How about just curious?

Here are my favorite myths.
1. The Moon or Moon phase, weather conditons and temp's has to do with the timmimg of the rut.
2. Mature doe's are harder or just as hard to kill as mature bucks.
3. You can tell the difference between buck and doe droppings by its size and shape.
4. Only bucks contribute genes to their offspring when it comes to antler size etc.
5. That you can change the gentic potential of your buck population by culling inferior bucks when your hunting a free ranging herd.
6. Mineral blocks, supplements, homemade recipe's can cause bucks to grow larger antlers.

[quote=teedub31;3479126] .....Lack of evidence is not enough to support claims of a mythical 6th sense. quote]

You hit the nail on the head!

If you want to believe that a deer has a 6th sense because you could not understand why you got busted, then that's your belief. We are all entitled to our opnions. Just don't tell me I can't prove they don't and that's the basis of the argument. What I can prove is their senses are far more superior than any hunter's.

When you thought the deer should not realize you were closeby but decided to move the other way and now you are confused? Well, you thought wrong. And that 6th sense was not the deciding factor because it does not exist.

The sixth sense thing is because they are prey. A lot of sh1t out there wants to eat them. You would be constantly on edge too. They are not magical just good at using what senses they have.

Why won't minerals & supplements create larger antlers? Besides genetics, age, and health, antlers are a product of good nutrition.

GOOD LORD PEOPLE

if ya came home and there was a DEER in your livin room......would ya notice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

you are in their livin roommmm mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn..maybe the kitchen( for you guys who hunt a feeder)

I pity you.

iSnipe

If you're talking to Jimmy S, no need to pity me or anyone.
I don't want or need your pity. We are all hunters here and at times, may disagree at what others say. No reason to pity anyone who disagrees with you.

iSnipe, I surely hope you have a safe and successful deer season.