Vinny_HC

What are your observations on how deer behave when a vehicle is driving around the fields? More specifically if they hear a vehicle a couple hours prior to sundown will they change their routine for the night and not move until after dark?

The reason I ask is that I have a good size area that I need to check/move cameras so I use a truck in the field to get to them so it doesn't take me 4 hours to get them all. I was thinking of hunting the same night in the area but I am not sure what their typical response would be.

Insights?

Gunplummer

Usually does not bother them until they get shot at, then anything unusual is suspect. I used to check fox traps with a truck through the fields and the deer took it pretty well until rifle season opened. The one farmer I know keeps a 30.30 on the corn picker during deer season and does pretty good.

halfbakedi420

imo..as long as the vehicle leaves...all that matters...go in and out the same way or pass through one end to the other exiting at an entirely different location.

Valentine

Been seeing them for years. Some of those deer unfortunately get run over by those vehicles. If a deer was totally adverse to a vehicle and a highway, it would never cross a highway.

Saw a recent video of a hunter who had constant trail cam shots of deer going by an area that often saw a vehicle on the land.

The thing that use to get me is how the deer were use to the leaf blowers in the nearby apartment complex. And I never heard of farmers complaining about never seeing a deer from their running tractors.

Vinny_HC

ya that makes sense. They actually hear it leave should put them more at ease.

Michlw39

Deer will get used to anything that is routine

If an army tank regularly drives through the property where you hunt, they'll get used to that. If it's not a regular occurrence and it's something out of the ordinary, they won't.

I've had deer on my camera an hour after I've left. I'm convinced they got used to hearing me drive up and drive away. In fact, I now sometimes purposely drive up early in the afternoon, drop some bait, and drive back off to the edge of the property and walk back in.

Always see deer.

halfbakedi420

after they are used to it, you can have someone drive ya in on the dl

skb2706

Out here in the west it doesn't bother them that a truck drives by. Its the trucks that stop that get them all riled up.

wi_buckstomper

In wisconsin if a truck or quad is drivin off road the deer will spook at the sound or sight of the truck or 4 wheeler. Driving a tractor to check cameras is the best way to do it around here if you have those means. Deer are not scared what so ever to a tractor.

kathomps

The other evening my dad was shelling fairly small field of corn and he still had a few rounds left to go and he said the deer were already coming out in the field to scrounge for dropped corn. He said there were probly 10 or so out there without a care in the world. Same thing with coyotes, Ive had one come within 50 yards of my tractor while I had been disking a field next to some woods for a few hours. He just kind of looked at me as he was crossing the field, but payed no real attention.