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Sticks, Aiders, Saddles vs the deer’s senses.

Boudreaux

Boudreaux

Well-Known Member
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Feb 28, 2014
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Utah
This is a off the DIY painted stick thread by @g2outdoors, I wanted to start a new thread because I just feel like that derail thread (my bad) was getting to some very interesting topic and discussion. Specifically about deer vision, colors, sticks, aiders and wind movement. Quotes that I am using are taken from that thread, not to pick on anybody’s thoughts, ideas, beliefs, or cult followings. It is mearly used to help spark a converstion and new thoughts about some of this stuff.

DaveT1963 said:
I absolutely believe deer can pick up unnatural movement even in windy conditions.
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What is/can be considered “unnatural movement” in windy conditions? This is interesting because depending on the wind speed thing can move in any direction. Example after a gust of wind lays down thing can be moving against the wind, so you will see vines moving into the wind. So that is not unnatural, you will also see things move left and right in the wind. So this isn’t unnatural. So it makes you wonder, what did that deer see.....

DaveT1963 said:
Over the last three years I have had many does and younger bucks see them and even investigate them. I do not think it was due to scent or any other reason except they had slight movement that drew their attention. I had two perfect set ups with winds and thermals working to my advantage and I had two mature bucks, on separate occasions look directly at my bottom aider that was only slightly moving.
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This is a perfect example, did the deer see the aider? Perhaps? Or was there something that peaked his interested, allowing him to key in more on this moving object. Scent perhaps...?

DaveT1963 said:
Will deer pick up the movement every time? Absolutely not. Did it happen twice to often for me - yes it did. So I adjusted my equipment to deal with this and haven't had another deer alert to my aiders since
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This becomes the guessing game, did the deer see the aider? Did the deer hear the aiders? Did they smell the aiders? There is zero way to tell, we can’t ask the deer and he can’t tell us. This is where hunters start to assume. Because we saw it moving, thats what it had to be! Really, we have no idea.

g2outdoors said:
I can't smell the spray paint at all. Hell, the sticks come painted from the factory, so I don't think my spray paint would do any more damage than factory paint.
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This is what I am starting to get at, hunters begin to assume or look at things from the way we do, not the way a deer would see or smell things. So because we can’t smell something doesn’t mean a deer can’t. We all know deer have an amazing ability to smell. Could that deer smell the factory finish on he sticks after a year, who knows. Can the smell the new finish on the sticks after a year, who knows. Could it have been the handling of the stick within the past 4 hours that they smelled, again who knows.

g2outdoors said:
I personally have witnessed multiple deer see my sticks and follow them up to me. I have seen that happen more than once. I also know that deer pay no attention to my sticks and ladders that have been preset.
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Again, we can’t confirm that the sticks were seen first. Could they have been, yes, but eyes are a deers worst sense. Could it have been a smell, that lead the to look in that direction? Could it have been the noise from a aider?

g2outdoors said:
My personal belief is the deer notice the black sticks/aiders against the lightly colored tree bark when it's new to the environment (like on a mobile hunt). Maybe they've walked past that tree trunk 1000 times so the new feature stands out? I don't know.
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This brings up a good example, would we notice if something minor changed in our daily lives? We might depending on how interactive we were with that object. If it was something like a political sign in a yard on our way to work, it might take us weeks notice.

What I am leading up to is that we as hunters seem to assume that things are visual keys to a deer, because our abily to process things visually is amazing. Because a deer looked in a direction, doesn’t mean something was seen. It could be following its nose to ears to then try and locate visually. I typically jump to this first, How did that deer locate me?
Scent?
Sound?
Sight?

Thanks,
Boswell
 
I agree with you that we'll never know for sure. I disagree that we can't make educated guesses based on a deers behavior and our experience in the woods.

For instance if a deer bends down and appears to smell where I walked in, next he stops walking and scent checks the air, next he stands and looks up and down the trail searching for something. It is a good assumption that he smelled my trail even though I can't PROVE it.

If a deer is walking along, looks in my general direction, stops walking and begins to bob his head up and and side to side, it safe to assume he saw something out of the ordinary and is trying to figure out what it was.

We can make pretty good hypotheses about what sense a deer is relying on bases in his actions. It's not 100% proof, but a pretty good guess.

Here's a scenario: a deer comes in up wind. There is a steady wind blowing from north to south towards a lake to your back. You accessed via a canoe across the lake to the south. The deer never crossed your trail since he came from the north and is not getting your wind. All of a sudden he looks in your direction, sees something, and literally follows the trunk of the tree up 30 feet to your position. Given these facts, the best guess would be he saw something "strange" and investigated with his eyes.

Sure, you'll never know for certain. But if I had to make a wager, I'd bet he saw something out of place with his eyes.

Sent from my Galaxy S8.
 
we need a Pinocchio button.

Anybody that has pursued whitetails for any length of time knows how quickly they pick off movement even up in a tree. It is a well documented and known FACT that mature bucks often bed in positions that gives them both scent and SIGHT advantage. You should spend some time chasing prairie whitetails in Kansas and Nebraska and then come back and tell us again how poor they see. Of the three senses deer rely on in most cases, I would rank them Scent, SIGHT and then Hearing.

In my original post I described what I witnessed first hand - you were not there so perhaps you are speculating (assuming)?
 
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Well said @Boudreaux !!!! Most but not all has to be speculation. g2's stick experience is the best example. Perhaps the deer noticed the bottom stick because it was new to that particular location. Then it's peripheral vision led it to the next stick and so on...... had there not been a stick close to eye level then maybe that deer would never have seen him.
 
@g2outdoors I completely agree! I am not saying we can’t make educated guess. Example your deer crossing the track, it pretty good chance that deer didn’t see your boot track or hear that boot track. While we can’t prove he smelled by some detective skills, we can rule out the other two.

On your second scenario, I wouldn’t rule out the wind. I trust the wind about as much as a fat kid watching my slice of cake. I don’t believe you can 100% perdict the wind, sure you can drop a milk weed and watch it float, but TO ME there are WAY to many factors that can effect a scent stream to 100% rule my scent stream out. Am I saying that is what happened, NO! Is it a possibility, yes, a small one. Don’t get me wrong, we ALL have been seen by deer. I am not saying deer are blind, they just have poor sight. Could your body have been silhouetted? Maybe, who knows. I again I would say that “That deer located me” I wouldn’t say how.

I don’t buy into the beast wind reading cult :tearsofjoy: Can you get a general wind direction, but we can’t see our scent stream. So we do not know 100% what is going on.


DaveT1963 said:
It is a well documented and known FACT that mature bucks often bed in positions that gives them both scent and SIGHT advantage.
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Dave, FACTS are 100%, using facts followed by often doesn’t add up. It is documented that some mature bucks will bed with those two senses to there advantage, but its not fact that all mature bucks bed this way.


Thanks,
Boswell
 
Ok Boswell thanks for the "education". I now understand why you prefer to walk around trees and use ratchet straps..... my uneducated, speculating and gullable self goes in a different direction. Have fun and shoot straight.

Huck... I'm still not wearing crocs.
 
 
DaveT1963 said:
Ok Boswell thanks for the "education". I now understand why you prefer to walk around trees and use ratchet straps..... my uneducated, speculating and gullable self goes in a different direction. Have fun and shoot straight.

Huck... I'm still not wearing crocs.
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Huck... I'm still not wearing crocs.

I challenge you to get a pair lined with fur and wear them when taking out the trash or checking the mail. You may never post your appreciation for them on Saddlehunter but you'd be in love nonetheless. :cool:
 
My personal belief is deer are no different than any other animal or person. They all have similarities and yet have their own personality.

One deer might walk past a climbing stick, the next one might spook, next one might follow them up the tree to see you. Same thing with smell, some will come in down wind and not care others have 0 tolerance.

To hunt them my goal is to take out as many of their senses with how I hunt as I can.
 
g2outdoors said:


I agree that we can't rule out the wind... Ever. But in some scenarios, like my second, it is way more likely the deer saw something...not for sure, not certainly, and not definitely, but probably.

I think experienced hunters generally know what went wrong when they get busted. The deer usually give it away based on their body language and reactions. Of course there are exceptions, but I believe that to be generally true.



Sent from my Galaxy S8.
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I agree, the more successful hunders tend to figure out what actually happened through a scientific process of elimination and probability and making educated deductions not assumptions. Then they adapt and over come. I don't think I'm a victim of speculation or not being able to figure out what happened.

Besides all science starts as a theory and then you test it. Since i removed aiders not one single deer has paid attention to my sticks and even if one does in the future, i know the percentage has went down.... and that was my goal as I'm sure you will validate with your painted sticks as well
 
DaveT1963 said:
we need a Pinocchio button.

Anybody that has pursued whitetails for any length of time knows how quickly they pick off movement even up in a tree. It is a well documented and known FACT that mature bucks often bed in positions that gives them both scent and SIGHT advantage. You should spend some time chasing prairie whitetails in Kansas and Nebraska and then come back and tell us again how poor they see. Of the three senses deer rely on in most cases, I would rank them Scent, SIGHT and then Hearing.

In my original post I described what I witnessed first hand - you were not there so perhaps you are speculating (assuming)?
Click to expand...
Had you not witnessed that deer picking up on your aiders in the wind and changing your method; who knows how many picked up on that movement that you may not have noticed..?
Some of the pics posted of "from the tree" kind of crack me up ; a whole gaggle of assortments strapped to their tree to draw attention to their position.
 
Deer are similar and yet different, just like us. Large bucks don't even associate with does, with the exception of seasonal hormonal activity. They are ever alert and yet have a degree of curiosity. They are curious until they are satisfied that no danger is associated with an object or movement.
My friend related stories of two Uncles who made their own bows and arrows. One used a deer tail he kept in a bag. He would affix it to a bush and run fishing line to his perch. He made a pedal that he worked with his foot to twitch the tail to draw the attention of nearby deer. He killed many deer with "movement." Ones silhouette can put deer on high alert, as can "unnatural" shapes. Indians walked one foot in front of the other to avoid daylight between their legs and held their arms in such a way as to avoid a gap.
I have watched nice bucks stomp and beat bushes trying to make me move, while on the ground, downwind, in complete leafy camo. I think their "mood" often determines whether they investigate something odd or turn inside out and vanish. That's what makes pursuing venison so challenging!
 
g2outdoors said:
I agree that we can't rule out the wind... Ever. But in some scenarios, like my second, it is way more likely the deer saw something...not for sure, not certainly, and not definitely, but probably.

I think experienced hunters generally know what went wrong when they get busted. The deer usually give it away based on their body language and reactions. Of course there are exceptions, but I believe that to be generally true.
Click to expand...

I agree, in you scenario, it is highly likely that the deer saw you.
I will disagree the with second part, I think experienced hunters will make more assumptions about what went wrong, leading them to think they "know" what wrong. Again, there are things that can happen where we can eliminate the probability that it wasn't another sense.
Experienced hunters tend to fall into the "I have seen it happen, so thats the way it is" this is why there is so many thoughts and theories from hunters out there that are contradictory to the science. Cull bucks, rut is by the moon, ect.
That said, if you know (are able to rule out the other options) what happened, can you use that deer's body language to help figure out what might of happened a different time? Maybe? But like @Root said, that can vary with the deer as well as that deers temperament. It might react to the same situation differently on different days.

Thanks,
Boswell
 
Good question Boswell, I like questions that make us question our core beliefs.



ETA: had this happen twice this season: I set up in a tree, using climbing sticks to get to 15-20 ft set up in a Kestrel. Then a doe came in. In both cases, she came in close and looked right up that tree directly at me, jumped a bit, but did not run off. I was perfectly still, but something gave those does the jitters.

What is that thing?
 
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I do agree about the milkweed part kind of. I'm not a scientist but my thoughts are if it's 30 degrees out and my body temp is 98.5 my initial main scent stream is going to go up first cool and come back down. Milkweed is going to just float along with the air currents and thermals. Long before I had ever heard of using milkweed I used to watch for chimney smoke as I drove to my hunting location. The days it went straight up I knew I was usually golden to push the envelope a bit with my hunts. Now that I've said that, I also think using milkweed is great. It's free, and clearly shows where your scent is mostly going.

If I can use something to my advantage then I'm going to. Milkweed falls into that category. Blending the color of my sticks in with the tree is there too. As are a bunch of other things like those. Do they allow me to fool every deer? No, neither does anything else or it wouldn't be called hunting.
 
Boudreaux said:
I agree, in you scenario, it is highly likely that the deer saw you.
I will disagree the with second part, I think experienced hunters will make more assumptions about what went wrong, leading them to think they "know" what wrong. Again, there are things that can happen where we can eliminate the probability that it wasn't another sense.
Experienced hunters tend to fall into the "I have seen it happen, so thats the way it is" this is why there is so many thoughts and theories from hunters out there that are contradictory to the science. Cull bucks, rut is by the moon, ect.
That said, if you know (are able to rule out the other options) what happened, can you use that deer's body language to help figure out what might of happened a different time? Maybe? But like @Root said, that can vary with the deer as well as that deers temperament. It might react to the same situation differently on different days.

Thanks,
Boswell
Click to expand...

I understand your theory, but I stand by my second point.

Maybe the word "know" is wrong since we can't really be sure what's in the deer's head. But I generally can tell what went wrong when I get busted. I'm sure a lot of other experienced hunters feel the same way.

In general, deer have tells just like poker players. The head-bob, the air sniff, the swivel ears, the ten minute stare, the stomp and snort - I've been busted by them all more times than I'd like to admit. If you consider all the circumstances around the event, it's usually pretty easy to figure out what happened. Sure, you can't be 100% certain. But unless you're a brand new hunter, you're probably going to have a pretty solid idea.

Sent from my Galaxy S8.
 
Sometimes I can be minding my own business and my wife will appear in my peripheral vision but she will be deadly silent. I can sense without looking at her that something is not quite right. After an awkward moment I'll look at her and she will have flames coming from her nostrils and her eyes. Next I usually hear breathing sounds that are very very similar to an angry brahma bull. Naturally startled and unaware of what must have caused such a scene I'll ask " are you upset about something "? To that she immediately replies "I'm fine" . I guess we don't really know too much based on visual clues and body language etc.
 
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