BUT I'll chime in on the one I quoted.
They are absolutely " different animals"! I speak from years of first hand experience not "anecdotes".
With 0 offense intended and the intent to be disagreeing and not disagreeable, decades of first hand experience is anecdotal evidence.
@KYHunter, I love to argue and the more I love somebody the more I argue with them. Everybody nodding in agreement and maintaining status quo didn't get us penicillin, electricity, and boots on the moon. I pick the things I believe carefully, respect those who do the same, and enjoy encountering intelligent individuals who can potentially unburden me of ignorance. That said, I form and relinquish beliefs slowly and only when faced with overwhelming evidence and love to unburden other people of ignorance too. Or at least I do when I'm on my A game, and nothing brings out that A game like deer. I personally got better at deer hunting when I threw away the magazines, started tuning out the old timers at the feed n seed, and replaced that stuff with a calculator and biology books.
With that said, I don't think the article you linked proves bucks are more intelligent or fundamentally different than other deer. Perhaps there's an error on my part not clarifying that. So I'll restate my hypothesis:
Big bucks are not smarter than other deer, and do not require fundamentally different strategies to kill.
I will say I see a middle ground I'm willing to cede. Bucks can behave somewhat differently. Your article doesn't give all the nitty gritty I'd like to see, but let's take as fact their finding that big bucks stick to swamps and move less during the daytime. The author ASSUMES the bucks collared are making "smart" decisions compared to the younger "dumber" bucks and does. I would counter that they are hogging what all the other deer want. Prime bedding, prime food, and safe/easy routes to and from. It mentions old bucks utilize the swamps and the young bucks do not. Sure they don't. Because the old buck is bigger and says "mine." I would anticipate that given an absence of that bigger deer, the next most dominant deer would step into that void. Not in a calculated, Machiavellian way but just a "Hey, this is here and it's good and nobody is saying no." Same as the buck who found it to start with. I believe this because (anecdotal evidence alert!) the local marsh I used to hunt held a nice buck or two, and lots of old does that liked to blow at me. They were more dominant than the younger deer that had to settle with sleeping on the edge of the swamp when pressure piled on. But even the young deer knew swamp=less people and tried their dead level best to get a piece of that pie. They didn't ignorantly assume the woods were just as safe while the older deer sagely knew they weren't. They were all on the same page about what a good survival tactic was. Some could just capitalize on that dim "understanding" a bit better.
I'll also say it's well documented across species that as animals age, they generally become less active. A 40 year old man is much more likely to have a favorite chair, favorite bar, favorite restaurant, etc, than a 20 year old. An old hound dog is less likely to chase a car and more likely to stay under the porch. Is that a function of being smart or attaining some social dominance you can utilize to get what you want with less effort and your metabolism slowing down?
So bucks can act differently without being smart. I'll say that all the bigger bucks I've killed that weren't actively chasing does were killed close to cover, and either right at dusk/dawn or midday. But they were still doing deer things. Hiding from hunters and trying to stay full. Not playing 3D chess with me. They're a "deerier deer." But you're still hunting deer when you hunt bucks. You just have to know that there are much less of them trotting about and they are living their #bestlife and they have no reason to be in random places. But a good spot for deer is a good spot for a big buck assuming there are good bucks in the area.
@OspreyZB, if you like GPS data Andrew over at Southern Outdoorsman recently got his hands on the data for something like 30 bucks if I remember right. Auburn University research on a hunting club during deer season. If you join their Patreon for like $5 a month you can get access to the videos they're creating that are just a map, timestamps, and pins for that bucks location once an hour for weeks at a time. I've blown about 2 hours in the past 3 days looking at that info. Hadn't heard of Spartan Forge til now but am interested. I'll read up on it tomorrow and probably throw them some money to use their data if it looks good. Data-driven hunting is my jam. It's why I nut-dangle on Sheppard so much and get so contrary about anthropomorphizing and romanticizing deer. Deer are wonderful because they're deer. Not because they're people. They're only hard to hunt in my mind if you try to think of them as people and not as deer. At least that was my epiphany when I went from struggling to kill a deer on public to being able to pretty much kill them at will every weekend. I expect the same will be true for bucks.
