Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wary/Stupid Game

(Inspired from a thread in Big Game Rifles)

There is no doubt that there are places where animals are much easier to kill than others, not only geographically, but biologically. Most of my experience is with whitetails, so I will use them as an example. I have "hunted" in places where the seem down-right stupid and others where they won't even stand for a light at night, much less move during daylight.

Do you believe the wariness exhibited in some areas is entirely due to pressure or that some animals, in some areas, are just "smarter" than others? Depredation? Local evolution?

Too many years of spotlighting and running them with dogs in this region seems to make them more wary.I've never seen a mature buck at a feeder.West Texas is all together different.

the ones in my brothers back yard are way easier to kill than the ones at the ranch.i think deer that live near humans, become use to them and are less wary.
my brother shot one of those back yard deer in the leg with his bow, instead of running off it walked up to us like it was looking for help. john shot it again .
oh he shoots traditional and his arrow slipped off the rest when he shot.

Good thread.

I think pressure is part of it, especially when they are always hunted in the same way. Change the way they are hunted, sometimes a little, some a lot, and the "smarts" diminish.

Depredation goes along the same lines.

Of course, local evolution might be a factor, as there are some places where they just seem...smarter. Often those areas are heavily hunted, with high levels of predation (whether human, human-induced, or natural), and high levels of competition for scarce resources.

Predatation whether Man or Animals makes deer more wary than other that live without fear of being something next dinner

Pressure.

Recently I was involved on a wind farm on the Kennedy Ranch, near Kingsville, Tx (it's the size of a county in most states). It was routine for bucks to feed right next to where men were working - during broad daylight. Nilgai as well, we'd see 'em all the time. Even the 'yotes were "dumb".

Not a month after finishing that project, we started another in the same area, but without the protection that the private ranch offered. It was the standard stands, 'n' feeders everywhere. We'd see tracks, and catch a glimpse of critters in headlights, but not once did I see deer feeding during daylight.

Nocturnal feeding/habbits have happened for a reason.

Wouldn't generations of animals that were "pressured" cause them to evolve into something different than those not?

Pat,I've come to believe that the genetics that make for trophy size antlers also make for more intelligence ,or wariness.This is what got me started thinking that way :



I killed this buck in 1999.In '95 or'96 [I've never figured out which] I had gone down early one afternoon to my hunting pasture and was hid back under a big post oak with drooping limbs that made for an excellent blind.It was about 60 yards from a hog trap that I kept baited with corn.It was right next to a creek that was heavy timbered.

Before long,there were five bucks in front of me and no does.There was one spike and three pretty common bucks.Back in the brush behind the trap,I could see another buck.He had a big ten point frame with some trash on it , but it was obvious he was a long yearling.

He never came out in the open with the other bucks even though I watched them for over an hour.I never saw him again though I hunted that pasture exclusively and it's only a mile from where I lived at the time.

Then,in '99,I started seeing signs of a big deer using the mesquite flat across the creek from the place where the hog trap had been.I watched that flat morning and evening from Wed. thru Sun. evening , when he came walking across it like an old plowhorse.

I'm sure the two bucks were one and the same.I'm also sure that the young deer I saw did not come by his wariness from experience.

That got me to watching for this trait and I can't say it holds up in every instance-one of my hunters in his last year on the lease killed a young,dumb,buck with 15 points which almost climbed in the blind with him - but I believe genetics are responsible WHEN a young good buck acts like an old good buck.

I'm not so sure that becoming nocturnal isn't a step in that direction (or the final result).

A whitetail wouldn't have to grow a fifth-leg to have "evolved".

Seems to me there is some genetic variation in animal behavior. In any population there will be some that are more wary than others. The behavior can be modified through experience, i.e. they see a human and are just missed by a shot, or they are standing next to another deer that gets shot.

I'd always read that wild turkeys are supposed to be extremely wary. When I shot a hen two years ago, there were three other hens nearby. They flew at the shot, landed, and ran back to the one I'd shot to see what was wrong with it. I guess I could have doubled on another one.

A buck this past year needed to be culled, as it was older and had a poor rack. But his habit was to walk out, look around, and quickly disappear. Most folks take a while looking at a deer before they decide to cull it, and this one had survived by not sticking around long enough to give anyone the chance. Since I'd seen no trophy bucks worth taking, I decided to bust him the next time he appeared, and he was down a few seconds after I saw him, the next time.

I also always think of that famous buck in Utah, Popeye, who died of old age on public land despite hundreds, maybe thousands of people coveting his huge nontypical rack. He just knew how to avoid hunters.

The Waggoner Pasture is the largest piece of privatly owned land under one fence in Texas.Back toward the middle of the pasture are trophy bucks that stand and watch you drive by in a pickup.

They have never seen a deer killed,never been shot at , and most have never seen a human on foot.

Like anything ever born, hatched, or let, individual traits are unique. The question becomes, is it a repeatable trait, or a random happening. I don't pretend to know the answer.

Ever seen a litter with a half dozen "come-and-greet-ya pups", and one that keeps it's distance? How 'bout a family of six siblings, five of which wouldn't say "crap", if they had a mouthful, and then there's me?

Pressure and type of pressure. Deer that are very wary of road hunting can seem when properly still hunted if the have little exposure to it. I believe that Jim Shockey did an article several years ago called Super Deer vs Stupor Deer which covered this topic, I cannot recall what magazine it was in. GRF

I tend to agree, because very seldom does a game animal encounter a threat from a human until they're actually killed.

That brings up the question, was this "instinct" created by evolution of learned behavior from past generations, or are the superior animals just instinctively more wary of everything?

I realize we're talking natural selection. It seems that the areas with more of the specific animal have dumber animals also, indicating that it takes less instint (?) to survive.

I have access to an area that has a mixture of whitetails, and mulies - and has zero pressure; I mean none. It's several square miles, and bordered by lands that do get pressured. The deer have learned where the non-pressured area is, and stay there. You can see 'em all day long in the protected area.

I can also take you to a small hunk of land owned by 3M, that is off limits to hunting. It's routine to see critters feeding in broad daylight during the nine-day Wisconsin gun deer season. Any direction from that refuge you'll see hunters perched in trees - but not a single deer (unless "bumped" off their daytime beds).

Like all warm blooded animal, deer communicate in their own way.

My main hunting pard guided down on the King Ranch for several years.Even guided JB one time.

He says the deer are conditioned to allow spot and stalk type hunting which most of their high-dollar clients wanted.They develop what he calls a "bow and arrow" mentality.Their comfort range is about 80 yards.

Beyond that,they watch you approach.Somewhere inside that , they start to get nervous,but if they run off and go out of sight , you can approach them again.

The guides use this behaviour to sort of cull out the buck they want for the client.The kill is made once the buck is separated from any other deer.

When culling does,only single does are killed.The deer NEVER see another deer killed by a human.At least that's the goal.

Chalk one up for the humans - 'cause that is brilliant. (behavior, not genetics).

I think it is local pressure, or lack there of, and the biggest percentage of the response programed by their mother's rearing. Add close call or two in the adolescent years and the ones that get by are a different critter.

Learned response. Deer season here is very short compared to many other places across the country and in their reaction to humans changes that short time. Stands to reason the more pressure the longer stronger that reaction would be.

Good example is loss of human fear critters have in National Parks.