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How smart are deer? Do they have a long term memory? Short term memory? How smart are they really?

Not very smart really. One track minds and short attention spans.

Wow, like so many people I know.

They are not smart. Often times one will not leave after you shoot it's companion. Mostly that happens with fawns, but sometimes adult deer will stand there looking trying to figure why their buddy is taking a nap now. Bucks looking for does are often incredibly unwary. Do something that they don't expect, say like go from walking to sitting, and they might well come closer to see what the heck is going on. If people would learn to watch carefully in the woods it would surprise them how many deer you walk past out bird hunting. Drive Interstate 94 from Hudson down to Tomah and you'll see that they don't recognize the danger of traffic either.

Smart enough to skunk me last season... Ah well...

Good one,Lol.

Back in Elmer Kieth's day they were capable of reading the paper, able to do math, tell time, and make evasive plans worthy of a west point graduate. They doubled back, carefully stepping exactly in their old tracks,and took crafty right angled jumps over windfalls and even cliffs once they knew he was on their trail. NO match for Elmer tho.
Ever read 'Elmer Keith's Big Game Hunting'? It's worth owning if you can find one.

Smart enough to walk up behind me out of a thicket, but dumb enough to go crashing back into said thicket and come out the other side, still trying to get to where they were headed in the first place. And dumb enough to look at me like they can't figure out why I'm not where I was before, right before I shoot them dead.

The ones around me are smart enough to stay in peoples backyards and live off their gardens.

They're street smart if they live long enough to learn from others or lucky enough to survive lone encounters.

After spending about a decade of shooting hundreds of crop damage deer and closely observing them nearly year-around I've come to accept the following about deer.

They're fairly good with what normally works but have a bit of delay in situations out of the ordinary. If they are accustomed to people they know/learn the difference between the appearance and gait of a casual hiker and a hunter. They live in a hierarchical society and if the leader doesn't flee or sense danger the rest stay put until the situation becomes obviously dangerous or tedious. Most don't know about cars, trucks, horns honking, tractors, guns or gun shots but the older/educated ones know known and unknown -> the educated ones flee or freeze from unknowns. They don't know about their mortality. They don't know about being shot, they know to react to pain or perceived dangerous situations and they flee the area of danger if they can identify it. They have a home (range) and are reluctant to leave it.

They "know" hunting season is upon them because hunters begin scouting the wooded areas not frequented for about nine months, areas that hikers and others don't enter. The early and/or frequent scouters change the habits of the deer just prior to deer season.

They are much like people in that they react when and as it's required.

Those are all very good answers.

One thing that most people do not realize is that deer lives in a certain range all of their lives - at least until their mother kicks them out of the herd - if they are a buck.
They mostly live a life of solitude - not needing any human intervention - feeding and stuff that at times actually brings up the mortality rate and not the opposite.

The very first day of rifle season in Pennsylvania they get real smart real quick.
Because deer lives in the woods, they can experience numerous thunderstorms in a lifetime and they are not generally scared when they hear a loud crash or boom out in the woods.
It isn't until people start running around and acting stupid after the rifle shot that they get real educated real quick.

On the opposite side, when the weather conditions gets really nasty - such as it was here last week, temps below zero at night, deer hesitates to run when danger is in the area and many times they will stand in one pose and hope that you do not notice them or that you will not bother them because their stores of fat is being depleted and they need to conserve as much energy as possible for the long winter ahead of them and any stress that is placed upon them could cause them to burn up their winter reserves and they can quite literally starve to death with a whole mouth and belly full of corn and oats and hay.

The PGC in Pennsylvania claims that as many as 14 Elk were lost last year because of humans feeding them the wrong food in the winter.

Good observations Dave. Deer are highly suspicious of anything out of the ordanary but soon become acustomed to it.

Example, and I have seen this year after year. During the summer and fall I can drive my pasture and deer will pay very little attention to me unless I stop. If they are close when I stop, say fifty yards or so, they will move off but not in a hurry. If they are out aways they will just stand and look.

About two days after the season opens they will flee at the sight of a pickup no matter where they are in relation to it. NO WE DO NOT SHOOT OUT OF VEHICLES AT DEER.

When the season closes for about a week or two this behavior continues. Then they revert to not paying vehicles any attention at all. By the end of February I am able to drive by deer slowly at thirty yards and they will just stand an watch me.

BCR

I have noticed Mallard ducks doing the same thing. About a week after the season closes here, the road ditches will be full and you can drive right by them. miles

These were't too smart!!



But this one is and still is !!!

The mature bucks form or congregate in bachelor herds about the middle to end of February and often stay and travel together until late August or early September. Sometimes old does will hang with the bachelor herd -> these old gals have a nose about a foot long it seems and a very wary.

The non-mature buck deer form matriarchal family type groups/herds with an "elected" leader, this leader is most often the one that will flee first at danger -> the others will key off her and leave once she indicates to do so. If a stealthy hunter were to shoot the lead doe (a DRT shot) and remain "hidden" to the rest of the deer the remaining deer will often not flee allowing for successive kills.

Family groups have a hierarchy, an old doe for a boss then the younger does and finally the 1 and 2 year old deer. There may be several family groups sharing or overlapping in a common range, these separate family groups also have a hierarchy and seem to avoid intermingling. Hunting a single field or feeding area may allow a hunter to hunt several different family groups at different times of the day -> one spooked group does not mean all deer in the region are spooked.


Boggy Creek Ranger
In the farm country it seems the deer do know all to well about pickups and farm equipment. These vehicles normally travel about the fields in patterns or along known routes. Once hunting season starts it seems the pickups stop traveling these circuitous routes and make a beeline straight to the deer -> the deer don't care for this direct attention in my observation. When I've needed to "sneak" up on deer in a truck I slowly follow the normal routes along the edge of the fields going slow and even then they seem to know a strange pickup and/or a persons intentions. I have had farmers leave equipment in the field (if the fields are expansive and without cover) and used this equipment as a shield, the deer don't seem to mind a stationary wagon, spreader, pickup or such. (It might take a few days for the smartest of deer to get close to the parked equipment but eventually they'll come to ignore it.)

The best thing to do is to hit them with a old car or pick up truck and then throw them in the bed while they are stunned and tie their feet together so they can't kick you.
Then drive to a secluded place where you can slit their throats or dispatch them quickly with a .22 rifle and then take them home and eat them as quickly as possible.

Deer are pretty stupid and if you tie them to a tree, they will pull - walk backwards on the rope.
You would think that it would strangle them - but it doesn't seem to phase them.

Interesting.

Do you eat them hair-on or hair-off when you're in a hurry?

This was an interesting read. WAS..thanks Daniel Boone

well one thing i learned from this thread and that's that deer are more Intelligent than Daniel Douche beer.

Big old bucks are a lot like big old men. They sleep all day and wander around all night. Neither have very much intelligence.