Do Whitetails Have ESP?
Do whitetail deer have extra-sensory perception? It's something I found myself thinking about, and I wondered, "Do other hunters think this way? Or am I just odd?" My guess is, odd though I may be, other hunters surely must have noticed the "sixth sense" that deer exhibit on occasion. So, here are some thoughts on the subject.
Have you ever seen or heard of someone who can get along with any kind of animal? I mean, one of those guys who can hunker in a field, and deer will walk right up to him to sniff his hand? I've heard of this and never seen it, but I believe that in some cases it must be true. I think most animals have some kind of sixth sense about them, and they can tell whether or not they're in danger, to some extent. Take dogs for example. I've heard it said time and time again that a dog can sense fear. I know this is true, and he will take advantage of it to scare the crap out of you further if he thinks he's the boss. But dogs come from a line of predators, so their sixth sense is a bit different from that of prey animals.
In the woods, I've had deer around me, totally at ease, who never knew or suspected I was there, and I've also had them get very nervous and get the heck out of there, for no apparent reason. I think that, many times, not always, I've "spooked" deer by wanting to kill them, or by my very intent excitement at their presence. You know that feeling you get, like someone's watching you? It's like that. Here's an example:
I was bowhunting in a good area where I had bagged my best buck. Bow season here in Florida is hot, sweaty business, so I was pleased when I spotted a doe (doe are legal game in archery season here) approaching directly upwind of my stand. As I readied myself, she stopped, still some 60 yards out, gave a couple nervous looks about, turned 90 degrees and left. I never saw her again. She was perfectly relaxed until I began concentrating on her so hard.
OK, you say, so what? She saw my stand or me, right? But she never did look directly at me, just in my direction. She couldn't smell me, don't forget, she was upwind. Here's another:
I had been sitting on a permanent ladder stand for over three hours. I had seen no deer. Then, I heard the steady crunching of deer trotting through the dry leaves. I got the gun to my shoulder as they came into view, a doe in the lead, with a rack buck following about 40 feet behind her. They were coming my way, and it was apparent that they would pass a certain tree, into plain view, 80 feet from me. My plan was, shoot that buck right after he passed the tree in question. What a deal! Just as my concentration was reaching its highest point (right before the buck came into view), the doe suddenly stopped. Not gradually, she never slowed to a walk, she just slammed on the brakes at that apex of my attention. This worked out well, since the buck stopped also, precisely at the spot where I had planned to shoot him, so I shot him. The doe, incidentally, never ran until she spotted me move as I brought the gun down from my shoulder.
Did she wind me? Nope, she was upwind. Did she see me? No, not until after I had shot her suitor. I hadn't made any noise at all. So why did she stop? Did I just get luckier than anyone has a right to? I think she must have gotten one of those, "Whoa, something's not right here!" feelings, so she stopped to regroup. Here's what I consider the strongest argument for my case:
I had set up in some very thick scrub with my climber. After an hour or so, I heard something behind me. I turned, and spotted a doe, very close (25-30 feet). Since she wasn't legal to shoot, and I had a buck in the icebox already, I wasn't very anxious about her presence, except to hope that a buck would follow her. I watched as she passed entirely out of my view into a patch of scrub oak about 20 feet from my tree, then paused at a firelane, looked both ways down it, and then she disappeared into the scrub for good. She never knew I was there. Forty minutes later, I again heard a noise behind me, in the same place. I turned, and this time I was looking at a buck. I knew this right away, since he was facing me, head down, sniffing the doe's tracks, again 25-30 feet from me, and I noticed the very heavy, thick hair on the "forehead". However, my next chore was to find antlers. He had spikes, but they weren't quite as long as his ears. At the time, one inch above the hairline made him legal. I make it a rule to always look twice in cases like this, so I decided to let him pass through the thick patch of scrub as the doe did, gambling that he would pause at the firelane so I could check him out again. He did just as I hoped. He had just paused, when I clearly saw the spikes and decided to take him. At that instant, his body went taut, and he swung his head around towards me, looking straight in my direction, though not looking up at me in the tree. He jumped to his left, uncertain of what to do, knowing something was up. I shot him, and that was that.
There's no way he could have smelled me, since what wind there was blew from him to me. He couldn't have seen me, as he had been looking away, and when he did spin his head around, he never looked up. I didn't make any noise at that time; I had the gun on my shoulder already. I really don't think he heard my heart pounding, although it seemed deafening to me. I just think he had a bad feeling about the situation, and that feeling was brought on by my sudden intense concentration on making him dead.
It appears to work both ways, too. One of Dad's old friends, Jody, used to hunt deer with us often. I know he was only along for the companionship, because when he shot his one & only deer, he reported that he said to himself, "Oh s***, I hit it!", and he meant it. Shooting squirrels and rabbits was about as far as he could go and still enjoy it, and the deer started to catch on. After he got his buck, I don't think he ever wanted to shoot a deer again, but he kept on hunting just the same. And he proceeded to get opportunities that the rest of us only dream of! Once, he borrowed one of Dad's rifles, complaining that his own had too hard a trigger. He went out, climbed a tree, and a buck strolled up. Jody missed, then complained about the rifle's light trigger. Dad investigated, and said the deer was right under Jody, who wasn't more than 10 feet off the ground. Another time, a buck and doe ran up to him while he was walking. They stopped about 30 feet away, broadside. Jody was using a H&R muzzleloader, that looks & opens like a single-shot shotgun. He threw the gun up, and instead of cocking it, hit the lever and broke it open. The deer ran off, and stopped about 30 yards away. Jody snapped the gun shut, cocked it, and promptly missed. Join me in lamenting these lost chances; why don't they happen to us? Too many bad vibes around us, man.
Not that it's always that way. I've had deer come to me, never spooked, that I was as intent on as any other deer over the years. Maybe they were just young 'uns, or maybe they were too interested in my grunts to worry about anything else. But it seems clear to me that deer have some sort of extra sense that can pick up on whatever "vibes" we may radiate. So, I think I'll try to relax a bit more out there, on the off chance that they'll never know what him 'em.
- Russ Chastain
