sort of a hunting story

[quilbilly]

I sent this to our local outdoor writer in the newspaper along with my occasional fishing report. Thought you all might enjoy it. I hunt muzzleloader for deer and there is no season for us in our neighborhood so I just watch---

Mainly I am writing about a mystery. Early last year I installed a permanent trail camera on one of our walking trails on the backside of our property near Leland Creek. With the camera we have captured lots of deer, of course, plus a bear, a few coyotes, and a very large tom cougar a few weeks ago. The main thing I have watched is the bucks - one in particular. This particular buck in not very old but has a huge body well over 200# on the hoof. We have gotten him on several occasions since early spring which has allowed me to watch his antlers develop from 2" long to a rather spindly 2x3 in contrast to his huge body. About the first of September when the archery deer season started, it was as if he, the other smaller bucks, and mature does we saw regularly in our yard all summer were swallowed up by the earth. There was nothing to see in our yard or on the cam except a lonely bobcat and that cougar until three days after the end of the late archery season. That buck, the smaller ones, and he does are now back calmly browsing our yard again and attacking our fruit trees.
How do those deer do that? I swear I didn't teach them to read the hunting regs! They had to be close by (maybe on our property) but there weren't even any tracks.
Anyone who accuses deer hunting of being easy hasn't met our blacktail deer.

[smoked turkey]

Isn't it amazing how dumb they can be certain times (mainly when not in season) and how smart they can be (mainly during season!). They have a sense of some kind that alerts them I think.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Same thing happens here around my area. Seems as if they all got bus tickets to another state that doesn`t have a season open yet! And sure as the sun coming up they are back a week after season is over thumbing their noses at me! Talk about a biological clock? Been whitetail deer hunting for about 50 years and this vanishing oddity has happened for me every year, oh I take a "dumb" one now and then - but the big rack boys are gone.Robert

[Crawdaddy]

It is a left wing anti-hunting conspiracy. They make sure all animals know the season! :)

[runfiverun]

i once got to watch a radio tracking program taking place in real time.
it was opening morning.
the hunters did what they do, drove up the canyons got out of thier trucks and started walking.
the deer just walked away from them, staying about the same distance apart the whole time,
it looked like two infantry lines moving across the screen.
this same scene had been playing out for about 50 years at the time.

[caseyboy]

I am convinced that around here the blacktail bucks hole up in a cave somewhere playing cards and drinking beer until the hunting season is over.

[quilbilly]

Strangely enough, I never saw any hunters in our area this year but the deer disappeared anyway. Normally we see hunters go by in their trucks all the time during modern firearm season.

[Marvin S]

What is it with deer and fruit trees? I have a million trees around and seven of them are fruit trees and that's the ones they have to polish their antlers on.