Thinking like a deer

[Wolfshead]

I’ve been seeing this a lot lately, “You’ve got to think like a deer”, “Seeing things through a whitetail’s eyes”, or “Think like a Buck”.
It’s not new, it’s just that I’ve been seeing it a lot recently, and would like to know more, especially how we all process this.
To me, this is the part where you’ve got to learn to be a detective. Learn to ask the right questions, and then come up with the right answers.
What does “thinking like a deer” mean to YOU? What are the questions to ask? What are some of the answers that we are all looking for?
It is a part that I sometimes struggle with, I would like to be a better detective, and get so I can understand more of how to sort through things.
I’m very interested in YOUR thoughts on this.

 

[FLS]

Don’t give them more credit than they deserve. He’s thinking about eating or screwing depending on time of year. Figure out where the food is or where the does are.

 

[gjs4]

For guys who scout hard there is a key that is rarely mentioned and often missed- learn their personality. Some love, fight, hide, do things deliberately, do things stupidly....... broad nets arent for trophy fisherman

 

[UncleNommies]

I completely agree with the above statement. Deer have very different personalities and you can utilize this to your advantage if you are able to observe them and establish patterns for each deer. I hunt an area on national forest where ive ran cameras for 4 years straight. I have been able to see behaviors and traits on camera, and while in the tree, that vary between different bucks. This helps to a degree, but in my mind, deer have 4 main things they focus on (food, breeding, strategic bedding, and surviving). The first 3 are pretty self explanatory, find the food source, find the does, get on travel routes between bedding and the first two and you in a grear position. The fourth one, surviving, is one that intrigues me. Deer are not dumb and they will pattern you well before you pattern them. They live in the areas you hunt for 365 days a year and they are aware of their surroundings. I can walk from one end of my house to the other in complete darkness and turn on light switches, or grab door handles, because it's my home. Ive learned it for years and it's second nature. Deer are the same way, they know the woods around them, and the second something is out of place they are aware. You walk over their travel route or touch a licking branch in a scrape, they smell you. Deer deserve a lot of credit, mature bucks dont get to be 5+ years old for no reason.

I hunted a buck on a local WMA. I seen him in soybean field over 5 miles from where I killed him. During a rifle quota hunt the entire WMA was filled with the orange army, literally everywhere you went someone was there. I thought, if I was a deer where would I go with all this pressure and when. The answer was, I wouldn't be on the mountain, I would be in the thickest crap I could find staying put. So I found the thickest stuff and it was 500 yards behind the DNR check station. A massive old food plot they let get extremely overgrown. Saplings so close you couldn't walk through them, briars and brush so thick you had to get on your hands and knees and go through rabbit trails. This is where I killed that buck, 5.5 year old at 2:30 pm. Thinking like a buck doesn't have to be difficult, they're just trying to survive!