The concept of deer knowing they are being shot at suggest the cognitive ability of a deer to understand combustion fired projectiles AND have an understanding of it being human related. It’s a disturbance, that if heard harmlessly throughout their life, illicits no response. You can hear a rifle shot 700 yards away and react differently than someone firing a rifle less than a 100 yards from you…. You will to jump when surprised.

That and don't let the field fill up with deer to just kill a doe . I sit a greenfield I know what I'm gonna kill before I go . If its a doe I kill the first doe I see if it's a buck I won't shoot nothing but a shooter buck .


Way my main setup is I only hunt with a wind going to the east or south any other way I hunt a different place . Deer can smell a lonnnnnng way

So if we started hunting the deer in Cades Cove tomorrow……When would they start knowing they were being hunted?

And fewer bow hunters in the woods than when gun season starts. I would guess that gun hunters outnumber bow hunters at least 5 to 1.

So if we started hunting the deer in Cades Cove tomorrow……When would they start knowing they were being hunted?[/quote




Hunt them for a solid week without firing a single shot and see how long it takes.

Hey CNC, I’m not going to say on here how many times I’ve killed multiple deer in the same hunt from the same stand with a rifle, but it’s a lot, and it didn’t make any difference. They don’t know what that loud boom is. The difference is when I shoot deer I don’t move. I don’t yell, I don’t climb down, I keep sitting. I don’t climb down and go retrieve my deer for quite a while. They have absolutely no way to associate that sound with death because they can’t reason, and they don’t associate it with a human because they don’t know I’m there. I treat my behavior after the shot just like I do the rest of the hunt. Just sit still and quiet.

I first stated hunting and for a few years after I only hunted in pretty thick woods most of the deer I killed I couldve killed with a bow. After that I killed a lot deer with a 270 , and 06 and 7 mag less than 30 yards away . Back then I wish I'd known what a 35 whelen was . Lol

This. Opening day of gun season my wife shot a coyote and he fell on the edge of the field. 20 minutes later she shot one of her biggest bucks ever.

Cades Cove is full of photographers hunting them…. It doesn’t seem to be having a negative impact…...If we started hunting them with a gun, when would the negative impacts start and "pressure" become an issue?

I've killed two does by just setting still after killing the first one out of a group . Most time another one will come back looking for the one I shot .


I've done that watching fields or woods .

Since I could have a green field here at home all the deer I killed were killed in the same corner of it year after year ..

Just to add to my last post I never liked killing a doe at last light in a green field I always worried about bucks standing in the edges watching the fields

I've said on here a lot of times ,,, it ain't the pressure it's how you pressure them . Only educate the dead ones .

Me and daddy would cut fire wood in the mornings and I'd kill deer that evening while I was setting on the stumps . Lol

What MBrock said many posts ago - all about the hunter and situation

When the land set up allows - i can gun hunt and b a ghost - leave stand w deer feeding and they never leave cause didnt see me - they never know i was there
If can set stand 80 yards from field - very easy to do - if hunt correct wind - its like u never hunted. Hav had spots n mid jan act like opening day - hav lived it many times and i bout got the big field set up like that now - keep easing stand back - when u get where they never know u were there (dont sat by when u leave 🤣🤣) - then u cooking w gas

Like Matt said - depends on the hunter and situation and bow hunters can never do the above - cause they got to be close amd i like bow hunting - but just a fact. Al that other is horse whoey

Here's a bit of a deeper question for you…..Lets say we did start pulling the trigger in Cades Cove…..What if we intentionally missed every time?…..Would it have a negative impact?.....I’m guessing it WOULD scare them but not the same as if we shot and killed them….. There’s a deeper layer to actually shooting and hitting them… ……I think that deeper layer is the sudden disappearance of a mom, sister, daughter, bachelor group member, etc….It’s a major part of what makes the situation have a lasting impression.

However, the real moment of truth happens when they either tie that disappearance to an "event" and a “thing” or they don’t……What if mom or sis simply disappears? To me the gun makes it much easier for them to associate this disappearance to when the human went boom. Again, in many instances with bow hunting I don’t think they even realize there was “an event” that took place….….It just doesn’t exceed that threshold required for them to associate the things together.

More pressure is put on the deer herd by food plot and feeder hunters that don’t have a way to slip in and out undetected regardless of weapon. It only takes a mature buck to get busted a time or two right at dark and you won’t see him on that plot before midnight until the rut.

Number of hunts on a food plot matter especially when it’s a club and not a private lease. You may slip out undetected and the next guy may clear the feild packing up and shining lights. If you can get everyone on board with hunting the correct wind, only hunting the better weather days, and slipping in and out without spooking the deer you have accomplished something.

Bow hunters don’t cause much pressure unless they are hunting plots, not playing the wind, or walking into the bedding areas busting deer every hunt.

Sometimes I think we give deer too much credit...

Yep.

When a deer looks up in a tree on the edge of a field and sees something sitting there they will make sure it is not there before they come out again. That is what pressure looks like.

This is going to happen a lot more often with a bow hunter sitting right on top of the trail than with a gun hunter sitting 100+ yards away.

As far as the gun shot. I regularly have duck hunters blasting away within sight of some of my stands. And the deer do not care. Have had shot hitting trees all around me from the duck hunters while watching deer eat in green fields. Farmers on all sides of me shooting guns every day and the deer never look up. On a side note, when the duck hunters fire up the four wheelers, the deer get gone.

this. They are just a pine goat with random actions. That is all.

If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s definitely obvious now as to who actually kills deer and who sits around and theorizes about what’s best for the deer they don’t even hunt 🙄

You can gun hunt a stand every single day the wind is good and not educate a single deer, in a well designed rifle setup. Rifle hunting I routinely climb in a stand with deer in killing range and leave the stand with deer in killing range and never spook a single deer. The same can’t be said for bowhunting. You have to be so close that you will inevitably educate some no matter what you do.

Humans educate deer, not gunshots.