how do deer react to gun shots?

J

jeffo

New member
Any of you have experience watching how deer react to nearby gun shots? During rifle season I watched a 6 pointer ambling along, then heard 3 shots maybe 200-300 yards away. The buck looked around, then walked away slowly, like nothing happened, in the direction of the shots. How do you think gun shots affect deer?
 
In my experience shots don't really bother them. Many times I have been in a stand shot a deer and 10 to 15 minutes later another one is walking under my stand.
 
Deer sometimes seem to be oblivious to gun shots, just simply unaware of what the sound means. I’ve seen deer actually being shot at that didn’t realize what the sound could mean to them. The first deer a buddy shot at when we were teens was a nice buck that stood stock still while my friend missed it seven times with his .30-30 at 70 yards. We walked up on the buck and I was behind my friend and I watched him miss the buck repeatedly, I couldn’t shoot because of my position behind my friend. It wasn’t until my friend began reloading the rifle the buck took off. The first deer my son ever shot at milled around confused while my son missed it six times. At one point it actually trotted closer to us while the boy missed from about 30 yards. At other times they’ll take off like their [beeep] was on fire and their head was catching at a close range gun shot. Even when they run they don’t run too far. Whitetails here seem to seldom run over about 150 yards before they stop and go into sneaky mode. I’ve actually missed before, watched the buck run off, then I slipped over a ridge and trotted down a holler a quarter mile with the ridge between the buck and I and positioned myself in a bottleneck to intercept the buck. Thirty minutes later here he came sneaking along and this time I made the shot good.
 
I hunt on an Army base and they really dont seem to mind. The only reason ive ever seen one spook is because the sound comes from so close to them. I was coyote hunting the other day and called in a doe. She got to about 40 yards of me and machine guns started going off in another area that was close to us. I would say within 400 yards, and she never even turned her head to look or anything.
 
I've shot towards deer just to see, at 75+ yds the ones
I seen just layed their ears back twitched their tail a
little and stuck there head back in the grass.....and at
200+ i think i seen there ears twitch a little, otherwise
nothing, I guess it depends.........I remember one time
shooting a black powder to unload it and watching a deer at
about 125 yds, she layed her ears back, that's all....then
i reach down grabed a twig and snaped it, she bolted ran
off flashing her tail after laying an eyeball on me.....
so the gun shot she says WTH was that, nothing i guess,
but the twig she says holy crap something got me. better
run off......

If a deer is dumb enough to let cars keep hitting 'em they'll
never figure that sound can kill 'em, I don't care what
Walt Disney says............
 
It's not the shot or 2 but talking,scent,movement and the rest after the shot that alerts & scares everything. Even noisily working the action can do it. Last Fall I had 3 anterless tags to burn up on a private land hunt. I stacked up 3 does in about 1.5 hours on the same stand. I shot, quietly reloaded, & waited, no uneeded movement or noise. This was with a muzzle-loader. On a later hunt I shot a coyote & later a deer from the same stand about 45 min apart.
 
yea ive shot at deer and they never move just look around and go back to eating ,,even shot deer and they run at me before ..the inless they see or smell something not right most of the time they wont move ,,,, the oil on ur gun really doesnt spook them my grandfather hada buck and a doe walk up and it smell of the end of his gun barrel then lowered its head to feed never did bother it
 
Most I have seen fall down pretty quickly and die....

I have seen them bed down.
I have seen them run like [beeep] in the other direction.
I have seen them walk slowly in the direction the shots came from.

These were all Black tail/Mule Deer Not sure about White Tails.
 
My brother shot a buck last year that was across the creek from him and he jumped the creek and ran closer to him and stopped and he shot im again. Usually if they run they dont go far. Another day last season I had just climbed into my stand and saw a doe in front of me and shot at her (I missed) she ran down the ridge maybe 100 yards and stopped in front of my brother and he shot her.
 
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