So how smart are they?

[Doc]

I have always wondered just how smart bucks are. Are they hard to get because they are so smart, or are they simply a lot rarer because they are the prime target of hunters and there simply are fewer. I have to admit that I have seen some rather big bucks do some absolutely dumb things. Usually that is related to the rut when they are controlled by their sexual needs.

Yes, I have seen some things over the decades that show that some bigger bucks do that appear to be intelligent, but I have seen old does do smart things too. So the question is, just because a deer has made it through several seasons and has a lot of bone on its head, does that mean that these big old goats are super smart? 

From an elevated spot, I have watched a big buck lay on it's belly with it's head pressed against the ground in a swamp when a hunter walked within a few feet of him. That shows some real smarts. He didn't jump up and risk the flying lead. But I also saw a doe holding tight in a tangle of grape vines next to our driveway just a few feet away from me waiting for me to keep on walking. I'm sure that she had done that many times in her lifetime rather than jumping up and running and risking getting shot at. So she was pretty smart too. probably as smart as that buck in the swamp.

What have you all seen that impressed you with the intelligence of bucks or does.

[wolc123]

This old Adirondack doe was the smartest deer that I’ve ever hunted.  Certainly way ahead of most of the mature bucks that I’ve taken.  I pursued her for several years.  Im guessing that she was 4-1/2 years old, when I finally managed to bring her down.  
 

Our first encounter was during the late ML season, when she was probably 2-1/2 years old and had a single fawn.  I should have had her that time, when she offered me a 40 yard broadside shot.  A hidden branch deflected my ML bullet, and saved her.  
 

She had (2) fawns the next year, when she managed to thwart me on every attempt during the early ML week.  She usually fed in the shooting range meadow, near my in-laws lake house, every evening.  She seemed to recognize the danger and patterned me, getting the best of me 2 or 3 times that week.  
 

She did the same on our first encounter the following year.  I had learned that she always went up to a ridge to feed on nuts, after she left the meadow.  I got up there before her, about a full hour before sunrise, the last time.  
 

I had a favorable wind and I was able to get into position up there completely undetected.  She usually always monitored the lake house door, just before sunrise.  My extra early rise tricked her.  

As the sun started to light up the woods up on the ridge, I caught some flash of her white tail.  She held her tail out, then moved about 50 yards, then repeated the process, getting closer and closer.  I was downwind of the best mast trees up there.  She eventually offered an easy, broadside 30 yard shot and I was able to connect with her shoulder blade.  
 

It was only after she was down, that I saw the two fawns which she had been signalling with her tail and masterfully leading up the ridge to the food.  

I may have started the whole process over again last year, on what was probably one of those fawns.  I missed her with the same ML, in almost the same place where I missed her mother, due to the same cause -probable branch strike.  This time, it was during the early ML week, and again the doe had just one fawn with her.  It’s pretty cool how history repeats itself.  
 

Only one, of the dozen or so mature bucks that I’ve killed, has particularly impressed me with his smarts.  Most of the rest were easily outwitted during the peak two weeks of the rut.  
 

That one smartie was hanging with a flock of turkeys, likely taking advantage of their superior vision, to help evade hunters.  God Himself assisted me on that one causing me to drop the Bible I had been reading up on my stand.  I climbed down from my tree stand (leaving my 16 ga slug gun loaded) to pick it up, with 5 minutes of legal light remaining.  
 

I was wearing my orange camo jacket which that flock of turkeys could have seen from a mile away had I still been exposed up in that stand.  They didn’t do this cagey old 8-pointer any good, when they and he stepped into the little patch of brush under my tree.  

Edited January 18 by wolc123

[suburbanfarmer]

I once went on a hunting trip in hopes of chasing some white whitetails at Sampson state park.

It was bow season and I along with 3 hunters walked out of the parked truck and past a giant 10pt bedded in the ditch 10yrds away. 

Never saw it until I turned back to grab something from the truck and when I was a few yards away thats when it got up and disappeared in the thickets. They sure know how to survive pressure and pattern us very well.

[Northcountryman]

So many times, I have read of Big bucks bedding in areas right near a road, sometimes near busy interstate entrance/exit ways , etc. , cuz they seem to figure out that , despite the proximity to busy traffic, people actually dont really go into those places.  Only thing they have to worry about is getting hit, I guess 

[GreeneHunter]

In a small village near Albany a certain Buck was considered a Trophy but the local hunters could not figure out where it went during hunting season , until a couple days after the season ended a hunter spotted the Trophy Buck coming out of an old abandoned barn ! Smart Buck ! Apparently he holed up there during the day !

[landtracdeerhunter]

I have yet to form an opinion on this subject after 35 years of deer hunting. When I believed something to be true, it changes. One thing I do know, never give up the ability to learn from this magnificent animals.

[wolc123]

It’s just crazy to me, how fast they adapt to changes.  Our home farm consists mostly of small 3-4 acre fields, separated by hedgerows.  The first year I doubled my effective range, with a bolt action rifled shotgun, I killed (2) does one field away.  They never knew what hit them.  That action went away the very next year.  
 

The extra half hours we got (4) years ago is another good example of that.  The first year it went into effect, the deer action was great in those extra 1/2’s.  Not so any longer.  Now they don’t come out into the fields until at least 2 hours past sunset, and they vacate at least that long before sunrise.  
 

I don’t think there is another creature on the face of the earth, that adapts better to survival around humans, than the whitetail deer.  

Edited Friday at 05:58 PM by wolc123

[Doc]

Yes I have seen wise old bucks, and also some very stupid big bucks. I suspect that most of us have seen nice bucks moving along on the trail of a doe with his nose to the ground in broad daylight without a single care about being sneaky or hidden. Think about it. A buck shows every hunter its presence and even its movements  with scrapes and rubs. How smart is that? On the other hand, I have seen does that leave nothing but their tracks. They hang around in bunches with all those many sets of eyes and ears. It's not so easy to draw a bow with several sets of eyes and ears checking things out in every direction. There are times when I think the better trophy is a doe. I am convinced that if there were as many big bucks available in the woods as there are does, it would be the bucks that would be the easier prey. Sometimes I wonder why we prize so much all that bone on a buck's head. a lot of them really are not necessarily the wisest, and most intelligent animals in the woods. Many are not the sneakiest. They just are the most scarce because everyone wants that bone stuck to their head. Yes some can be as smart as any doe, but they do have a mental weak spot when it comes to their need to breed.

[landtracdeerhunter]

19 hours ago, wolc123 said:

It’s just crazy to me, how fast they adapt to changes.  Our home farm consists mostly of small 3-4 acre fields, separated by hedgerows.  The first year I doubled my effective range, with a bolt action rifled shotgun, I killed (2) does one field away.  They never knew what hit them.  That action went away the very next year.  
 

The extra half hours we got (4) years ago is another good example of that.  The first year it went into effect, the deer action was great in those extra 1/2’s.  Not so any longer.  Now they don’t come out into the fields until at least 2 hours past sunset, and they vacate at least that long before sunrise.  
 

I don’t think there is another creature on the face of the earth, that adapts better to survival around humans, than the whitetail deer.  

I have found so many variables can affect deer movement. What is true in one area doesn't hold water in another. I can testify to that through the years hunting the same properties. The learning process will never end for me. The experiences I've encountered over the years; priceless. Make book on that.