Getting use to me...

[growalot]

Lots of day pics on the cams I can tell when they just stand and watch me because it sometimes gets caught on the cams. Last night I realized I forgot to close the garden gate  so walked over. There was a young buck in the front part of the upper clover plot that runs down the side of the garden... He stopped and watched me walk toward him...let me pass him and shut the gate then turn and start past him again. at one point he actually paralleled me as I walked to the gate...about 100ft from me ...the garden is 80ft wide x 180ft long...I think he managed to walk in front of the cams ...so I'll check them a bit later. He had 3 others in the area with him. I spooked one under the mulberry right behind the gate. The hazel nut bushes blocked our view so we startled each other at 15ft....even then that buck stayed out there watching me. Apparently more cautious about stepping into the woods where we heard a deer snorting a ways in, than he was about being out in the open with me walking past him..lol

 

I love it when they start getting use to my being out there with them...They'll just stand and watch me walk within yards or drive by feet away...Like the other day when the one, walked right up to the tractor while I was loading rocks into the bucket..out in the middle of the field at around 11am.

 

By August I'll be able to stop and talk to them, no feeding required, just them excepting me as part of their habitat...until the hunting season gets close and the woods around me starts filling up with "unknowns"...They then go to full alert again and I know the home deer may not be the ones I encounter due to deer being pushed around by not only ppl. but each other because bachelor groups are breaking up. I then limit where I go and when I go out.

 

I do enjoy the summer pass we give each other..turkeys too...I have been out hammering on a blind or pounding in a fence post to look up and see wild turkey just strolling by like it was nothing I was out there making such a racket, they will stop and watch me a bit then walk along...

 

This could really make hunting a difficult thing if:

 

1) I didn't really enjoy turkey and deer meat and the fact it's a healthier choice for this meat eater

2) I didn't realize that in order to have healthy deer and environment the population of deer and other wild life has to be reduced,  maintained. Human sprawl shows that we are much better at containing other species than we are at containing ourselves. Even the Chinese have failed and they have been one of the few populations forcibly  trying.

Edited June 28, 2016 by growalot

[airedale]

I have had many similar experiences growalot, wildlife habits do change when they do not feel threatened.

 

 Sometimes this behavior even can be beneficial as in the case of this young English Coonhound Lulu who attended and completed a course at the university of "TriTronics" and learned it is not a good idea to be chasing Deer.

 

[wooly]

If there was a way to bottle a deers layed back summer personality, there wouldn't be an ounce left on the shelf come fall!

Pretty crazy some of the stuff you can get away with out there right now.

[NFA-ADK]

My buddy sets up fences and has deer come up to him often, same happens to my parents when they work outside.  I think the abundance of food at this time of the year has something to do with it along with the fact that they have not been hunted for a few months.  I do not hear of older bucks doing this that often though!

 

 

[Jeremy K]

Ya ,it's because they're out of season ,heck you could invite one inside for dinner right now and they would show up, it's once hunting season starts that they disappear.

[moog5050]

Gotta give them credit.  Very forgiving creatures.  They get hunted year after year and always are friendly post season, perhaps hoping things will change next year.  lol

[grampy]

Gotta give them credit.  Very forgiving creatures.  They get hunted year after year and always are friendly post season, perhaps hoping things will change next year.  lol

 

LMAO...........

[growalot]

Well he did  not manage to trigger the cam in that plot, but did the mulberry cam he passed to get to that plot...of course I get a call from the neighbor while I'm in the middle of doing the cam cards and erased the wrong card!...

Got another bunch of tomato plants to put in the upper plot though...She got a bunch of plants from a green house dumping them....He gave me a good close up and may turn into a 6pt...definitely will be a 4pt .

[Water Rat]

Just out of reach.

[growalot]

His own personal guard dog...too SMART...way too funny...