HECS and a Deer's 6th Sense

[Mike Belt]

I was watching a show advertising HECS hunting clothing and it got me to thinking about past discussions of a deer having a 6th sense or something resembling that. This clothing is supposed to suppress or block electrical impulses off the hunter. I've felt that deer sometimes "seem" aware of a hunter or a dangerous situation with little or no evidence by virtue of the fact that possibly they are indeed able to pick up electrical waves or impulses. Does a hunter emit an invisible predatory electrical impulse that some deer can detect?

 

[BSK]

Does that HECS suit come with an aluminum foil hat?

 

[barkscaler]

No.What a hunter emits is odor.I quit buying hunting gimmicks long ago.

 

[Bone Collector]

Does that HECS suit come with an aluminum foil hat?

 

[catman529]

Sounds like a huge gimmick even if deer can sense electrical impulses. If they do, they slip up pretty often. I guess only a real alert deer would pick up on a hunter being nearby.

 

[7wsm]

does it block their eye sight too?

 

[jlmustain]

I won't be as arrogantly harsh as some of the others who've responded to you.

I doubt they have such a sense. I know what you're talking about, though. The only sense I can make of it, though, is that we only see deer periodically, and most of the time we see them feeding or in transit to/from feeding. That's a very alert time for deer, so it seems like they're always looking at us or super-alert, but even an un-watched deer does that.

It's not unheard of that an animal can sense or use electricity, but it's mostly in fish. If biologists have somehow missed a deer's ability to sense what HECS is supposed to block, that sense's priority is way behind sight and smell.

That said, Ignaz Semmelweis was thrown in an institution for suggesting that washing your hands prevented the spread of disease. Science and biology are never as right as their modern practitioners think they are. Still, as hard as we all work for our money, I'd say that HECS is a product meant to harvest hunters instead of deer.

 

[MUP]

I believe it's b/c the deer can actually see something out of the ordinary and become wary of it, as well as smell to the nth degree. I've noticed these shows as well, and it's pretty obvious, at least from the ones I've seen, that the deer sees them in the tree, or sees the elephant sized blind they just put up, but brushed in that day, so the deer won't notice it...

 

[Mike Belt]

The mention of HECS was strictly because it brought to mind the question of do deer have a 6th sense...and I already have an aluminum cap, lol.

 

[hitek7]

The first time I saw the HECS show on TV I spit my coke out at some of the scenes they showed. Showed him sneaking right up to a group of mule deer and them not even paying much attention. I have done this in my street clothes in some neighborhoods in Colorado. There may be a little to the electric waves but definelty not to the extreme they were taking it.

 

[MattR]

Everyone is trying to tap in to that 860 million a year we spend on hunting.

It's crazy some of the products on the market. What they do is create a problem and then make a product to solve the problem. It's like "Are you tired of being made fun of because of your electrical waves? Then try this great new product designed by a team of scientist to do absolutely nothing more than a tee shirt from wal mart would do"

 

[Urban_Hunter]

When I started wearing it I quit seeing dead people. Come to find out, I was actually dead myself.

 

[W.Seay]

I think a mature buck does have a 6th sense! I've seen, it's just like how we can sense when we are being starred at. I wouldn't buy any special clothing for it, but I definitely believe that mature bucks and does have it!!

 

[Hunter 257W]

I think animals do have some sort of sense of being watched. I've seen it happen where I am staring intently at a deer that couldn't possibly smell me because of the wind direction at the time. Then suddenly the deer turns and stare directly at me when I made no noise or any other action that could have alerted them. Heck it may sound crazy but I've seen this happen too many times with people. Your staring at somebody in a public place when they turn directly towards you and look into your eyes as if they know you were looking. I've even seen that in traffic with a person in another vehicle. John "Pondoro" Taylor talked about this is his books about elephant hunting. He believed it so strongly that he made it a point to never look directly at an elephant when stalking so as to not alert it to his presence.

However, I doubt we will ever invent something that can defeat this ability.

 

[BSK]

I think a mature buck does have a 6th sense! I've seen, it's just like how we can sense when we are being starred at.

This idea--that we can tell when we're being starred at--has been scientifically tested a couple of times, and it was clearly found that we cannot.

 

[bowriter]

I don't know Bryan. Couple times in bars...

 

[bowriter]

All prey animals develop a sense. It is not a sixth sense, it is a sense of awareness. Them African ugly antelope things can graze calmly within 100-yards of a pride of lions. But when one of them matriach mama lions gets up, all you see is cloacas and hooves going over the veld.

I have, on a few occasions, known instinctively what bars I should not enter.

 

[BSK]

I'm not going to say extra-sensory perception is not possible. All that we can measure now are those things that involve the known physical processes, and if ESP exists, it works by a currently unknown physical process. I firmly believe many aspects of Nature work by processes we don't yet understand. Heck, much of the universe operates by principles we are either just starting to understand or do not understand at all (i.e. dark matter and dark energy).

That said, what most hunters consider a deer's "6th sense" can much more easily be explained by currently understood physical processes, such as at-ground wind micro-eddies. A deer "upwind" can not only smell you because of these physical processes, deer commonly display behavior that takes advantage of at-ground micro-eddies, suggesting deer do so on a regular basis, making this ability something that is not unique at all.

To paraphrase the principle of Occum's Razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. (among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one)

 

[gator-n-buck]

I'm big on scent control.... Since I have taken these steps, I have found that my movement get's me busted more than anything else now.... What works or not depends on who you talk to. I do what works for me..... Not sure about HECS??? I do hunt in E. TN where the wind blows in all directions.

West TN hunter wouldn't understand.....

 

[TNCharlie]

All prey animals develop a sense.

I commented once to my SO about deer always being jumpy and nervous. She replied, "You would be nervous, too, if everything in the woods wanted to either #!@* you or eat you."

Couldn't disagree with that.

 

[bowriter]

BSK- I had the opportunity to personally spend some time with Occum. I can tell you for a fact, the man never shaved and did not own a razor. However, he did say that a lot.