Love em or hate me but the interviews with The Hunting Public and Mississippi State program have some good info and data. Something to checkout while in the off season. It makes it easier to understand with their use of maps and how gps deer move during their studies.
THP and Mississippi State series
- Thread starter Hduke86
- Start date
BSK
Well-Known Member
MSU does some of the best deer studies going. Really sharp group.
JCDEERMAN
Well-Known Member
I've watched them all. It is very cool stuff.
Yes I've watched them. Incredibly informative. I could listen to the MSU guys all day long. Just a wealth of applicable knowledge.
DoubleRidge
Well-Known Member
I've got a shortcut to MSU Deer University on my desktop....sometimes I'll listen to their podcast while driving too and from work...much better than most of the junk on the radio....good stuff.
I totally agree with almost all their findings except the part about Nocturnal deer.
I guess it depends on interpretation of the word.
If I am seeing a deer regularly appear on a camera in daylight, and then after hunting season opens it only shows up after dark, it is NOCTURNAL as far as I am concerned.
It is nocturnal to the area I was hunting.
I understand the deer is moving in daylight near its bedding area but as far as I am concerned...it is nocturnal.
And why does everyone try to put hunting in a "box" where one size fits all.
Deer CAN BE VERY different to hunt :
* different times of the year
*in different habitat
*at different ages
*within different states, regions, counties
ETC!!!
Midwest deer are VERY different to hunt than Southern deer.
VERY!!!
My favorite part about the MSU study was how the deer watched the hunters and avoided them.
It took me years to learn to move in on my hunt area quietly.
I guess it depends on interpretation of the word.
If I am seeing a deer regularly appear on a camera in daylight, and then after hunting season opens it only shows up after dark, it is NOCTURNAL as far as I am concerned.
It is nocturnal to the area I was hunting.
I understand the deer is moving in daylight near its bedding area but as far as I am concerned...it is nocturnal.
And why does everyone try to put hunting in a "box" where one size fits all.
Deer CAN BE VERY different to hunt :
* different times of the year
*in different habitat
*at different ages
*within different states, regions, counties
ETC!!!
Midwest deer are VERY different to hunt than Southern deer.
VERY!!!
My favorite part about the MSU study was how the deer watched the hunters and avoided them.
It took me years to learn to move in on my hunt area quietly.
I watch everything involving MSU. THP is a fine enough group and I watch their stuff on occasion but these interviews have been fantastic. A lot of dispelling myth type stuff.
I've always struggled with the "nocturnal" situation. I completely under what you're saying. Say if you're hunting a food source in a plot or some acorn source on your property that you can hunt and the deer have been there during daylight then they start showing up at night at that source. Then yes I would consider that "nocturnal" just for the simple reason they are now more cautious about being exposed while feeding and they will do it at night. Meanwhile they got up roughly at the same time but stuck closer to cover until nightfall. There was one map showing movement in October and then movement in December that showed drastically different routines from one another of the same deer. October the deer was more exposed and moved about more then in December it stuck to cover more during its travel which was beneficial to actually see a map of.
I believe the attempt isn't to put hunting in a one size fits all box, but rather to identify and make known consistencies that apply to whitetails in general. None of the MSU guests presented any of their data as 100% applicable. To my perception they were continually adamant to point out that there are outliers and exceptions with every study.
I believe that's a situation 102 pointed out with hunting different times of year, and probably has more to do with food source than hunting pressure. In October the weather is warm, acorns are dropping, and green things are turning brown. It's a time of transition on several different levels. Deer can't eat summer greens anymore so they have to search out the acorns, which means movement. And it's warm enough that they aren't going to freeze to death if their caloric intake drops.
Contrast that with December. It's now cold out and everything is dead, acorns are largely gone, and the only food source remaining is branch tip buds. Where do you find branch tip buds that a deer can reach? In thickets. Not only are they staying near their food, but also are conserving energy by not using a lot of calories to travel. Conserving that energy keeps them warm. Cruising around the woods and fields wastes a lot of calories than cannot be easily replenished that time of year.
That's my take on it, anyway. I understand it all coincides with hunting season so reasons for changes can easily be conflated, but for the majority reason, I personally think transitions of climate and food source drive deer activity more so than hunting pressure.
