Deer myths that you are tired of hearing..........GO!!

Deer are bothered by cigarette smoke.

High fence causes CWD

That and human urine

You need $324,220 of camo, scent blocks, ATVs, 40 foot stands, and a Yeti cup and cooler to kill a deer.

I believe I was wearing jeans, long-sleeved shirt, old military jacket and walmart boots when I got my first deer. Probably wearing similar for the others too.

FYI - Realtree isn't really real. BUT Bill Jordan thanks you!

Someone claims to have seen, or knows someone who claims to have seen a panther on their deer lease.

A deer is X 1/2 years old in August and September.

Deer don't look up.

"All bucks are spikes at one time." Heard that one here last week

Deer are smart

if the cows are up feeding the deer are up feeding...

I thought that was a fishing myth

Once a spike, always a spike

If I don't shoot him, the neighbor will.

If you shoot him, you're that neighbor.

I've never heard that myth

That's just not true- Bill Jordan

Deer don't look up

223 ain’t enough gun.

deer move less during the day on a full moon because they see better and move around more at night

Any 8 pt is a cull

Right when I pulled the trigger he lurched forward...

I smoked him but I can't find him still....dang broad head failed

Driving around all night shooting rabbits or anything on the road doesn't effect deer hunting

it doesn't

Ha ...seee
Yes it does

Ahhh no, no it doesn't

"I HIT HIM BUT THERE'S NO BLOOD"

i killed a deer at 500 yards.

That hunting high fence is the same as hunting free range.

yep

The bucks have gone nocturnal....

That Texas whitetails migrate

never heard that one before

Yelp just ask one our resident experts

come to think about it I've never even heard WT migration mentioned on here. Must have missed those threads. Now they will move to new locations within reason of their home territory during the rut but that's not immigration.

No one (on here at least) has ever said they migrate. Ever.
Many just didn't agree with your past statements that they stay put on a few acres.

Which doesn't exactly jibe with your asking permission on 10 sections (6400 acres) just to hunt one buck you saw. One can only surmise there's a difference between the real world and pushing an internet argument/agenda.

They migrate off our place every year the day before hunting season. Or so it seems. LOL

I second the Panther one and also all the people in Coke County seeing mule deer

That every deer some have ever shot was DRT.

As soon as I hear it, I know that person is FOS.

Magic bullets, magic ammo, magic calibers, magic Annie Oakleys who place every shot on a dime, magic deer that never move. The internet is full of magic.

the farmer's truck doesn't spook the deer

I think some of these myths are actually fact...

quite a few actually

Some of these I agree with while others not so much.

I have seen the Mountian lion on a couple leases. Both times were in counties that they have been killed in previously.

500 yard shot on a deer, I have done those so.... but in most cases you are correct.

Deer migrate, well one lease I had for several years during October every year deer that had been on my cameras all summer and up to the time they started showing up on a friends camera over 1.5 miles away where they would be regularly until Feb or March. Know that happened for at least 5 years straight. Migration or just changing feed sources? whatever they moved for some reason.

DRT on every shot I have trouble believing.

The bullet failed, if you never recovered the deer how do you know what happened or where the deer was actually hit.

Shoot them in the neck or head cause it is either a miss or they are dead. WRONG

I could add to that list

I have no idea whether white tailed deer in Texas migrate.....They likely range a bit, but migration seems to stretch things. However, the mule deer in Wyoming sure do migrate, because they have a big ongoing study that proved it:

http://migrationinitiative.org/

As for the farmer's truck spooking deer....it's just like everything else: Things they see every day will not spook a deer, but unusual things will. I was at the target range one year sighting in my rifle two days before deer season, and a deer started feeding behind the targets. This was a gun range with twenty people blasting away, and this deer would have been wasted if someone just missed the target. But you give one unusual noise close to them and the deer will scatter.

The myth I'm tired of is that camouflaging your blind makes a difference. Only if it's portable that you put up and move every day. For anything left in the field, camo adds nothing.

Trying to blend/camo your blind is to help prevent other people mostly meth heads from seeing it and stealing it same with feeders.

That mule deer study provided some really great insight to Mulie deer recruitment and conservation, lots of habitat projects going on to help ease the migration dangers.

Southern Utah has a big migration also out of the paunsaugunt unit. Numbers and quality where plummeting. To find out they where getting hammered in thier wintering grounds in AZ. UT and AZ have worked together to lower tag numbers and season dates and now paunsaugunt is one of the most sought after Mulie units in the country.

come mid deer season and our deer will run a mile away from the farmer's truck. Same truck as always, same route he takes everyday. Many thousands of acres, deer get spooky after seeing other deer killed

All you need do is sprinkle your bullets with pixy dust.

I never get tired of reading the myths because they have entertainment value.

The myth that hunting on a LF 10 acres is "really hunting", but hunting on a HF 1,500 brushy & rough acres "ain't real hunting".

Theres a lot of that myth around here, along with the associated butt-hurt when someone who hunts extremely small acreages & takes way more deer than that acreage will raise, looks up & sees their neighbors HF them out.

I knew I was missing something

That's no myth. Pressure mature bucks heavily during the season and they WILL go nocturnal.

Interesting to see what some think are myths, and also interesting to re-visit some actual proven myths.

I had the good fortune to have a guy named Ernie Davis hunt mule deer out here with us a couple of times. For those in which that name does not ring a bell, Ernie is one of (along with Horace Gore) the TP&W biologists who wrote the book on TX deer management. He even helped Horace coin the term "the golden triangle" in South Texas. As you can imagine, Ernie had piles of journals on deer movement, patterns, etc in every conceivable weather/moon pattern.

He did determine that whitetail bucks will move miles to another "home range" during the rut. It is nature's way of spreading genetics. This may be one reason that some of the bucks you see during October are hard to find during Nov-Dec. Also, bigger mature bucks become very much nocturnal, with the exception of a very small window during the peak of the rut. One of the most enlightening things I learned from him was that big, mature whitetail bucks will only breed 4-5 does per year. they may spend several days with each doe "tending" them, until they actually cycle. This could take a week before he goes and finds another one.

All of these, of course, are in wild conditions, no small high fenced acreages.

Fousman, do you actually believe a deer will lay up non-stop for 8-12 hours without having to get up and pee, poop, or eat. Not biologically possible. Will they change their habits? Absolutely. So when you only start getting pictures of your bucks at the feeders at night then find the bedding areas and set up on trails going in and out.

No, by that he means limited travel, they will get up move beds, eats poop etc but may not move 100 yards.

Yep, I spotted a bedded buck about 9:30 one morning on my way back to the truck. I could see his antlers, nose and occasionally ears, but nothing else. I sat there with my rifle across a big rock until 3:00 when he finally stood up, shook, turned around and moved a couple of feet back into the shade and laid back down. That's when I realized how young he was and that I had just spent 5 or 6 hours staring at a 3 year old buck. But it was very informative.

They migrate every winter in the UP of Michigan. Leave Lake Superior side and head south the the lake Michigan to shelter in the cedars and escape the extreme cold and wind. Also, to find food that isn't under 15 feet of snow. Only about 150 miles, not sure if that is considered their home territory.

Lots of WT migrate just not in majority of Texas. Migrations are products of winter weather.

Texas pretty much stick to home area by majority.

We had a buck with a really weird rack one year that we saw all the time. Coming back from town one time we saw that buck cross the road right in front of us. I set my odometer to zero and it read 6 miles (straight line, no turns in the road) when we got home. It was during the rut, but that's the furthest I've personally seen one "migrate".

Different areas will see different travel distances.

The area that I hunt, some of the deer are very nomadic. It is not unusual for us to have the same deer on camera 3-5 miles apart, sometimes within the same day. Some have been seen even farther. This isn't one or two, it is many deer and over the course of many years. Of course, we have some deer that never seem to leave an area and we will see them in the same general area 4 years in a row.

The panhandle was the same way.

East Texas and the cross timbers region, we didn't see it as much but also didn't have the acreage that we have in West Texas and the panhandle.

Only placed I've personally experienced over 7-8 miles is northern panhandle but that's not even close to apples to apples with average Texas deer

Personally found that range is more a product of terrain then habitats, if you have a bunch of ag they will travel more around ag etc because core habitat is isolated in patches. Pretty much follows suit from Stx to hill country.

Now, there is always the one off but we can't consider that the norm.

[/quote]Now, there is always the one off but we can't consider that the norm. [/quote]

I agree. IMO They pretty much stay in a relatively small "home range" in my area.

I agree. IMO They pretty much stay in a relatively small "home range" in my area. [/quote]

Yelp, Been some years I wished it was different, that's for sure

Agree wome are homebodies while others roam greater distances. That one lease I mentioned earlier they would leave our place in October and ocassionally very early November and go to a place a mile and half away and hang out in smaller areas there as well. Where they went was along a big creek with big wheat fields. But we had a 100 acre wheat field and property to the north had 2 40 acre fields and one at least 100 acres across the road. Guess it just tasted better over on the big creek.

Bucks that had left our place would come back and move out the next yea. they were replaced some what bu others that roamed onto our place.

Didnt read the entire thread, but I would say " I have to slit the throat to drain him out"

Deer tastes gamey.

If the antlers are ivory colored, instead of dark, it's a young deer.

Larry Weishuhn doesn’t like venison.... Just kidding! I made that up!!!
I have enjoyed this thread greatly.

Double down prot......nah, better not

you almost started a sheet storm

(1)from a yankee friend...thats now a texan.."shooting deer at a feeder is cheating" after i told him no its not and expained if you dont do it..the next person would and you have no deer coming to you"..he hunts at a feeder now
(2) "i wont eat deer,because it taste gamey" and then i proceed to trick that person into eating my secret chile at thanksgiving and Christmas..venison chili..lol

If we would feed double down out west your buck would have scored 264"


Double down is not on the list of NFL banned substances.......yet

Went to a deer seminar last Friday and there was a presentation from a wildlife biologist that was studying deer movement to wheat during the fall & winter. This was in North Central Texas Rolling Plains area. He located an area with a isolated wheat field. They captured and put tracking collars on does and bucks. Several bucks moved as much as 8 miles in the fall to the area with the wheat and then would return to their spring summer home range year after year. He found does would not move as far.

In a different segment on culling, they talked about a study done on fawn buck movement after they leave their mother and found that they establish their new home range long distances, as far as 21 miles, from their mother's home range. The point was your bucks are coming from long distances and that the buck offspring of the cull bucks you are trying to remove will likely never inhabit your ranch after it is a fawn. Of course you could argue you are helping your neighbors by killing that cull buck.

21 mile gauntlet. No wonder low fence deer are skittish.

That AR aren't working.

Magic beans double D protein gained my bucks 50" year over year. Just ask me.

Everytime you exhale, you omit your scent. Don't be a sucker and buy that krapp!

Coke county has a mule deer season

+1 No myth to that one. Seen mulies in Coke, Nolan, and Fisher county regularly. Pronghorn in all 3 also just not as common as mule deer in these areas.

Have seen the Pronghorn but hunted Coke County for years. Not saying they havn't moved that far but I knew the area I hunted pretty well and guys were always seeing they saw them and it was not true. I asked GW Jim Allen about it and he said there was one large high fence ranch that had some and they had put a season in place for him. Sorry guys! I just don't believe they were there. BTW the area I hunted was west of Silver on the Colorado River.

The one thing I would like to see and there is no real way to is how many Coke County Mule Deer have ever ended up at a processor. My guess is zero other than one ranch. Your thoughts?

I believe there were pronghorns in that area back many years ago (100+). I read a story of some Texas Rangers patrolling for Indians outside of Mason. They said the pronghorns were so thick that you could shoot into them without worrying about missing.

I would believe that!

I used to see pronghorn near Bronte, when we hunted "Butterfield peak" ranch. Back in early 90s. Also saw them in southern Kent county near double mountain fork of Brazos. All low fence.

Have seen pronghorn from 380 not far from Throckmorton, then later saw a hunting show on the Outdoor channel where they were hunting one near throckmorton. Ranch I saw them on was low fence as where they were hunting. Figure they were hunting same place.

My rifle doesn't like this bullet......

but it doesn't

Dak Prescott is a great quart......oh sorry wrong myth topic

Tinks 69 really works..

I'm sorry but it has never worked for me.

Most people use it incorrectly especially placement of the scent but I don't think any scent is gonna be all that great

And they are right, but also incorrect at the same time!

Boy it has for me. Numerous times. Gonna' use it opening of gun season.

Tink s and rattling. Sometimes works like a charm.

Tink Nathan used to be on Bowsite all the time. He is .......uhhhhh........ a character. Always looking for a woman.

He should have been mega rich, but I got the impression he sold the company/product/name early on and just did OK. Shame.

He saw a picture of my sika and told me I needed to clean up my pictures cause the deer had blood on it


He must hunt bloodless animals

My buddy has a ranch in Nolan county outside Nolan and he claims he sees mule deer.

Hunted it one time and didn't see Any

There is not a Pronghorn season In Throckmorton County, However, there are Pronghorn off of 380 on 222.

Just saying they had a tag issues by the State for the landowner to use how they wanted to just like in the Panhandle or other parts of Texas. They said some years the ranch got a tag and other years it did not.

Cows scare away deer

I e seen it a few times including opening weekend

On the culling part, and up to 21 mile fawn buck movement, do you recall what they said the minimum or average distances they had observed? Did they give any other details about those studies?

That a buck will make a doe cross an open field before he will cross it.

JR

This has always been true in our case. But our deer are also very very skittish.

Here is a neat article dispelling many deer myths regarding their movement, such as moon phases, wind, rain, etc. It seems a lot of this information fits with what I see for hogs as well...

https://www.outdoorlife.com/10-myths-about-deer-movement

Here's one I've heard several times: "My 30-30 shoots flatter than anyone else's and I can hit clear out to 500 yards without any holdover."

I've probably heard different versions of that for 30 or more years.

seems to be a lot of very questionable statements made in that article too ...

Yes. A bunch.

LOL, truest thing I've read on the innernet this week!

A guy from Iowa once told me that hunting a feeder was cheating.

He told me this right after he explained the big Iowa buck he killed while hunting a freshly plowed up corn field.

Peeing around your blind or feeder will scare the deer!

Not a myth but a term commonly used these days.
"Recruitment"
Deer fawn, cattle calve, goats kid, sheep lamb, hogs farrow pigs, dogs whelp pups, etc., etc., and birth rates can be established for each.
None of these animals go around soliciting or "recruiting" their offspring from some other place in hopes they will hang around with them for a year or so.
This term was developed by some Phd. biologist so he could sound smarter than the average ole farm boy.

"our lease is FULL of nothing but fully mature deer with less than 13" spreads"

[quote=txshotgun]You need $324,220 of camo, scent blocks, ATVs, 40 foot stands, and a Yeti cup and cooler to kill a deer.

I believe I was wearing jeans, long-sleeved shirt, old military jacket and walmart boots when I got my first deer. Probably wearing similar for the others too.

FYI - Realtree isn't really real. BUT Bill Jordan thanks you! [/quote and $4000. gun

Need to feed year round to teach fawns how to jump 34 hog panel so they come when they are older...