I shot the 223 and the 260 this morning, just to see if the scope was set properly. Yup, no problem. But, I did send one 223 bullet (the first one) outside of a decent group, so I thought I'd recheck this afternoon. Grabbed the rifle, reloads, glasses and ear muffs and walked to the shooting bench. As I got set up, I could see something moving around on the dirt road to the back pastures. The road is up in the trees, so it's shaded. I moved the scope and looked down the road and what I had seen was the head and ears of a doe going in and out of the sunlight as she moved rapidly down the road, in my direction. Looked at my watch and it's 4:45. She's coming to the feeder and trying to get in line ahead of Yard Buck, who practically sleeps at the feeder. The range targets are set up right next to the deer feeder, almost. Figured I go ahead and shoot and then go back inside. Got set up, but took a look over the top of the scope and the doe is about 2 feet from being in front of my target. I waited till she moved about 10 feet past the targets and I cranked off the one round I planned to shoot. The doe didn't jump. She didn't run. She just looked around and then moved over the feeder to wait the next 10 minutes or so. I suppose that I shoot so much that the deer just think it's part of their normal world.

It is amazing what they can get accustomed to.
The club that we shoot trap at always has deer down range as we are blasting away. They are probably just far enough out to not get peppered, they just graze around out there in the field and hardly ever look up.

That's very good news! Especially for my situation

Have seen a herd of does right in the middle of the range on mutiple occasions.

I have an old doe that comes running to the feeder when she hears me filling it. she knows there will be a little pile at the base of the feeder that she does not even have to search for.

Ive shot deer under a feeder and their buddies don't run at all, just stand and look at their fallen comrade till it quits flopping and then go back to eating. Far more common the haul arse though.

Coyotes are much smarter than deer...

This reminds me of a hunt several years ago. I was hunting late season and had not tagged out. I had been in my stand quite a long time with no (and I mean NO) movement at all. Fixin to get SHUT OUT! This big lone multi colored boar comes in and starts eating at my feeder. I decided not to shoot because I'm deer huntin dadgummit. I watch for a while and just can't resist, so I look all around very, very carefully. No movement...nothin. I get my rifle up and BAM! Drop him in his tracks right under my feeder. Put my rifle down and reach for the coffee....what?!?!? Three bucks walk out of the brush and start eatin. Are you kiddin? It wasn't a minute after I shot that hog. There was a nice 10 so I dropped him too! All with in about 2 or 3 minutes from one shot to the next. Wish I had the pic on this computer. Good times.