TomC
Senior Member
Typical Dunwoody to Alpharetta upperclass buck behavior!
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Urban Deer
- Thread starter Tight Lines
- Start date
jbogg
Senior Member
From my limited urban hunting experience I have decided deer will still act like deer when they realize a threat. The deer in the OPs photo understands that a human on that porch doesn’t represent a threat. He has become accustomed to people on the porch. Try walking in a 100 yds behind the house and climb a tree and watch how that same deer reacts when he sees or smells you. I’m betting he will act like a deer anywhere that sees something out of the ordinary.
Tight Lines
Senior Member
I've set stands and blinds up (mostly to practice archery), and they will come within 3-5 yards of the blind, and don't care about the wind too much. They are so used to the human scent, noises, and urban habitat that they don't act anywhere near like deer in the more rural settings...they don't distinguish between me mowing and me sitting in the blind, it is the same scent to them, and they are used to it...
stumblingjoe
Member
Pretty much sums it up!
jbogg
Senior Member
I would suggest they have gotten accustomed to your blind since it does not represent a threat. The same as your back porch. Try slinging a few arrows at them from your blind, and tell me that their behavior does not change fast.
Gadestroyer74
Banned
@KS Bow Hunter seems like there is now a challenge for you to take you climber and go out and climb a tree back there and see what happens and video and post it ?? Lol
Tight Lines
Senior Member
I don't even need a climber. I have a 2-man ladder, blinds, and comfy chairs from the deck! I don't hunt them in my back yard because I don't want to be "that neighbor" and the thing is, you can see the creek in that pic above.
If you look, that pinch point is maybe 30-40 yards wide and the ONLY way up and down the creek. The other side is a fence at the creek. Every deer that moves up and down the creek goes through that pinch point between food and bedding. Every one.
They won't learn when I fling arrows because they will be dead. The next one that's used to eating Mary's hastas won't learn either...because from the time they are born they live in a city, where they can't avoid human scent or they would move OTP. They are used to us...
Everyone feeds them, they feed in yards, and they are super used to humans. I could kill one a day without spending more than an hour a day out there...morning and evening...I could probably kill two per day until I really thinned the herd...
I know folks will continue to believe that they are as hard to hunt as rural deer, and that's understandable. They are not pets, but they do not alert at human scent or even sound or movement anywhere near the way they do on my deer lease.
Heck I've watched deer in front of my stand bolt after feeding for 2 hours in a plot when they hear the gate open and clank 800 yards away at my lease when another member shows up...
These deer are not like that...I've been deer hunting for 40 years, and know the difference in an alert deer and a curious deer...these deer just don't behave like the rural ones...
That's my observation and opinion...and I understand fully everyone won't agree with that...
Coyotes are the same way in town...they will sit on the knoll in my back yard and watch me and the dogs for 15 minutes...on my deer property not only will they not do that, you'll never even know they were there or alerted to you...
Gadestroyer74
Banned
I understand your points. I was just meaning as fun to see the reaction of you sitting in a tree etc like the others mentioned above. Just a see what happens things not hunting them just climb the ole tree with your phone when you know about the time they’re coming see if they notice you and how they react since your in the woods .. you don’t have to prove anything , just more or less to see if there would be a difference never know
Tight Lines
Senior Member
No offense taken at all, I knew you were joking...I will go shoot some video some time while we are out there...I have stands to practice archery set up...we could whack does especially left and right...and I wasn't responding to you specifically, more just broadly responding to the threads that always pop up about the urban hunting...it isn't hard IMHO...certainly not when that pinch point is the only way that they can move up and down the creek unless they hit the cul-de-sac and pavement!
Gadestroyer74
Banned
Oh yeah ! I have seen the threads also. Kinda like fishing in a barrel so to speak. I go hunt as away to get away from all this stuff and get in the woods where it’s peace and quiet. It reminds me of the old days with my dad camping. Granted we have all these modern conveniences and technology. Just a way to reconnect with the memories from the older days. No offense to anyone and how they choose to hunt. Just doesn’t scratch my itch
kmaxwell3
Senior Member
A dead deer is a dead deer whether it's in a food plot on a 1000 acre lease or 2 acre back yard. I hunt both ways myself. I will say the deer close to the house are slower to get spooked when they see you but if the wind changes and they smell you they are gone. But the big boys are just as smart and alert as their country cousins around my house. As long as you are doing it legal I have no problem either way. We eat deer meat at least 4 times a week. So I would rather see then in my freezer than dead in the ditch.
I don't "believe" it, I know it because I've done a lot of it.
Note the image below. We had deer literally walk up to the windows on the back side of our office and look in at the girls at their desks. They would walk across the parking lot in the morning as people were getting out of their cars to come inside and pay no attention to the people.
Note the neighborhoods and the Suwanee Creek trail just across the creek.
My stand location was in the swamp just below the bottom building in the picture. It was the perfect pinch because it was a narrow strip of dry land but I hunted all across that swamp bottom almost every day after work.
When I tell you those same deer that would walk up to the building and press their noses against the glass window to look in would come out of their skin if they busted me in the swamp it's because I saw it happen not once but multiple times and repeatedly so. It's not that I "believe" it's so. I know it's so because I saw it with my own eyes.
I'm not saying there can't be tamies in a neighborhood setting. What I am saying is on balance deer don't lose their threat assessment capabilities because they are eating your hostas and nobody is spooking them off.
Gbr5pb
Senior Member
And not just deers! Walk in the woods with bow and squirrels sit there and bark at you! Come back with 22 and they flatten on a limb and don’t move
buckpasser
Senior Member
I think the point is he wouldn’t need a climber. He wouldn’t need ozonics, a grunt tube, face paint, trail cams, or anything else except his porch and that feeder. That alone proves the man’s point. City deer are not the same as woods deer. He can kill one at will. Could he kill 5 in a row? Who knows? They might wise up. But that’s a nice buck and I’m betting if he was “trophy hunting” that spot he could close the deal at least once every year.
earlthegoat2
Senior Member
Deer are nervous critters by nature. That is the main reason they have not been domesticated.
Those urban deer are ”used” to the environment they live in but are still wild deer and would likely still survive just fine out in the hinterlands.
It is still easy hunting though in my experience.
Those urban deer are ”used” to the environment they live in but are still wild deer and would likely still survive just fine out in the hinterlands.
It is still easy hunting though in my experience.
Just my opinion but I`m positive that deer and other prey type critters can see posture in a person or other predator and can also possibly sense attitude. A good way to see this is to watch predator - prey interactions on the African plains. I`ve also proved it to myself that even if you are hidden and downwind of deer if you stare at it nonstop, it won`t take long for it to get nervous and jumpy. Turkeys are even more so.
Try it for yourself and see.
Try it for yourself and see.
buckpasser
Senior Member
You’re on to something. I think the difference here is giving that lazy lion the ability and desire to use a 400fps crossbow and see how well the antelope do.
baddave
Senior Member
I plant a food plot that is 100 yds from my house. We watch deer from our dinner table and my happy place(garage). They're fine with me until I step out of that garage then they move on with speed directly proportional to how far out of said garage I get. When I go out to hunt they are exactly like any wild and crazy deer I've ever hunted 
I have. Perfect example. Squirrel hunting. Looking up into the trees. They often walk up to deer before the deer run off.
I’ve been trimming limbs in the woods and deer stay til the last Instance. Could of left anytime undetected.
I think it's all kind of subjective. Elfi's example of hunting in the swamp behind the office. He was hunting somewhere that people don't typically go. If there were human activity constantly in that swamp, then the deer wouldn't have been nearly as easy to spook. I used to live in a neighborhood on Lake Jackson and shooting the "pet" deer in the neighborhood was off limits. Momma's rule. But they would let us come outside and get within a few feet of them while they were feeding. Wouldn't ever spook and could have easily been killed. My hunting club was across the cove on 300 acres and it was a totally different story over there. In these neighborhoods where they are being hand fed by every other neighbor and are accustomed to people being in the "woods" they are 100% easier to kill.
