Posted: 4/14/2010 3:27:22 PM EDT
| Question on vision. Opinions welcome, personal experience welcome. Is it as good or better than human or as good or worse than human? |
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I personally think their vision is better than a humans, but I also think they see differently than we do. As a prey species they are very attuned to motion.
They may recognize you as something different and look at you, but if you don't move they quickly lose interest. |
| i think deer have better hearing and vision. Movement and odd shapes that werent there before. also their sense of smell. I dont believe that they have color vision. If they do i can see them all laughing and saying "look at the idiots in blaze orange what are they thinking". Thats why i like hunting in a stand up high. I am usually around 20ft. Plenty high and out of their general sight and smell line. |
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I belive they can see better, smell better, and hear better then people.
For the most part they know what is natural in the woods and can quickly spot things that are not. Tree stands are good because it puts the un-natural lines and shapes out of a deers normal line of sight. |
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IMO, I believe their vision is better than a humans, along with hearing and sense of smell. I have no definitive data to back it up. Just 40+ years matching wits with them (And yes I am losing). For example, I snuck into our camp this year, and threw up 20 foot ladder stand in a location I had wanted to place one for 3 years. (I have another stand about 120 yards from this one). I pre-assembled the ladder stand, and was in, set up, and out in 20 minutes, 3 days before opening day. I used my scentlok suit, gloves, muck boots (been stored in scentlok bag for 3 months with dirt ), and sprayed scent killer all over me. So opening morning there I am in the stand 1 1/2 hours before the sun came up. Trail was pretty easy going in, took slow walk in, very quiet with no lights. Getting to point where I can start to see and I hear deer moving. I see some moving at distances of 1 yard (walked right under stand) out to 40 yards. All together I probably saw 30 deer that day, and EVERY one of them stopped and looked right at my stand. I was in a 3D ScentLok leafy suit. Head to Toe, wearing muck boots, including Scentlok socks. Used scent killer. As I said all of them looked at me. They knew something was out of place. Some were more leery than others. I did not drop the hammer on any of them. I was hunting "Bull Winkle". During the week I probably saw a total of 80-100 deer (am sure some were doubles). I do believe that deer also see in shades of color. Not color as we see it, |
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I do believe that deer also see in shades of color. Not color as we see it,
I read a paper about deer vision and a deer's eye doesn't have all the rods & cones that we have. They said what they were missing would give them trouble seeing red/orange but green/blue would be fine. So wear that hunter orange but loose the bluejeans I guess. |
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If you are still they won't see you, though having a broken outline is better than not. Camo is debatable, but I think it helps break the outline more than the actual colors matter. They pick up any movement & things that are different in an area familiar to them very well. Their sense of smell is amazing. Watch the wind. |
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Quoted:
I do believe that deer also see in shades of color. Not color as we see it,
I read a paper about deer vision and a deer's eye doesn't have all the rods & cones that we have. They said what they were missing would give them trouble seeing red/orange but green/blue would be fine. So wear that hunter orange but loose the bluejeans I guess. That's what I've read as well. They have better night vision than we do, but there vision extends only into the blue range. Like you said, I don't wear blue when hunting, and unlike a lot of hunters, I don't have any concerns about wearing orange. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I do believe that deer also see in shades of color. Not color as we see it, I read a paper about deer vision and a deer's eye doesn't have all the rods & cones that we have. They said what they were missing would give them trouble seeing red/orange but green/blue would be fine. So wear that hunter orange but loose the bluejeans I guess. That's what I've read as well. They have better night vision than we do, but there vision extends only into the blue range. Like you said, I don't wear blue when hunting, and unlike a lot of hunters, I don't have any concerns about wearing orange. But I know a lot of people that have killed deer wearing blue jeans. Myself included. I do think that wearing camo ASSISTS in being successful, but is not a requirement. As for the orange, never was a fan of it, but it was the law so I wore it even though I was on family land and knew where everyone was. I hunted public land once, and THANK GOODNESS I was wearing it. Now I do my best to avoid public land or private "shared" land. Would rather have a deer see my orange than another hunter not see it, and shoot me out of my stand. Which has come close to happening a couple of times, from neighboring property and public land. also one of the reasons I prefer to Bow Hunt over Gun Hunt. |
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I seem to remember reading somewhere a study on deer vision where the basic conclusion was that deer vision is inferior to human vision in the daylight due to poor color rendition compared to humans, however their night vision is far superior to humans. I think this stands to reason because there is always a trade off between night vision and daylight vision.
As was said earlier, they are quite good at detecting movement. |
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For what it's worth, I received a copy of a wildlife study at a SHOT show about 25 years ago and it said that deer see the colors BLUE and YELLOW best.
The study was trying to validate that deer can't see blaze orange any better than camoflage. Needless to say, the vendor was selling orange clothing. |
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Quoted:
I do believe that deer also see in shades of color. Not color as we see it,
I read a paper about deer vision and a deer's eye doesn't have all the rods & cones that we have. They said what they were missing would give them trouble seeing red/orange but green/blue would be fine. So wear that hunter orange but loose the bluejeans I guess. Ive read the same thing and believe it. I guess my best experience was about 15 years ago while squirell hunting. I was in a bottom sitting up against a huge oak tree that had a depression in it. A mature doe walked down a trail about 20 yards away. She winded me, but I sat motionless. She would lower her head to feed then pop it up quickly to try and bust me. I sat still and had my head tilted down peeping up under the bill of my cap, never looking directly at her. This went on until she finally walked off. I was wearing woodland BDUs, top to bottom. She knew I was there but couldnt make me out. Ive heard bow hunters say if you can take a mature doe you can take a buck. My deer hunting is done on private land out of box stands but I do a little stalking also. Ive never bought the hi dollar camo, surplus woodland has worked well for me. |