Don't overlook deer that aren't picture perfect

Deer hunting is a game of I-saw-you-first. An unknowable number of deer have first watched and then slipped away from hunters who were completely oblivious to their presence.

A large majority of the deer who end the season in freezers got there because they were oblivious to the presence of hunters who knew how to make the best possible use of their sense of sight.

The first — and, for some people, the hardest — step in learning to see deer is to quit looking for deer that look like the ones they’re used to seeing in magazines.

Anyone who has spent much time in the woods has seen a deer walking down a logging road or strolling across an open field in plain view.

Enjoy those moments, but never forget that in typically brushy Missouri deer habitat photo-op deer probably account for no more than 10 percent of the deer the hunter could have seen had he or she been paying attention to detail.

Motion is by far the most important visual factor deer rely on to detect approaching danger. Most biologists believe deer have monochromatic vision. Seeing the world in shades of gray not only makes deer sensitive to the slightest motion but allows the animals to see reasonably well with the aid of only a minimal amount of light.

Humans have polychromatic vision and can differentiate shades on the color spectrum from violet to red. Color vision has some advantages for hunters, but detecting movement is not among them.

Humans who are willing to put in the practice time and mental effort can train their eyes to detect all but the most subtle motions.

The outer edges of our peripheral vision are the most likely to detect motion. Don’t be like most hunters and set your eyes on “telephoto” as soon as you step out of the truck.

Instead, allow your eyes  to take in a wide-angle view not just of what’s in front of your nose but what’s well off to the side.

That’s the way an undisturbed deer uses its eyesight. Once it spots an unexpected movement no matter how slight, the deer will freeze in place and focus its full attention on identifying the source of the movement.

If it eventually satisfies itself that the source of the movement doesn’t pose a danger, it will usually continue on its way at a leisurely pace.

I’m leery of people who claim hunting is a spiritual experience, during which the hunter must “become one with the deer.”

Hunters who make an effort to mimic the way a deer uses its senses will kill more bucks than will those who tromp through the woods imitating aardvarks.

At a seminar a few years ago, I explained why a deer hunter who senses an unexplained movement anywhere within his or her field of view should mimic a deer by freezing in place and visually dissecting the area, when a member of the audience rose to his feet to complain that using my tactics greatly reduced the distance a hunter could travel in a given amount of time. He noted that almost all movements are not caused by deer.

He was right, but I’ve never been on a hunt the success of which was measured in miles walked.

Deer don’t wear watches, and neither do they have any particular place they have to be. If a deer needs a half hour to satisfy itself that all is well, so be it.

Color vision has several advantages when the goal is to separate a stationary object from its background. The trick is to look for anything that doesn’t quite belong.

Color is one example. It might be a small patch of brown in the middle of a bush with yellow leaves or an ivory branch in the midst of brown ones.

Be alert for the briefest flash of white. Deer use the underside of their tails to communicate a lot of things besides alarm.

Shapes can give away a deer’s presence. In a primarily vertical woodland, a horizontal shape could be a deer’s back.

A deer’s ears, which are seldom motionless for long, are neither the shape nor the color of anything else. You’ll need a sharp eye to see it, but a deer’s legs aren’t quite the same shape as saplings.

A hunter’s eyes can and will play tricks occasionally. It is possible to see a deer where there is no deer, so go beyond merely thinking you’re sure of your target before touching the trigger. Note: This phenomenon affects experienced hunters, too.