Do deer learn

[tpack]

I was taking a picture of a buck when I realized the red lens light was on when I was trying to focus. He looked right at me and left the country like no bodies business. The next few time he came into the feeder he took forever to come in completely in and he was always looking at the blind.....So to answer you question ...... Absolutely Yes.

[flywise]

Nope
I have 3 bow stands, just about every deer i have killed the last 28 years has been out of one of these stands. Nearly every shot was with multiple deer present at the time of the shot. Never, has there been a situation where the deer the next hunt come in and look at me.

[2B4Him]

Deer definitely 'learn'. Otherwise, you'd have to hope they would continue to accidentally stumble across your feeder on a semi-regular basis.
But I think their 'learning' is more 'conditioning', like Pavlov's dogs. If they see movement in a blind, they'll look there again another time to see if there is movement. If they repeatedly look and see no movement, they stop worrying about it too much.

[LUCKY AGAIN]

They learn, thats why its hard to kill the old ones.

[Lynn21]

They have to eat.

[Codie]

No doubt about it

[hbender1]

They can absolutely learn, but their behavior has a lot to do with hunting pressure. While on a S TX. lease with light hunting pressure, some times we would accidentally corn the senderos right in front of - like 20 -30 ft from the blinds. The deer would feed down the sendero and stop when they got near the blind, walk into the brush a few feet, go past the blind and then right back into the sendero and keep on feeding down the road. So yeah, they knew we were there and weren't too spooked, they just kept what they considered a safe distance.

[kyle1974]

Nope
I have 3 bow stands, just about every deer i have killed the last 28 years has been out of one of these stands. Nearly every shot was with multiple deer present at the time of the shot. Never, has there been a situation where the deer the next hunt come in and look at me.

maybe they read TBH and know what your kinetic energy is, and stay out of effective range

[flywise]

maybe they read TBH and know what your kinetic energy is, and stay out of effective range

I guess that could be.
They can be conditioned ( like a rat ) to hear a sound and know that that sound means food.
They cant learn that there will likely be a hunte at that food source waiting to kill them.
If they learned, they would never return to a feeder after being present when one of their buddies got shot or after being shot at.

[Razrbk89]

If I get busted by an older buck (or doe), I’m not likely to see him again out of the same tree, at least not in bow range and certainly not within the next week or two.

I don’t hunt the same spots very often for that exact reason. I’m cautious of the wind when hunting my plots, too. Bucks are bad about circling here after a few weeks of season. When there’s noone in the woods for 8-9 months, they seem to know what’s up when they smell something off.

This is in an area with fairly light hunting pressure. Anyone I know that has a baited spot rarely has any quality day time pictures. There are just too many other good groceries up here for a mature buck to come into a place where there’s so much scent/intrusion.

[White Falcon]

They learn!! I have a big 9 with a broken wrist around the house. If se hears me in the yard, he will come look. If I get a coffee can of corn and shake it he will come to about 15 ft. I know, it's food, but he will come if He hears me in the yard with out corn.