Thread: How deer react to gunshots?

Hi all
Don’t know why I feel the need to preface this question with the admission that I’m no great shakes as a hunter, I love it, get out regularly but more often it’s an excuse to hang out with the dog, in the peace of the bush with a lot of tea drinking and day napping! So my actual experience is somewhat limited.
Anyways spooked a spiker yesterday at 30ft, was daydreaming as I feel he must have been to let me get so close. By the time I got myself sorted he was running and around 60ft, did something I’ve never done before and will never do again and took a running shot( 80-100ft high hill face behind him as a back stop) clean miss thankfully
Stoked to have seen him, annoyed I was not prepared and furious at the running shot, thought well that’s day stuffed may as well head home. ( for context the area I was hunting was a creek walk of around 90 mins then planned to sidle back along the foothills overlooking that creek to the car so a relatively small area)
Pressed on as was enjoying just being out, and was already composing my question to this forum when bugger me if didn’t sneak in on 2 in a little side creek within 500m of where I’d shot about an hour later, didn’t get an unobstructed view before they too scarpered so no venison.
So finally my question, what have your experiences been to support the idea that maybe shots aren’t as alarming to animals as the suppressor manufacturers would have us believe?
I’m guessing it varies depending on location geography etc wide open flats vs bush etc, human traffic
Cheers
FP

I was fishing near some vineyards a few weeks ago and bird scarers were going off constantly which was scaring the shit out of me during the hour I was there and saw a deer trot past me not bothered at all - assume they are very used to it in that area which may be a factor. Have always thought suppressors are better for yours and the dogs ears and making it hard to tell where the shot came from rather than stopping noise. I may well be wrong though


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Take the running shots man if that’s all you’re going to get,don’t worry about it.never get a deer if you don’t take a shot and you will get few if you keep waiting for a perfect shot as well.
As for shots spooking other game dependent on a million different factors,but let things settle for 15 minutes then carry on might get one around the next corner

the short awnser is likely not as much as you think - very wind dependant and distance - deer hear loud noises thunder branches coming down etc - I do know mettalic noises like a bolt opening they do not like that at all - but man they can be dumb - I sat and talked to a young fallow stag one day he was fifty yards away I would say man you are dumb get shot one day - he would put his head up and look around but then put his head down and start feeding again- it was not until I moved he decided out of here - many years ago we chased 5 red hinds of a crop with a shotgun - we would fire at them from about 100 yds away and they would run 20 yards and stop- we fired about 5 rounds at them before they decided nah out of here and still they just trotted off - so go figure does not seem to be a set rule - but one good whiff and or a bolt rattle and gone

Varies quite a bit from what I've seen. In places where they're routinely shot at a shot can send deer running immediately for cover, and I've seen them go several hunderd yards until losing sight of them.
I remember other occasions when I've been watching deer in areas of light hunting pressure and hearing another hunter shooting not very far away, the sound of which was clearly audible to both me and deer. The deer barely stopped feeding after raising their heads for mere seconds. However, when the breeze changed and gave my scent they were gone in a flash.
Unusual things I've seen is being with another hunter who shot at and missed a deer about 100 yds away. The deer bolted but was probably confused about the direction of the shot as it ran towards us.
On another hunt with my son three Fallow stags were trotting towards us. This was during the rut. My son shot one which continued for about 50 yds before going down, dead. The two other stags carried on past, stopped, returned to the downed stag and proceeded to give it a good thrashing with their antlers for two or three minutes before continuing on their way. clearly, escaping the source of the shooting was not their highest priority.
With Sika a few times I've shot an animal, dealt to field butchering, packing it up then starting back to camp to spook another animal barely five minutes away.
Shows me there's no hard rules about deer reaction to shooting and it varies widely.

I shot a young deer from about 40 ish meters away and as I stood there watching it to make sure it didn't get up, a stag that was not far away decided he wanted to walk over to check out the commotion. Another instance I shot a hind and while starting to deal to her a hind snuck in for a look. Both shot with suppressed 270

I've seen a huge variety of reactions too. Sometimes they bolt, and other times they stand around, not bothered.

Thursday, I shot a yearling from 200m in public land, where you'd think there would be a lot of pressure, and its mate ran 100m and stood around in the open watching. Yesterday, in private land with little pressure, one shot from a 223 sent deer running for the bush.

I dont use a suppressor. And a lot of the time a single shot will not unduly alarm the deer a reasonable distance away due too noise dampening of bush and ridges etc. But Have been hunting Chamois the last few days with companions with suppressor and firing more than one shot at a time, and the advantage was the proximity of the next groups of unalarmed animals not separated by solid ground or bush.
But most often you dont miss, and after you have got your animal, does really matter if a nearby animal was alarmed?

Sometimes deer gets confused about sound directions. I've dropped an animal with my Waitaki suppressor on, and had the rest of the mob run directly at me, missing me by a few metres

I have been next to a mate who shot a hind on a river flat. I carried on up and shot a spiker 3 bends up the river. suppressors help a lot

Not a shot was fired but I was watching a stag out on a river bed just mingling around 2 weeks ago.I was about a k away,when he took off at full gallop.He ran about 2k up across the wide river bed.He wouldv won the Melbourne cup i reckn,he was bloody fast to the bush line on opposite side.No shots were fired,it was quiet for about 5 minuts,ah theres a big chopper coming down the bush river edge.That stag heard it in the far distance,he knew the gun ship was coming,running for his life.

The first deer I ever shot was just after missing another deer, I stood up after missing the first deer, put my pack on, looked back over my shoulder to take one last look at where I missed the deer and thought whats that brown object? It wasn't there before.
Got the bino's out and looked through them and sure enough it was a deer so got back down using the pack as a rest and shot it.

Typically I find they fall over, leaking substantially

On at least four occasions I have shot two deer standing close to each other with seperate shots. Three were with my 22-250 and the fourth was my 25-06.
One evening I could hear something munching on vegetation so I creeped over a small ridge and in a small clearing were two red stags feeding. They were only about 15m away so I lined up on the neck of one of them and he dropped like a stone. His mate looked up at me and then turned his head to look at his mate, this gave me enough time to reload and the second stag was also sent to the promised land.
None of my CF rifles wear suppressors so I have to wonder how much difference they make to deer.

I had my craziest experience with stupid deer just last weekend. Uncle and I hunting young pines in the roar and found 3 shitty stags roaring like nuts on an old dam. He shot (unsuppressed) a shitty 11 from about 30m away and this other stag stood there 5m away from where the other one was shot and dropped on the spot. Stag just looked at the dead stag and we were shouting at it and laughing and started walking up to this other stag and finally when we got to about 15-20m away it looked at us again and very confused trotted off completely unfazed.

Couple days later I shot (suppressed) a stag in a valley. Once i finished whipping some meat and the head off I look up and there is a fallow spiker just staring at me 15m away. He just carried on walking off once again unfazed. Probably 20mins after shooting the stag in the same area. And I wouldn’t call the area high deer numbers but not hunted much.