I have been lurking for a while, but first time poster. Love the site though.
I have been watching a deer for a few years, learning his patterns...and he finally blew up at age five to a solid 160 class buck. He was kind of a homebody and stayed pretty tight to his core area prior years and I felt like I would have a good shot at killing him last year. In July, I would sneak up to the bean field that he was feeding in and watch him enter the field at the same spot.
1st week of August comes and all of the sudden my cameras were showing a big black bear that had moved in to the area, and I was getting daily pics of the bear with no sign of the buck. The buck vanished and I never saw him again.
So to my question. I can't imagine that its good to have a bear in the area....but is it actually enough to move a deer out? Or would it be more likely that the deer just moved to another location, even though prior years he hung around all hunting season. (I spread out cameras over a 1/2 mile and never did catch up with him). BTW....I put very little pressure on this deer with long distance scouting and leaving cameras alone....at least until he moved.
Deer behavior when a bear moves in
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- PK_
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Re: Deer behavior when a bear moves in
Hey, welcome to the forum.
I definitely can't answer that question either way for certain. However I do hunt a property in PA that has resident bears and one of their dens is really close (100-150 yards)to the best buck bedding on the property. I did see deer run away from a bear in that area and that was the only case where I have seen deer and bear together. So I am sure that the deer do not prefer to mingle with the bears but they also do not seem to mind sharing land…
Good luck with that buck!
I definitely can't answer that question either way for certain. However I do hunt a property in PA that has resident bears and one of their dens is really close (100-150 yards)to the best buck bedding on the property. I did see deer run away from a bear in that area and that was the only case where I have seen deer and bear together. So I am sure that the deer do not prefer to mingle with the bears but they also do not seem to mind sharing land…
Good luck with that buck!
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- Zona
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Re: Deer behavior when a bear moves in
I had a big boar bear take over a bedding area I was hunting 2 years ago. I had him under my tree both evenings I hunted the spot. Haven't seen buck sign there since.
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- Stanley
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Re: Deer behavior when a bear moves in
Welcome to the Beast.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
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Re: Deer behavior when a bear moves in
I've had bear pass underneath me and then had deer come by later in a travel route. As Palmetto said, in PA they share a lot of the same land but being a large predator I could also see it having adverse effects. A few years ago I was glassing a bean field on a early October morning and watched some does spook and then a really fat bear came running out of a finger of woods. I can't say if he was trying to chase them but it sure looked like it. I hope he shows back up for you. Good luck
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