Have you ever found your mind won't let you see what's not there or what's there you just can't see? I' m a nut about knowing your target. Of course as hunters we have to, but I've been nearly shot 3 times wearing orange head to toe and also have a nut job that hangs on my line in a Ghillie suite during gun season. So to that have you been on a stalk and spotted something and watched it a long while swearing it's a bedded buck to find you spent a lot of time outwitting a branch. Stood trying your best to make out that brush in the distance to stalk up and bust a big buck that had been watching you? Have a deer plainly in front of you and your mind just didn't register it?
Humans evolved to see things that arent there. Especially in the dark. It's a survival technique. But, if something is right in front of me I usually see it
There was a motel on US 40 outside Zanesville, OH that had two cast iron deer in the front yard. The owner would cover them with a tarp during hunting season. Guess shy.
You might be surprised at what you can't see. I was at camp 4 mos pregnant and a tad under the weather with bad morning sickness. FIL was up in his ridge stand and I was doing a slow walk to the bottom of the hill. As I got to the edge of the woods I see a 6 point buck head down feeding. I pull up and shoot he drops. back then I would lower my 20 ga as I was kicking in another shell. I draw back up and theres that 6 point standing there with no hole in him.. I shoot again he drops. Reload and wait no deer so I slow walk to where he dropped. He pops up and I shoot. Down he goes. Kick in another shell and wait. Well now I'm getting real sick and head toward him again. Bang! Down he goes. Well I couldnt believe it and I couldn't go any farther to find him the guys came down and got me. I was beside myself and 3 of them tracked him to the property line were he jumped the fence. Bad blood between FIL and owner kept them from searchingover the line. Though I found out one guy found him a week later 10 yrds from the fence. Now to the first shot.. FIL saw the whole thing. There were 2 6 pt standing side by side at the shot he didnt drop as i thought, but loaded his legs turning as I kicked in the next shell. He was already headed up the hill when I looked up seeing that other 6 pt that stood there wondering what happened. FIL was watching this whole thing unfold and knew I'd missed the first , shooting low, but hit the second every shot. Camps steep so he just kept going on that down hill run. Now not a hunt to be proud of and I was young, and had been told body shots for lungs. I now only do shoulder/ heart shot. Death runs in hill country are the pits. So even deer in front of you may not be what it seems.. Had I not shot low I may have illegally shot two buck, the second completely hidden by the first.
Hell, I once snuck up to a bedded red fox 1/2 mile out sleeping on a snowdrift. Got close enough, layed down prone and made a perfect shot on a paper Burger King bag
I watched a huge buck that was bedded up against a near vertical drop in land. I stood and watched him for over a half hour waiting to see movement. I just could not be sure it was really a buck. The reason was his rack looked like a bush!. Well he could see me too and never even twitched. Had I been carrying binos he'd been a dead deer but I didn't, do now. So I finally started moving toward him. He looked like someone shot him from a cannon he moved so fast. To this day I kick myself on that one.
