Your Headlamp Isn't Spooking Deer (I have the proof)

Last night I was getting down from the tree after it got dark and needed a headlamp to see what I was doing. I put my light on, packed all my camera equipment up, and before I stepped off my platform, I glanced up to see a pair of eyes looking my way from about 50 yards out.

I switched my light off, grabbed my binos, and could barely make out a buck standing in the grass. He looked around, let out a snort wheeze, and marched right into the scrape I was hunting over. A few minutes later, a second buck joined him, and they spent a few minutes squaring off, sparring, and working a couple of scrapes.

By this point, it was dark-dark, and I couldn't see more than some dark blobs moving around less than 15 yards in front of me. Eventually, I grew tired of their company and decided to see if I could spook them off using my headlamp. I figured I would record it to show my findings to the world. Below are the results of my failed test to spook deer with my super bright white headlamp.

As I've said for years - white light doesn't spook deer. Noise and being a human do.

YouTube won't let me embed Shorts, so you'll have to click on the links. Sorry

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5snOibp4Vs0

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/n8QhcV_oXYI

 

I've had better luck with red lights and not spooking deer. Just my personal experience.

 

I've used white lights since I was a kid. I've seen the same thing, it's being a human that scares them, not light. I use a bright white light main so I can navigate quietly and not get shot by night hunters. And yes I have had a few very close calls with that, both bow and guns.

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My guess is that's just confirmation bias. You think that red spooks fewer deer, so that's what you see.

I can't tell you how many deer I've had walk by my stand while I'm getting all my camera crap setup in the morning and never even look at me with my light on.

Deer don't associate lights with humans. There are lights everywhere. In the sky. On cars. On buildings. If they were spooked by every white light they saw, they wouldn't be in people's yards eating their plants in the middle of the night or wouldn't come anywhere close to a roadway.

 

I don't doubt that Justin, that's why I gave your post a "like". I'd really like to use brighter lights as I enter the hellholes I hunt. Lol. So if this is what everyone else is observing I'd gladly go back to bright white light!

 

I was thinking about this and trying to remember if I did spook a deer with light. Then I remembered one from 2012. Sitting along a clover field one evening. I sat til I couldn't see the ground, if I guessed about 10 minutes after shooting light and I was slowly getting packed up. I hear a deer coming down the edge. I'm already standing so just let it come. It started feeding about 10 yards in front of me. I turned on my flash light to see what it would do. It completely jumped out of its skin and ran out to about 25 yards and just watched in my direction. Then walked off. It was a nice sized 2 1/2 year old buck.

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I tried using the strobe light feature on my headlamp to spook a doe and fawn off a food plot last week. They didn't even flinch and the fawn even laid down. I could see their eyes reflecting back at me every time the light flashed.

 

Get a thermal imager you will see deer all over as your walking in and out and getting set up in the dark. I’m definitely in the it’s better to have enough light to see than stumble around in the dark camp.


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I saw several deer on my walk in Saturday morning using a white headlamp. One was 15'ish feet away and just stood there looking at me. I took a step towards it and it took a step towards me, I then took another step but purposely stomped. Deer just turned around and walked away. And I still couldn't kill one

 

Last year, I walked within five yards of a doe with a bright white light. We had a 5 minute stare down until I said "Hi" and it took off. Apparently, the doe did not find me as charming as my wife does.

 

Eh, I say it is similar to many things...some deer it will freak out if aimed at them...others won't think anything of it...Personally I use red and such for setting up at the stand once up...but its almost always bright white light coming in and leaving through the woods.

 

Couldn't this be confirmation bias too? lol

But seriously, I'm with you on the white light not spooking deer. My first sit of the season this year I had 3 bucks under me and within 5 yards of my stand after legal shooting light had ended. I was shining my white headlamp on them and in their eyes and they didn't care (This is highly pressured public land). As soon as I started playing Thunderkiss 65' on my phone, they took off. That area of the woods will be forever known as Thunderkiss.

I have had other encounters as well with white light that has not spooked deer. One time I had a deer within 10 yards, I redirected the light to show my body and she freaked.

 

Well, does seem like you enter the woods half naked to avoid overheating and stinking on the way to your spot. Next, you will be telling us you shower at the tree.

 

If a deer is never used to seeing bright light hundreds of yards deep in the woods, does that make a difference when it finally does? Deer notice things that are out of place during their day to day.

 

One time I had footsteps coming at me when i was making a little noise in leaves at base of my tree. It was really dark so i flipped on my light and there was a doe standing 5 ft from me. Head Bobbing just trying to figure out what i was. I could have rechec out and touched her nose. This was one of many times ive had deer freeze in my headlamp. Normally it was from further away and i guess they normally error on the side of caution and get out of the way. Thats normally when im moving though. If i am stationary they seem to be the same. I agree its not the light that they are naturally afraid of. I have also seen deer head for the hills if you shine a light on them in a field. This tends to happen in high poaching areas where they probably associate the lights with gunshots and seeing their deer buddies die. I know i e heard of some mature bucks dont like the trail cameras but im not sure if that is a result of the light from the flash sparking their curiosity which triggers them to investigate and then they catch human scent or some other sense of danger. Who knows. Some deer are just more scardy cat than others too.

 

We can't ask the deer so nobody will ever definitively know the answer. However, I do believe we give deer way more credit than they are due for many things. Noticing something out of place being one of them. Trees and branches fall naturally all the time. Deer don't care - it's part of nature. And they don't have the ability to determine if something was cut down versus fallen down naturally - outside of maybe the human scent we leave behind.

Storms rip through and flatten entire areas. People come through with machines and tear stuff down all the time, and there are deer in there checking it out within hours. They aren't scared to death, they are curious. Unless they associate something they see, hear, or smell with danger, they don't give a rip about it. Lights being one of those things.

How many times have you put a trail camera out, only to have deer sniffing right in the lens hours after you put it there, with human scent all over it?

 

Pitch dark woods. Random light walking toward the deer. No response? Not looked at like any kind of negative stimulus at all?

Pitch black woods and something is walking downwind of a deer...no reaction by the deer? A wolf with a headlamp on in the pitch black wouldn't get any reaction by a deer?

 

Years ago when I hunted more mobile, I'd put cheap Walmart solar lights in my trees. That way I could find them in the dark of morning.
Worked great as I like to hunt thicker cover.
Some of those worked for several years.