Do does decoy for bucks?

[YosemiteSam]

Out here in CA, most all hunting is buck-only.  So our does get to be pretty smart.  Saturday evening, I spooked a doe that was on full alert but stayed in the open while another deer made its way off the opposite direction, behind a rise where I couldn't see.  Neither could catch my scent (not for lack of trying -- lots of loud snorting from those two -- especially the hidden deer) but I usually see does leaving together in approximately the same direction.  These two went their separate ways while the doe seemed to be making herself more conspicuous.  For CA and western mule deer hunters out there, have they ever observed does acting as decoys for bucks to draw hunters' attention away from other deer?  I never saw the other deer to see if it was a buck or doe.  But the experience was so different that I couldn't help but think that maybe this doe knew what she was doing.

[fnshtr]

I don't believe they "reason" and "decoying" would require that. I believe they instinctively develop means of surviving. I am after a 3 1/2 year old 8 point that is traveling with a 1 1/2 year old 4 point. The older buck hangs back when moving. I had the younger buck come in and catch my scent, quickly leaving. The older buck had stopped in heavy brush and when the younger buck passed him, he turned and followed him away.

While it may seem like they are scheming, I don't believe they have the power to "reason". Just my opinion.

Good luck!

[K.S.TRAPPER]

IMHO I believe your over thinking this one just a little to much.

Doesn't matter what state your in, you got busted she's letting ALL the other deer in the area something is not right. That's it plain and simple that's what deer do.

So get out there and keep at it and keep the wind in you face. Good luck!

Tracy

[Sam McMichael]

I think deer do reason to some degree. I have observed many deer walking through the woods, continually scanning the trees. It seems that does also teach their fawns to look up. I doubt that the doe would put herself out there specifically to screen a buck, but I have often seen bucks let does or smaller bucks go ahead of them.

[Doc Nock]

Interesting discussion.  Nobody knows what animals think or why they do what they do.

Those who study the brains of us and critters suggest that they lack reasoning, which is of higher intellect, but they do have "memory" so that once they've had a bad experience in a given situation, they "learn" from it instinctively, sorta like we (some) shoot instinctively and hit the mark.

Process input?  Surely one would have to say so to have memory reserves...reason out a logic that to let this or that go ahead or to look up once having seen something frightening in trees?

That one seems more like a stretch to me...

There were words I learned called "Operent (sp?) Conditioning" meaning that that experience creates positive-negative memory and intuition keeps animals from repeating threat situations.

I've seen what Sam said, specific to a particular TREE even where some guys hunted regularly... Big doe even side-stepped (never saw that before) 4-5 steps to get a better angle and then resolving (?) there was no figure in that tree, went over to lie down with the fawn.

Given the "maternal instinct" of does, I wonder if she may have drawn the OP's attention to let her offspring saunter away who mimiced Moma's blowing and snorting?

Fun to speculate though, isn't it?  

[Bldtrailer]