We need to coin a new word

[Mojostick]

I believe we all know the phenomenon for which we need a new descriptive term for. Perhaps a play on native people's words may work? Or a mix of other common words.

The word I'm looking for decribes when you're sitting on stand for hours, looking at the same forest. You've looked at a said, smallish deer sized stump 100 times over the hours. But as dusk fades in, suddendly you glance at the same stump, you get that silent "deer!" flinch and you think it's a deer, even though you know it's the stump. As the light fades more, you may even glass the stump that you know is a stump because it looks so much like a deer, but you "know" it's a stump because you've looked at it 100 times with the last few hours.

Or, the big oak leafs by the rotting log with the big leafless branch sticking up over it, that also as light fades, the oak leafs becomes a deer's ears, and the knots on the log become the ring of a deer nose and an eyeball, the dead brach becomes a decent rack and you flich when you glance at it because now it looks like a deer's face and rack, that's been bedded in front of you the last 3 hours. But all the while, you've looked at that same log many, many times.

I was thinking something like "deerja-vu". LOL

Any other good thoughts for a word to simplify this hunting phenomenon?

[Tree Rat]

I don't have a name for that particular occasion, but locally we have "windwalkers."

They're the deer that are so smart that they can hide right in front of you while "know" it is there because you can hear it. They make sounds so slight that you look and look and look until you finally find that one single solitary leaf moving in an imperceptible breeze 50 yards away.

[straitera]

deerage (deer oj)

[bornagainbowhunter]

hope.

[Thumper Dunker]

The squirrel or rabbit that you make a pefect shot on and it shatters your arrow when you hit it. Rock rodent. deerage I like that.

[Gen273]

"shape shifter"

[Stumpkiller]

There's a name for that effect that escapes me (all that money on BS degree in human behavior wasted).  The same reason folks who want to see ghosts and UFOs often do.  Your brain accomidates your desire and interprets what the eyes are transmitting.

Oh oh.  Bad news for you . . .

 

Sundown Syndrome
Sundown syndrome is also called as sundowning syndrome in the medical language. This medical condition occurs especially during the late afternoon, evening and night. Sundowning syndrome occurs with the people who are already suffering from dementia, alzheimer's disease, psychosis etc. Visual hallucinations and auditory hallucinations are the prime symptoms of the sundown syndrome.

Guess we could call them "Sundown Bucks"

[arrowslinger22]

Sundown Syndrome, got it, earned it, getting old is not for sissies.

[Mike Theis]

"Whitetail Mind Meld"?

"Doe-duper"?

I saw a silver UFO out deer hunting at sundown.  It came down real slow and it was huge.  It turned ever so lightly as it descended, to get a better look at me or something.  As it got low I noticed that it was getting smaller, it settled on the field not thirty yards out from me.  It just sat there about three inches off the ground.  I noticed it had a strange inscription on one side, it said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY".  Is that the same thing as the "mad cow"?  I have  the mad cow.

[LimBender]

Mojo,

That is a common affliction.

They are "inanimate low-light eye grabbers" when scanning the woods.

[Pat B]

I don't know what it is called but it has stumped me many times. Wishful thinking perhaps!

[olddogrib]

Paranormanimal! As soon as I feel silly enough to make myself quit looking, it's guaranteed to be the exact place the deer will appear and be the last clear shot it offers.

[kadbow]

Wishful Seeing

[treetoppredator]

I like this thread. Reading the responses makes me feel more normal, I thought that I might be the only person that tried to make deer out of things in the woods, when deep down you know that its really a stump, leaf, blowdown sort of thing, you still check it just to make sure!  

[Bill Carlsen]

Wishful thinking.... perceptual optimism....delusional visualization.

[Killdeer]

Pavan, how can you spin a story like that? You have no proof that the UFO was deer hunting. It might have been out looking for a place to "park", a Taco Bell, or the recycling center.

Those dang stumps, snags and shriveled oak leaves that won't fall until spring have kept me looking stupid for more hours than I care to admit.

I look stupid the rest of the time because it just comes naturally.
Killdeer  

[Stumpkiller]

Found it!

"Lusus Naturae"  Literally means jokes of nature.  Some people call it "Tricks of the light."

Like when folks see the outline of an old man's face in the rocks of a cliff, a mountain on Mars or You Know Who's face on a piece of toast.  Our primate brains assign something like 60% of all our conscious capacity in interpreting facial expressions or facial recognition on/of other people; so your brain is hardcoated to treat everything it sees first as a face, then to assimilate it to something you have seen before, and finally if that fails to register it as new information.  

Being a hunter you (and most of us here) are processing our surroundings for deer or bits of deer.  So guess what our brain tells us.  Just as amazing is when you catch something that alerts you out of the corner of your eye and it turns out to be part of a deer.

I have noticed that the guys that ride around and drink beer while they are shotgun hunting for deer see way more numbers of giant bucks than the ones that get out of their pickups to hunt and leave the beer at home.  Oh yes, Killdeer, I put a blunt right through that "happy birthday' ufo and put in my pocket, but I did not have a tag for it.

[Killdeer]

ICEd it, so to speak.
(A little Migra humor.   :D  )

Killdeer