Pressure from hunters will often send whitetails to thick, dense cover to avoid contact. (Terry Owens photo)
By Trey Reid, OutdoorChannel.com
As long as we’ve hunted whitetail deer, questions have come up about the effects of hunting pressure on our quarry.
Does hunting activity push deer out of core areas? Do deer “go nocturnal” in response to hunting pressure? Do whitetails push deeper into heavy cover to remain unseen by human predators?
The answers depend on multiple factors.
It won’t come as a surprise that deer often respond to hunting pressure by altering their daily activity patterns. But it might surprise hunters that sometimes the opposite is true, and despite increased hunting pressure, whitetails don’t always respond by changing their movements.
Of course...