Does UV spook deer?
Filed under: Hunting Tactics
Question
Grant,
Since finding your site a short time back I have(to my knowledge) watched all of your videos.This is by far the best place to learn more about deer in general. .Thank you so much for producing quality videos and you and your staff working so hard to help the hunter by supplying a eminence amount of information.
My question is about how deer see. I don’t remember you addressing this in any of your videos and would like to clarify what I have come to believe.
My understanding is that deer see in UV and that wearing clothing that show up in UV makes you “shine”. Is there truth to this? Many times I have had deer pick me off when I was much too high to see me except something would draw their attention to me.When this happens as long as I don’t move I get by with it but what brought me to the attention in the first place? I have always thought it was that I was “glowing” because of UV.
The last few years I have washed my hunting gear in Boraxo which has no UV brighteners and it seems to have helped.Am I wasting my time or am I on the right track with this? Also,if you could,please tell me how to detect UV in your clothing. The only thing I know that I think might work would be using a black lite to tell if there is UV present.
Thanks in advance and God bless.
Since finding your site a short time back I have(to my knowledge) watched all of your videos.This is by far the best place to learn more about deer in general. .Thank you so much for producing quality videos and you and your staff working so hard to help the hunter by supplying a eminence amount of information.
My question is about how deer see. I don’t remember you addressing this in any of your videos and would like to clarify what I have come to believe.
My understanding is that deer see in UV and that wearing clothing that show up in UV makes you “shine”. Is there truth to this? Many times I have had deer pick me off when I was much too high to see me except something would draw their attention to me.When this happens as long as I don’t move I get by with it but what brought me to the attention in the first place? I have always thought it was that I was “glowing” because of UV.
The last few years I have washed my hunting gear in Boraxo which has no UV brighteners and it seems to have helped.Am I wasting my time or am I on the right track with this? Also,if you could,please tell me how to detect UV in your clothing. The only thing I know that I think might work would be using a black lite to tell if there is UV present.
Thanks in advance and God bless.
Wade
Wade,
My good friend Dr. Karl Miller did some great research on what deer see. There’s a good summary of his work at the following link. The short story is limiting scent and movement are both way more important to reducing the chances of being detected by deer than UV.
Check out: https://www.qdma.com/can-deer-see-blaze-orange/
Enjoy creation,
grant
October 8, 2015
