Knowing game capabilities

[Trogon]

My single trip hunting Nilgai in Texas on the King Ranch, was an eye opener on how wary they were. They seem to have incredible eyesight (and very wary from hunting pressure). My cousin got his at daybreak, I got mine at sunset, when faded lighting did seem to make them somewhat less spooky. Two days got tiring pretty quickly seeing alot of Nilgai rear-ends.
By contrast, saw many coyotes and they were not spooky at all. Almost felt as though they ignored us.

 

[318AE]

Has anyone experienced anything outstanding with regard to an elephants sense of smell?

Often when you get in close in thick stuff, you can see them raise their trunk up above brush, articulating it around etc., working to get your scent.

 

[Aaron N]

It may have been just a coincidence, but I found the game in Africa much more reliant on scent than sight or hearing. Where a whitetail leaves the county in the first broken twig or crunch of snow, the game in south Africa seemed to stay out if you had the wind in your favour.

 

[Sabre]

It may have been just a coincidence, but I found the game in Africa much more reliant on scent than sight or hearing. Where a whitetail leaves the county in the first broken twig or crunch of snow, the game in south Africa seemed to stay out if you had the wind in your favour.

I feel like whitetail is one of the most easily spooked animals. However, even that differs by location. A deer with relatively little hunting pressure in Iowa doesn't behave as spooky as a deer that lives with immense hunting pressure in Wisconsin. In states with massive hunting pressure it sometimes feels like the deer develop a 6th sense for your presence.

 

[Tucketed]

@steve white the cough issue brings me back to my Illinois whitetail hunt a couple of weeks back. I decided to use the enclosed stands to help muffle my cough. I had watched a couple doe a few times from 30 yards out for any reaction to my vest muffled cough and actually was surprised to see no reaction. Next day same blind my target 8 buck sneaked in behind me and circled at 10 yards out of my view. As I leaned forward and coughed I could now see him looking me straight in the eye and he excited very quickly as seen in the cam shot. Lesson learned not all coughs and deer are the same

 

[BryceM]

Pronghorn can see you before you leave your house in the morning.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Pheasants have phenomenal hearing. On a windless day they will flush seventy yards out when we're walking through dry grass, especially if they've been shot up or harassed by coyotes. It's one reason I prefer to hunt in a hard wind. Don't look for them then to be hiding in cattails. Too noisy for them to hear anything. Then they will be in low cover on hillsides, preferably lee of the wind. Snowberry or yellow clover patches are good. Avoid cottonwood trees unless the weather is wet or snowy. Walking through those dry leaves I just as well tow along a brass band. I hate those damn trees for all kinds of reasons. They're always shedding limbs that just lie in wait amongst the grass to trip me up. Argh!

Hunting mule deer on a windy day works well. A hard wind will blow my scent to oblivion almost instantly. Hunt the coulee bottoms. Walk slowly and look for deer laying up in the smaller side canyons. Don't hunt from the ridge tops. You'll freeze your arse off and the deer can see you too far away. A long range rifle is useless beyond 200 yards in 40 mph wind. In the bottoms the shooting is usually close range and less wind.

 

[Boyd Brooks]

Well, I sure don't understand why cormorants are even protected in Texas. They are all over the lakes. Once, I pulled over to the side of Hwy. 80 to watch cormorants flying a south wind to Lake Fork. They stretched from sky to sky and stayed that way for about 15 minutes! That's a lot of fish eating birds.

Thankfully their protein rich droppings start a food chain under their white washed roosting trees--great place to catch some channel cats. Here I am OT on my own thread, lol.

Here in Ontario, cormorants are a nuisance like field mice! We are allowed to harvest 15 a day, which you don’t even have to eat. You can just bury them in your fields for fertilizer. When they nest on an island it becomes a stinky white rock with dead white tree trunks with in a season.