How Good Are Your “Deer Smarts?” Try Taking This Whitetail Quiz…
Here is a little quiz (40 true or false statements) to break up the winter non-deer hunting blues. Take a few minutes to see how sharp your deer smarts are. Perhaps the wily whitetail may just be smarter than you.
1) Does drive area bucks out of their territory during late August/early September.
2) During the rut, a buck will lick a twig or branch to obtain trace minerals.
3) Each individual hair on a whitetail deer is hollow, and serves as insulation during bitter winter weather.
4) Does form family units spanning generations from fawns to great grandmothers.
5) If a fawn has lost its mother and is from a different herd, area does may choose not to adopt it. It becomes an ‘isolate’ or ‘loner.’ and will not seek out companionship of other deer until bred and has a fawn of its own.
6) When deer hunting look for wild apple trees as deer frequent them often.
7) In the fall of the year, a deer’s favorite nutritional food is acorns and beech nuts.
8) An 8 ½ year old buck would be considered having reached his ‘prime.’
9) An adult whitetail deer has 33 teeth.
10) A strong-willed doe fills the role of ‘Matriarch’ or female leader of the herd during the winter months?
11) A deer is capable of giving an aggressive snort of 2-6 sharp blasts in quick succession.
12) A whitetail displays an ‘alarm’ snort because HE has detected YOU.
13) Deer are sensitive to the decreasing amount of sunlight as this triggers the start of the annual ‘rut.’
14) During deer hunting season, baiting is legal in just about half of our United States.
15) By midday deer bed down.
16) The absolute ideal buck to doe ratio is one to three.
17) A buck sporting a great rack is due to genetics; its mother and father holding good genes. Good nutrition also plays a role in antler development.
18) At camp, if you have come down with ‘Cabin Fever’ you would have a temperature of over 101 degrees.
19) Calcification occurs under a buck’s antler velvet.
20) A clear cut tract of land showing natural regrowth is appealing to whitetails.
21) White-tailed deer are color blind.
22) There are no times during a year when bachelor bucks hang out together. Other than during sparring events they are loners.
23) Where deep snows and extreme cold weather prevail, whitetail deer may migrate a distance of up to 55 miles seeking a traditional deer yard.
24) A deer’s nose is a most important sensory organ for both defense and security.
25) A deer’s ‘eyes’ are its second most important sensory organ.
26) In making an adequate ground blind, a deer hunter should make use of cedar branches to provide concealment.
27) A fawn possesses ‘baby’ teeth.
28) Deer will usually bed down with their nose to the prevailing wind to detect predators.
29) The annual rut usually starts within two weeks after the bucks start sparring with each other.
30) When a buck leaves a rub, a doe determines the rub to be a sexual signpost.
31) A whitetail deer has four stomachs.
32) When applying or using cover scents, a hunter should include ‘skunk’ scent.
33) If a deer’s rack holds “sticker points’, it can be classed as ‘typical.’
34) A whitetail deer is classed as being an ‘ungulate.’
35) A hunter bagging a ‘Grand Slam’ of deer has harvested the following four species of deer) Virginia whitetail, Columbian blacktail, Sitka blacktail, and Coues deer.
36) If a fawn is orphaned another doe may choose to become its surrogate mother.
37) It has been said that deer possess a ‘sixth sense:’ a reaction to things that just do not seem to be right.
38) Does giving birth for the first time, generally have one fawn; older does give birth to twins and triplets.
39) Flagging, when a deer holds its tail erect and bounds away, means all is well in the neighborhood…nothing to worry about.
40) Statewide record weight for a whitetail deer was afforded to Carl Lenander Jr. of Minnesota in 1926, with a deer harvested weighing in at a field dressed score of 402; an estimated live weight of 511 pounds.
