Shooting range

[hunts_with_stick]

How many people have a camp and have a shooting range? Does it scare the deer off the property? I would love to put in a shooting range, and to be honest, wouldn’t use it a whole lot. A few times a year, probably over summer, definitely not during the rut. Mainly to let my boys shoot guns.

 

[crappieman2380]

I have one right behind my house. I don't shoot alot, kind of like you said a little in the summer. I've had does walk right up in front of the target an hour after shooting. Maybe their just conditioned to it around me. Some of my neighbors shoot on the regular, and they shoot alot.

 

[Catscratch]

We shoot off the back deck all the time. Sometimes shooting over deer that don't spook. Oftentimes after shooting we walk around the house and there will be deer in the side yard plots. Doesn't seem to bother at least some of the deer.

 

[Angus 1895]

I think shooting is more important than not.

We must shoot them accurately if we want to eat them.

And if you shoot often they might not spook if u miss!

 

[Catscratch]

I watched my youngest shoot at a nice buck with a .308. Missed. The deer walked right at us. Missed. Deer turned broadside to walk to the woods. Missed again. He never spooked.

The rifle was dead nuts the week before. After that hunt it was high and to the right. Must have bumped the scope at some point.

 

[bigboreblr]

2017 muzzleloader season in NY. Shot a deer, all other idiots staring at down deer. Bigger idiot, me, reloaded muzzleloader. Idiots staring at 2 down deer now....

2014 at nys cpatial district trap shoot meet, 300 guys shooting. Shot 24 so far, 25th shot doe is on th right side of field by my far right clay. Saw the deer hesitated, was my 5th shot at a perfect 25. Never had a trap gun, just 26 inch barreled field citori with fixed modifed choke.......

Ever hear of a guy missing 5 or 6 times............

2 years ago, shooting 22lr into the swamp where I hang steel targets. 7th or 8th shot in, stupid doe standing directly behind 50 yard target with fancy philips led light shining right at her. Had to wait 10 minutes. A few years before, stupid bear doing same thing.....

 

[MadMadHoosier]

We have a shooting lane down a narrow power line clearing coming to the cabin. It’s amazing how many times a deer walks or trots across the lane WHILE we are shooting. It is like they are coming to check out what is going on. We are convinced one is going to run into a bullet one of these days.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Shooting at the Nebraska state games with my oldest son, about 20 of us lined up and firing away with .22 rimfire. Range boss yells cease fire as a doe trots across the range. LOL

Personally I don't shoot at my house, only because I know if I do that will likely encourage my immediate neighbors to think that they should turn their yards into rifle ranges. I have had enough issues with tiny property owners shooting recklessly. Resident deer on your property get habituated to lots of things, but I feel like it is legitimate to think that a big buck passing through is not likely to hang around if there is routine rifle fire. However, it would seem that Catscratch has proven that to not be the case. LOL

 

[Feelslikefar.]

IMO there isn't a good answer to this. A deer isn't a deer, isn't a deer, isn't a deer.
People like to argue that it doesn't bother them, but just because you saw some that didn't run away, that doesn't mean there weren't others that did (and you just didn't see it).

People say "they're used to it." Yeah some of them can get used to it. I used to work at a large public shooting range. At times the deer would feed just feet in front of the benches, 30 yards away from guy shooting rifles. Does that mean that's what deer do? I've also shot at a dozen other ranges where I didn't see that.

While bow hunting last year, I've seen evidence that it does scare them (or can), having them literally right past me (not too many feet away, with me on the ground) from a neighbor doing some recreational shooting.

 

[Catscratch]

IMO there isn't a good answer to this. A deer isn't a deer, isn't a deer, isn't a deer.
People like to argue that it doesn't bother them, but just because you saw some that didn't run away, that doesn't mean there weren't others that did (and you just didn't see it).

People say "they're used to it." Yeah some of them can get used to it. I used to work at a large public shooting range. At times the deer would feed just feet in front of the benches, 30 yards away from guy shooting rifles. Does that mean that's what deer do? I've also shot at a dozen other ranges where I didn't see that.

While bow hunting, I've seen evidence that it does scare them (or can), having them literally right pas me, feet away, from a neighbor shooting.

Thats why I finished my original post with "Doesn't seem to bother at least some of the deer.". They are all different!

 

[SwampCat]

We have a three hundred yard range and shoot a fair bit. Also shoot a lot of clay pigeons. Last year I was feeding protein 200 yards north of the 200 yard target and a group of 12 bucks in a bachelor herd fed there all summer. Deer become accustomed to a lot of things. We thermal hunt for varmints through the same food plots we hunt six hours later for deer - and see a ton of deer - including mature bucks. I have coon and squirrel hunted with a tree dog in my deer woods and it doesnt matter. But I live on my place. The next door neighbor is a cattle farmer and out everyday. So is his neighbor. I live next to a small subdivision with dogs, screaming kids, and school buses. The biggest deer I have ever killed was 50 yards from a US highway with continuous flow of traffic near a long straight stretch where the state troopers made a living pulling people over. Plenty of big deer killed during the urban hunts where they eat at bird feeders in people back yards. Many times while deer hunting, I have been startled by a nearby shot, and about jump out of my seat, and the deer I am watching dont even look up.

 

[Telemark]

I have seen all kinds of wildlife at my uncle's shooting range, but never a coyote or a mature buck.

 

[SwampCat]

I have seen all kinds of wildlife at my uncle's shooting range, but never a coyote or a mature buck.

While I have never seen a coyote while shooting at my range, I have trapped a number of them with the trap staked to the post of the 300 yard target. I have not seen a wall hanger buck - while shooting - at our range - but I have seen them there when we are not shooting - and they do hit that protein regularly 200 yards away

 

[Barndog56]

There is a shooting range on the patch of public I bow hunt. My stand is often about a half mile from the benches. Deer will walk thru while some guy is burning up an entire week's pay thru an AR.

 

[Feelslikefar.]

When I would talk about hypothetically "unnatural scenting" the woods (putting out drip bottles with aftershave all year long) so the deer would get used to it, invariably someone would mention the nature of bucks movement during the rut, and that it would probably work of the does, but not the bucks. I would think deer (mature bucks) would kind of be the same when it comes to gunfire.

And like I said a deer isn't a deer.... gunfire isn't gunfire. Someone taking one or two shots off in the distance isn't the same as someone banging away and bullets zipping through the brush and trees overhead. When I mentioned the deer running past me while walking bow season, they were running directly away from the gunfire. But I wonder, I don't think it was the noise of the guns, but the bullets through the woods because they were a couple hundred yards away from the actual gunfire.

 

[Catscratch]

My dad shot a lot of deer by hunting when other hunters were heading back to their trucks. Wasn't shooting that had them moving, it was the hunters themselves being in a place that wasn't normal.


I had a stand next to a pasture road. Every morning the landowner drove through on his way to feed. Could hear his truck from a mile away. Deer stepped aside when he got to close, then back on course after he puttered by. But... an unusual truck drive down the highway a quarter mile away they were on red alert. Tails pressed against butts, bucks slinking off, ears cupped, etc.