Deer and UV spectrum

R

rodwhaincamo

New member
I read a post on here talking about deer seeing UV spectrum. I had read that many moons ago. And what I read said Tide laundry soap was bad about "glowing." Are there any other typical laundry soaps that also do this? Are there any clothing materials that give off a "glow?" I know there are nonscented hunting soaps that I'm sure work. In that post I also read that deer see in more than just black and white (and greys). Does anyone know what other colors they see?
 
Anything which has been bleached or treated with other reactant chemicals will fluoresce under UV light. You can test this yourself with one of those little UV penlights or other gadgets off eBay.
 
The UV brightness is not really a "color". Somewhere (on one of my hunting forums) I found a list of laundry loaps that don't contain UV brightners. One of the ones that didn't was Cheer. There were VERY few others on the list that don't contain brightners.
 
Do deer see in the UV spectrum? Well maybe they do and maybe they don't. Can deer see color? Why not, every other animal does. The question is do they know what they are looking at? How many times have you thought you saw something that turned out to be something else? Many I'm sure. If what you see is motionless it's a damn sight harder to figure out what it is than something that's moving. Here lies the secret to successful hunting , be still.

I've hunted mule deer in California and whitetail in Louisiana plus many places in between. I've hunted them dressed in everything from white shirts to camouflage and have had much success. Deer do see movement, sometimes even the slightest thereof . These critters have superman hearing too. At over a hundred yards they are able to hear the click of a safety being taken off, be quiet too.

I kinda believe this UV thing is like the color thing with deer, BS. Shucks I remember when folks thought that deer never looked up in trees and started climbing them like monkeys in order to kill more. They quickly learned that at the slightest movement, or sound, the deer looked them right in the eye, up in the tree or not.

Believe what you will about what deer can or can't see, but when hunting them being still and being quiet will give you a lot more opportunities for success than what you wear, or how you wash it.
 
It is generally accepted that deer see colours more towards the blue end of the colour spectrum, rather than the orange colours on the other end of the colour spectrum. This is why hunters wear blaze orange, which deer suposedly find hard to see. Optical brighteners such as Uvitex are added to some laundry powders - "to make your whites brighter". These optical brighteners are towards the far end of the blue colour spectrum & do react under a UV light, so to a deer they may seem to glow an electric blue colour.
 
That is precisly why I do not take my wife hunting. Between the hot air and all the noise, BLA,BLA,BLA everything within 20 miles knows we are there.
 
Color matters little

During my mule deer and elk (tried but never shot an elk) hunting days I did not wear a shred of camo. Blaze orange vest and cap made me conspicuous to hunters but not to the critters. Without stealth I walked up to three mule deer in the Sierras near Bishop, CA, sat on a stump about 30 feet away, fussed a bit, did not shoot any of them because I was hunting the "big one" and they were not big, felt the breeze on my face, and they continued browsing with an occasional glance at me. The breeze shifted and was on their noses and immediately they sensed a threat, barked a few times, and ran away.

Same story with a pair of elk outside Eagle, Colorado.

My friend's girlfriend shot a +200 pound whitetail near Roxie, MS while wearing street clothes and perfume. She was downwind of the deer. From that same deerstand I watched many deer walk by me while eating a sandwich and turning the pages of a magazine and wearing not a stitch of camo.

Conclusion: the color and pattern of your hunting clothes makes no difference to deer and elk.
 
Wow!

Conclusion: the color and pattern of your hunting clothes makes no difference to deer and elk.


So why do deer hunters spend a zillion dollars on camo clothing??

Tuzo... man you've just shutdown an entire industry!

I don't deer hunt so don't have any personal experience. But just wow!

(I like to hunt creatures with feathers)
 
Conclusion: the color and pattern of your hunting clothes makes no difference to deer and elk.
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Well color may matter little. I do think a solid color... any color... is making an un-natural presentation the deer rarely would see in nature. So some sorts of random contrasting color to break up the solids is going to help. Also I think deer see the "V" of our arms as well as the "/\" of our legs easier in solids and that shape is a warning trigger to skidaddle the area post haste!:D They know the "V" equals TOP PREDATOR.
Brent
 
Hmmmmm...

The concept of the V and the /\ very interesting.

I've never read or heard of this before but makes sense to me.
 
Deer--and other critters--don't see colors. Their world is varying shades of gray. That's what the medical scientists have been reporting for many decades, anyway. White--and white is the lightest shade of their gray--is a danger signal if it's moving.

Birds see colors, which is why camo is a Good Thing for turkey, duck and dove hunters. Camo doesn't help a walking hunter who's after quail or pheasant; they see the motion. Camo doesn't do much of anything of significance for deer hunters or varmint hunters. Dull earth-toned clothing works just fine; GoodWill is your friend. :)

Doves are said to see the color blue as an indicator of danger or some otherwise undesirable area or presence.

UV "glow"? I don't know. It never seemed to affect my own deer hunting productivity. Scent and motion appear to be the most important factors.
 
Camo industry is fashion in drab

I agree that camo helps bird hunters a lot. Maybe not too much help for upland birds but certainly water fowl. No help for varmint hunters - my camo-less neighbor in California had a profitable sideline shooting bobcat and coyote.

An update to my friend's hunting attire compared to his girlfriend's street clothes and perfume: he has about every bit of camo, scent mask, charcoal absorbing bit of paraphanalia found in Cabela's catalog. He is a successful hunter but his girlfriend and I have proven two things to him over the past several years. 1) Camo shmamo, deer don't seem to care or notice. 2) At 100 yards my 30-06 is just as accurate as his 7mm magnum and with less recoil (this is an ongoing contest).
 
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While I don't believe deer only see in shades of gray or have UV vision I do know that they're many times spooked by foreign objects in the woods. I've seen them freeze and snort at a newly nailed posted sign or newly installed tree stand and even a freshly felled tree. They sure don't know what they're looking at, but it's something that wasn't there in the past. I watched several stop in their tracks, snort and paw the ground when stumbling on someone's four wheeler parked in the woods. After a bit of examination they all took off in the opposite direction. For me this is a pretty good argument for putting deer stands out early, really early. The stand I generally hunt from has been in the same place for years and the deer pay no attention to it.

Camouflage has it's place. When dressed in it subtle movements are much harder to see, therefore I use it most times. However you sure can't do jumping-jacks in it and expect the deer to stay put.
 
Anybody notice that washing camo too often makes it whiter (i.e. flouresce more)? I'm talking about the actual pattern degrading to less outline reducing. I have noticed it with mine an am careful not to use uv-brightening soap. A buddy of mine washed his so often we called his camo "fado-flage" - they were looking like painters coveralls! He still killed deer. I think if you set your treestands high enough w. intelligent wind placement you could be dressed as a Sta-Puff marshmallow and still kill deer!:D:D
 
Hey 00 Spy

This line about their study speaks volumes to me. "The computer interprets these responses and translates them into a "scientific best guess" of what deer can actually see."

In the early days of railroading a study with a "scientific best guess" said that if trains went faster than 30 MPH all the air would be sucked out of the coaches and the passengers would suffocate.

So much for best guesses.
 
Hogbuster is onto something- I find with Fallow deer here that you can drive close to them all day long in a tractor or diesel 4x4 but as soon as you go near them in a car using a normal internal combustion motor or get out of the vehicle they run.

Simply because a lot of farmers are going about their daily affairs and are not interested in pursuing the deer and this has conditioned them to the diesel 4x4 or tractor not being a threat.
 
Amen Lawyer buddy.

The deer around here slowly walk back into the woods when a big green John Deere approaches, but let them see a pickup and they become rocket propelled. The same holds true for our coyotes, they pay no attention to the tractors, but haul ass when seeing a pickup.

Most critters are just like us, creatures of habit, formed by their environment.
 
Hey 00 Spy

This line about their study speaks volumes to me. "The computer interprets these responses and translates them into a "scientific best guess" of what deer can actually see."

In the early days of railroading a study with a "scientific best guess" said that if trains went faster than 30 MPH all the air would be sucked out of the coaches and the passengers would suffocate.

So much for best guesses.
Click to expand...

Wow Hog Buster, you are a funny dude. The article supported your "beliefs" about deer not just seeing in grays and UV, but you have discounted it and a tremendous amount of science, in general, because of some unsupported story about the belief that air would be sucked out of trains from what, 150 years ago? Along those lines, since you made a mistake in your very distant past and probably many more recently, then there is no reason to trust a thing that you say. So much for your opinions. :p

The computer's best guess is an assessment of biological structures within the eye and what they are known to do in other animals. Cones allow for better daylight seeing of color and detail and rods allow for better vision at night (generalization). So the structures are there. What the deer's brain does with that ability may be a different story, but not likely.

How about you contact an animal psychic on the matter and get back with us on the results.
 
00 Spy

I wouldn't say they supported my opinion, it was more like they said we don't really know what deer see.

As for opinions, they're kinda like..........well............scientific best guesses, everybody has one.......:)
 
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