All Things Are Not Equal

All Things Are Not Equal

By Earl Taylor

Forewarning; if you believe man and animals evolved from nothing, this article will not make much sense to you.

There is a friendly banter amongst Iowa hunters about the hardest animal to shoot in the Hawkeye state. Each hunter believes the quarry he is chasing is the most difficult to harvest.

When Noah opened the doors to his freshly built ark, all animals and birds marched in as equals; the lion was kitty-cat like; the deer was Bambi-like, the dog was Lassie-like, and the turkey marched in as if into a barn. There was no such thing as a predator. When the doors of the boat flew open 378 days later, it was every critter for himself; things have not changed over the past 5000 years.

Before the flood, mankind was thought not to have eaten meat; there was no hunting or roasted lamb recorded in the early chapters of Genesis; everyone and everything was a vegetarian! With the first rainbow still in sight, God tells Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply. He also stated, “The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.” God also changed the eating habits of mankind with this statement: “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” And since that day, creatures have been running away from men with sharp spears, arrows, and bullets who now have an appetite for fresh meat.

The docile animals from the boat left their friendship on the boat; existence was now, flee or be eaten. It was run or get shot. The chase over the last five millenniums has only increased the level of the instincts. Every animal has keenly adapted to its surroundings and now uses every sense available to keep themselves alive. Self- preservation kicked into high gear. The deer and the antelope no longer were unafraid of the wolf.

Every animal or bird concentrates on five things: food, frolic (sex), fellowship, fight or flight. Much that is called instinct feeds one of the five inherent drives. Figure out how to overcome and intercept these instinctive actions and the hunter’s success rate increases dramatically.

Animal scientists describe instinct as: “an inherent behavior: a fixed action pattern that is unlearned. Animals are born with certain instincts which are common to all those of their breed. Some instinctual behaviors require a certain amount of maturation before they begin.” Think mature buck compared to a button buck; the mature buck has learned additional survivor skills.

Instincts transfer hereditarily; bad instincts die out, and good instincts are passed on to the next generation. When my county opened up a season to hunt turkeys in Iowa in 1980, the first few years I shot many dumb turkeys. After a few years, they smartened up considerably. New generations learned or they got shot or ate.

Iowa hunters spend most of the time hunting pheasant, waterfowl, deer, turkeys, and coyotes; each animal has its special senses and abilities to escape and live.

You can fool all animals and birds if you can sit still and properly conceal yourself; however, it is the nose that reveals the unseen hunter. It is the nose of the deer and coyote that can detect humans sight unseen. The fact that an animal uses its nose to survey the timber increases its ability to outwit the hunter. Deer and coyotes use their nose as their number one form of defense.

Turkeys, pheasants, and waterfowl don’t use their ability to smell to keep them alive.

Turkey’s eyesight is the best of all critters that we hunt, and their radar-like hearing is impeccable to pinpoint a fake hen call. And yet, with their keen ears and eyes, they appear to be stupid when it comes to approaching a plastic, fake decoy or a blind set up in an open field. A hunter can set up his blind in the middle of an open hay field and still get a mature tom in close enough for a bow shot. Try to set up a portable blind without brushing it in, and the whitetail or coyote will spot it immediately; they avoid and remember. Make a mistake from a tree stand, and an old doe will look up every time it walks past that tree. Deer appear to have a long memory.

According to the scientific definition, the fight or flight response is called hyperarousal – a physiological reaction that protects both man and beast. Have a tree stand squeak while trying to move into a position to shoot and your quarry reacts. Sometimes they freeze and try to understand the noise, but more often, they turn and run, saving their lives. Just as humans react to a sudden surprise, deer, turkey, coyotes, and pheasant react the same. Scientists write that the chemical reaction brought on by surprise is a chemical reaction that activates muscles, breathing, and heart rate is all there to create a burst of energy to accomplish the escape.

Animals need to feel safe and in control. They run on instinct rather than logic. Man can always get control over all animals because of the use of logic; logic allows analysis and then the creation and the execution of the plan.

There is only one way to suppress fear, and that is with food. Feed a dog, and it becomes a pet. Make a dog find his food, and it becomes a coyote-like. Providing food is the key to taming the wild. The same sensory ability a dog demonstrates as a drug-sniffing dog is evident in the coyote; nothing gets past the coyote’s nose. The fact that the coyote relies on its total use of all senses on order to eat has created the craftiest of all animals; his sensory perception is his only means of providing the next meal. Man has learned the only way to get a coyote into the open and in range is to fake its next meal; a squealing rabbit is all it takes for a coyote to let down his guard.

The nose of a deer has 297 million olfactory sensors, while that of coyotes have 220 million. Humans have only a measly 5 million sensors. More brain effort is used to analyze smells with deer. Watch a deer follow a doe in heat, and it can analyze the smell and determine the direction the doe is heading.

The pheasant is just a nervous bird; years and years of predators in the air and from behind have made the bird keenly aware. They rely on their ears and eyes, but they also have sensors on their feet to feel vibrations on anything approaching.

Waterfowl use its eyes over all five senses. With their eyes located on the side of their head, waterfowl can see a panoramic view, and with a broader spectrum of colors; their eyesight is superior in catching motion and color variations. The wrong decoy setup or a shiny gun barrel can spook low flying flocks.

The turkey’s downfall is their lack of smell to warn them of danger. Their eyes and ears are superior to deer and coyotes, but with no nose to interpret danger, a quiet camouflaged hunter can set up anywhere regardless of the wind direction. The turkey’s eyesight is its primary defense mechanism.

The test that determines which Iowa critter is the hardest to harvest needs tested at 30 yards and not 300 yards. We all could shoot almost anything easily at 300 yards. Put a scoped 270 in my hand, and suddenly a standing deer way across a field is easy pickings; put the same deer on the trail directly below me, and I have to put several things together quietly to harvest the animal.
Deer and coyote are the hardest animals to kill because they can smell. In nearly 40 years of bowhunting, I have only had one coyote give me an opportunity to shoot him, while hundreds of deer have walked near my stand. For me, the coyote almost always gets the upper hand when close and personal.

All animals have their Achilles heel; there is a chink in every animal’s armor that allows a man to win out consistently. Offer turkeys and deer an opportunity at frolic, and you can win. Offer waterfowl fellowship, and they will land amongst your decoys. Offer a coyote an opportunity at a wounded rabbit, and he will come out of hiding. Plant a food plot and a pheasant will move in next door.

Know that it ok to be fooled by an instinctual critter; the next time that a wary turkey gets the best of the hunt, just remember God put this fear in the turkey to ensure that there would be turkeys in the future; blame Him.