Are Deer Afraid of Elk

trevriv · Aug 25, 2009

I am hunting deer and elk at the same time and am thinking of using a cow elk silhouette, but do not want to scare the deer with it. What are your opinions on this? Also, does the cow in estrous urine really work? Will this scare the deer away?

shedfinder · Aug 25, 2009

This was brought up last year. I have pictures of elk and deer in the same spot. So in my opinion, Deer are not affraid of elk. The pictures aren't the best but you can see the deer in front and elk in back.

HUNTER231 · Aug 25, 2009

They live in the wood together 24/7 they may not be the best of freind but they tollerate each other I have hundreds of photos like the following in the pics below the buck spent 2 1/2 hours at this water as elk mingled in and out and it did not even phase him.

gznokes · Aug 25, 2009

Hunter231, that was sweet how you labeled the deer and elk! I don't know why but it gave me a laugh.

Thanks for posting the pics. Always good to see a few trail camera pics

lostinOregon · Aug 25, 2009

I have been on several ranches where the elk will use a specific field and the deer will not. In one case there are three alfalfa fields, one for the elk, and two for the deer. They stay away from each other for some reason.

Rich

HUNTER231 · Aug 25, 2009

Just had to get my point across and figured lables would help! LOL!!

trevriv · Aug 25, 2009

Well, I guess that answers my question! Thanks for the input guys! I just bought a Montana Elk Decoy, cow elk rump, has anybody ever used these? If so, how were they?

NVPete · Aug 25, 2009

A couple of years ago, during Sept. I encountered a group of two small "raghorn" bull elk, 3 mature buck deer, 4 does and 2 fawns all running together across a sagebrush draw. I sure wish I'd had a video camera that day! The only thing I could think of is that maybe one of the does was in estrus and piqued the interest of the bulls!

Utah400Elk · Aug 25, 2009

I am not sure about deer being afraid of elk. I have seen deer run from rutting elk. I also just watched two bid bad raghorn elk get chased away from water by the biggest meanest doe you have ever seen. I am not sure what the two little guys were thinking but they ran like their lives depended on it to get away from a single doe just walking into water. Funny to watch. In general I think they can co-mingle just fine but there are times when they do seem to run from each other.