this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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I’m not trying to troll, I’m genuinely curious. Thinking about deer specifically, it doesn’t seem like visual camouflage would really help much when hunting them. Deer sense predators by sensitive hearing (big ears) and smell (long snout). Their eyes are on the sides of their head, so they detect motion rather than high-resolution.

So trying to blend in with the surroundings doesn’t seem to be an advantage in this case. Assuming all this, what’s the point of clothing with camo print on it?

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[–] grammaticerror@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not OP, but yeah, basically. Lots of incidents of hunters getting shot while turkey hunting.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 8 points 6 days ago (3 children)

ok. so I guess its just that the wounds are less severe since its buckshot or whatever but deershot will like be bad enough you want the orange?

[–] too_high_for_this@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Birdshot. Buckshot is for deer, never heard it called deer shot.

Buckshot is about 10 lead balls, each one roughly the size of a 9mm bullet. It'll absolutely fuck you up.

Slugs are more common, though. That's just a single 1+ oz projectile. Will also ruin your day.

Birdshot is hundreds of pellets, ranging from .05" - .18" diameter. They lose energy quick, so if you're 50+ yards away, they might not even break skin.

There's dove hunts where hunters completely surround a field and send their dogs in to scare up the birds. They're constantly getting hit by other hunters' shots from the other side of the field but nobody gets hurt.

[–] zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Birshot shot needs a fair bit more distance than that to not break the skin in my experience, even for 20 gauge.

I wish I had not witnessed these things to know for sure...

[–] blargh513@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

One thing I've never understood is after you shoot a bird with a spray of fine pellets, what the hell is left?

Seems like you'd just have a wet pile of meat that is torn the fuck up. I'm guessing you can't eat it because it's full of those little lead shot; not that you coudll't pick 'em all out, but what a pain in the ass. You can't mount it because it's now just a shredded mess, you may as well just buy a picture of whatever you shot and hang that up.

So what's the point? Just to delete birds?

Only if you hit it from 3 feet away. The point is that the pellets spread out and a couple hit the bird. Hopefully you hit something vital enough to kill it or you injure it enough that it can’t fly and the dog retrieves it.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

yeah my use of terms is generally pretty random with only a hint of possible relation to the real ones. in my head I thought buckshot was the weak one so my brain made up deershot.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, buck is another word for male deer, hence the name. So it is "deershot" but not that word.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 5 days ago

this is a mind blown instance for me. completely aware a buck is a male deer and never made the connection to buckshot. Well. That will certainly make it easier to remember.

[–] chahn.chris@piefed.social 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

With deer you’re typically using ammo such as a .308 or .243 Winchester. These are long range high velocity rounds that have very high lethality.

The long range part is important, a hunter 200 yards away wearing camo is probably mostly invisible and a hunter taking a shot at a deer at 200 or even 300 yards isn’t uncommon with this type of ammunition.

Shotgun shells have lots of small balls, they will often be concentrated more by a choke when people hunt birds, but their effective range and velocity combined with not being a solid mass make them way less dangerous the farther from the shooter they get.

This also means nobody is taking shots over long distances so the chances of noticing a hunter in camo is higher overall.

That said people do definitely get hit while wearing camo as was said above, it’s a risk, but if you know where you are and know your fellow hunters aren’t doing unsafe things those risks can be mitigated.

[–] grammaticerror@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Buckshot is intended to hunt deer. Turkey shot consists of much smaller pellets, which can still do significant damage to a human, but the effective range is lesser due to the way the shot spreads out. Turkeys also see colors differently from deer, so while you can wear blaze orange and not spook the deer, you will absolutely be spotted by a turkey.