O.D’s 2 of 7 Rule May be Real!

The more I look at it, O.D.’s 2 of 7 rule may be true. At least, that’s what the cameras are telling me.

As you may remember, I’ve been writing about my neighbor O.D. and his crazy theories about deer hunting. One of his most notorious is the “2 of 7 Rule.” Basically put, deer will show up at your blind an average of 2 out every 7 days. It’s a bit bigger than that, but that is the nut of the whole thing.

If you think about it, there’s a lot more going on there. Assume 2 of 7 is for real. If you see a deer on Saturday morning, chances are 1 in 6 you’ll see it on Sunday. If you saw deer come by your stand 3 days in a row last week, you probably won’t see them again for a fortnight.

I have written about this before. See O.D. and the 2 of 7 Rule

I put in security cameras to watch over deer camp while I’m gone. They send me email if anyone comes on the property or even drives on the road. I pointed one camera out into the field so that I could get a view of the place much like you see in the header. There’s that big U visible with the barn at Faulty Towers to the left and the big dead tree at Fountain Square on the right and about 20 acres of pasture snaking around the top of Hootin Holler.

It dawned on me as I watch that camera that I am seeing O.D.’s 2 of 7 rule panning out. Let me summarize my findings.

I started to visualize the whole field split up into 150 yard segments. That is about as far as a normal deer hunter is going to be able to see given the terrain and the cover.

About 2 out of 7 days, the deer do not show up at all. There’s either a lot of wind or rain or snow or something going on. They stay bedded during normal hunting hours. The camera draws a blank.

There are perhaps a dozen or so places the deer like to use as ingress and egress points coming out into the pasture. That means a guy putting his stand up back a few yards from the treeline are going to see them coming in or out of the field at those choke points. The passage of the deer is random.

There are several groups of deer. On a good day, I may see 3 groups of 3-7 or more deer showing up. On a minimal day, it may be 1-2 single doe. They may pick the same choke point. They may come out of different places. They may end up all together or spread out over the field.

Any way you cut it, those deer are hitting a given choke point about 2 out every 7 days. A hunter posting so that he can see a big 150 yard chunk of pasture is only going to see deer in front of him on 2 of 7 days.

Here is an example of a fairly normal sort of evening from just after rifle season ended. You may want to blow this up to full screen. A lot of the deer out in the field are nothing more than dots.

So shaman, how come you talk about this 2 of 7 thing, when you’re seeing deer 5 of 7 evenings?

Most hunters do not get a view like I have of so much land at once. In this part of the world, a hunter is likely to see maybe 80 yards at the most inside the treeline. If he’s posted where he can see a whole field, 150 yards is a generous chunk of real estate. Remember that most deer are taken by hunters inside 80 yards. Any way you slice it up, O.D.’s rule of thumb seems to be holding up to scrutiny.

This post has already been read 191 times!