Dove also know when its dove season as well. LOL
My opinion differs. The week before the season opens, hunters force the behavior changes. They scout and drive and invade habitat, tramping and speeding about, disrupting normal patterns of the animals. I was out scouting Montana pronghorns this season, glassing from a mile away, but the night before opening the dopey hunters from out of the area started driving vehicles at the animals scattering them up to five miles away and putting them all on edge, ready to bolt at any movement.
Bottom line: It’s not that the animals are so smart and psychic; it’s that inexperienced hunters are stupid and psycho.
Which, in turn, forces me to change behavior. Namely to find an area where the dopey humans are bound to drive the jittery animals so I can ambush them when the critters come by. It’s not my preferred hunting style, but I have to take what the dopes give me.
Is my opinion.
When the shooting starts and the deer pick up the scent of fear and blood, that is when the deer disappear.