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Are Woodchucks Colr blind

Triple Deuce

The other day while out chuck hunting, I was walking along a tractor road between a hay field and a wheat field. I saw some movement about 50 yards ahead of me on the road. I stood still and a woodchuck sort of slowly mooched on down the other tire track of the road. He walked four feet away from me before he actually saw me and scurried off into a hedgerow. I watched him come towards me for the last 20 yards and yet he never saw me. I was in camo. Up until this year I always hunted woodchuck in jeans and a long sleeve T shirt. I didn't try to hide my presence.
Can anyone tell me if they can see color? This occurrence tells me it definitely helps.
 
Someone told me a long time ago, don't wear blue when hunting chucks. It looks like orange to them. Now I don't know if that's true or not. Camo is probably better than anything. But I think the key is movement, just like for almost any other mammal.
 
found this on a different forum

As with most good questions, yours is not easily answered. The reason for this
is that there are literally hundreds of rodent species on our earth and we
have no knowledge about most of them. Sorry, I can not give you a detailed
answer for beavers, capybaras, chichillas, chipmunks, gerbils, lemmings,
marmots, muskrats, porcupines, prairie dogs, ...
For all of them, one general rule: species that are night active normally have no
color vision. The more they are active during daylight, the better they can see
colors.

About some few species, that are often kept as pets we do know a little more:
Rat: color blind
Rabbit: color blind
Hamster: color blind
(House)Mouse: can see yellow and red
Guinea pig: can see red, yellow, green and blue
Squirrel: can see colors

If they can see colors, that still does not mean that their color impression is
identical to that of humans. This is related to the types and numbers of visual
pigments in the sensory cells in their eyes. They can have two (squirrel)
different pigments, or three (like humans).
 
I recently watched two pups at 40 yards while hunting with my Son. We were standing on the concrete support pad of a large(4' dia.?) high tension tower. The plan was he takes the most distant one while I try to pickup the other after the shot should it hesitate. It seemed like an eternity for him to get on target, he blamed the 20X magnification at 40 yards! Meanwhile mine starts to move towards us, walking at first then running. Finally it was at the base and I actually put the rifle muzzle down to stop it from joining us on the pad! My Son finally shot and it looked up at me for a few seconds before fleeing back from whence it came. It stopped before ducking into the burrow and of course I missed! My excuse is that a Varmint weight rifle with a 20X scope is tough to shoot offhand, my excuse and I'm sticking with it! We both had the mandatory orange hats on and it sure didn't seem to affect this one. ::)
 
If they were pups it would not really have mattered if they saw you or not. Most pups have not been educated about humans yet and thus they have no fear of them.

From my experience I don't think ground hogs can see color. If they do it is differently looking to them than to humans. They do see MOVEMENT. Like most animals if you move the least little bit they will see you.
 
Sideways movement. That's what they see.

You can literally walk straight up on a 'chuck causing little reaction. You move a bit up and down, side-to-side and the game is over.

Wore orange for 'hog hunting for decades. It's not the orange. It's what the orange is doing that counts.
 
I always thought that it had to do with the amount of rods and cones in the eyeball. The more rods as I was told the better the night vision and the lesser color sensitivity and the rods and cones like humans and colors are more easy to see. I could have been bs'ed by my teacher buddy who was a biology major to make me look like a fool but I figured since this popped up maybe I could get schooled on the truth.
 
I've heard the "don't wear blue" thing and pretty-much stick to it, although it's never been proven to my knowledge. Figure blending-in is important in case another critter that is startled by color or movement reacts and scares off my quarry. Like that giant trophy buck that more than once has exploded from a fence row just as I'm ready to pull the trigger on a fat groundhog nearby. >:(
 
The ones I manage to pop don't seem to notice my silver pickup, my red side by side 4 wheeler or the red tipped vmaxes heading towards them! ;D

www.varmintsforfun.com
 
CaptainMal said:
Sideways movement. That's what they see.

You can literally walk straight up on a 'chuck causing little reaction. You move a bit up and down, side-to-side and the game is over.

Wore orange for 'hog hunting for decades. It's not the orange. It's what the orange is doing that counts.
Click to expand...

This has been my experience also - it's movement - especially side to side. Here in PA we are required to wear flourecent orange hats and it has never seen to bother them. When I use to hunt with a pistol I could sometimes stalk them walking slowly directly towards them - it often worked.
 
When I first started hunting chucks nearly 60 years ago, I used a .22 rim fire rifle and I would walk directly toward them. It was amazing how close you could get.

Now my style is totally different. Out past around 300 yards, they don't even pay attention to movement. I can swat flys, take a drink of water, converse with a friend (if I'm hunting with someone like Dogbone). And I don't pay any attention to what color of clothes I am wearing.
 
I'm also from PA (northwest), was taught to sneak up on chucks at the prime age of 10 yrs. old with a 16 ga. shotgun. As long as they didn't see movement, they'd go about their business of processing grass. Could actually stalk them in the middle of mowed fields while wearing a dirty white tee shirt and blue jeans. Not willing to crawl on my belly for 300 yds. 45 yrs. later, I'd rather reach out and touch them from long ways off. But I don't believe that they can see colors as we do.
 
jwink said:
I'm also from PA (northwest), was taught to sneak up on chucks at the prime age of 10 yrs. old with a 16 ga. shotgun. As long as they didn't see movement, they'd go about their business of processing grass. Could actually stalk them in the middle of mowed fields while wearing a dirty white tee shirt and blue jeans. Not willing to crawl on my belly for 300 yds. 45 yrs. later, I'd rather reach out and touch them from long ways off. But I don't believe that they can see colors as we do.
Click to expand...

Can certainly identify with the above post. Crawling to get within that 50yd window for a shot with the 22. ;D ;D

I dunno about the color spectrum they might be able to see, I agree with the movement that can spook them. One item that has confounded me for years is that some things spook them for reasons I don't understand. Example, about 15years ago I had quite the honey hole for chucks.... anytime that I'd pull up in my black truck they would scatter like mice and very fast. During that time my daughter had the same brand of truck but in light blue, when she would go to that place with me or drop me off.... they'd just look up, maybe stand up, and go back to eating. Then one day I went over there with a partner of mine in his green truck and again.... they scattered like crazy. Don't know what all that is or was about. :o WD
 
That is too funny, Wayne. Slightly off topic, but I think the local buzzards recognize my pickup. Every time I park it, I usually see a couple of them hovering in the area. One day last summer, I took my son-in-law's truck - no buzzards. ;)
 
Actually I think having somebody dropping you off is a good idea! I have had that work with deer, they just think your another vehicle on there way again.
 
I'm on the fence right now with this one guys. My Son just got out of the Army and in Trashcanistan they wore Multicam. Of course I rummaged through his returns and have been wearing them and a camo-orange ball cap for my hunts. I have been having an inordinate amount of up close and personal adventures with pups and mature hogs! I know pups are unpredictable but the mature ones are doing dumb things also. Its not like I am trying to sneak up on them either! I mean this is happening enough to have me carry a .22 revolver on my hip! Right now I am giving credit to the Multicam but still trying to figure things out. It would be different if I were looking for the close shots but I am trying to keep the distances long to work on ranging and doping! ;D
 
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