getting close to whitetails!

Bucks will lay still and let you walk right by them if they feel they are hidden. I've stalked to within spittin' distance of both bucks and does as long as the wind is in my favor.

Let me clarify, the doe wasn't hidden behind anything we were looking eye to eye in plain view! I took some pix but the file was to big for this format.

Whitetails are a weird animal that way here where I hunt in MN in the urban areas they will walk right through your back yards and eat any plants or shrubs you have. Soem will run when approached and others have just learned to ignore humans to the point people are shooting them with paintball guns to get them to leave.

Those deer that live in urban areas or behind high fence, and those that aren't hunted and with no known enemy's are a totally different critter, then their wild relatives.

I agree with Wayne and Mconway that where deer are used to humans and are not harrassed by them they lose their fear.....Look in the case of city bowhunts where the almost tame deer are subjected for the first time to hunting pressure (ie:Duluth, MN.. what a joke.. but another story at another time.).....
I assume that you saw these deer sometime close to Jan 5th.....It is very possible the deer was natuarlly ill, maybe from a wound during a hunting season or from a car collision.....I have come across quite a few deer over the years that have acted funny and usually it was one of those three causes....As winter progress and deer weaken this is a very common site in a natural deer yard especially when the snows are deep.....IMO what you saw was not too unusual, at least not for whitetails here in northern MN and WI...

ttl,
Randy