Buckstopshere

I use to have one of those handwarmers when I was a kid and had a trapline. Long time ago. Darn that thing leaked! Lighter fluid all over if you overfilled the pad inside. I can still smell it. Great memories. Thanks for posting.

Finally, the big boys are coming out to play.

I think I got another photo of him on another camera this morning. It must be the same buck, but the perspective makes him look different. I can't have two eight points like that can I?

I've cursed at them a few times too. But they show us the truth.

Now I wouldn't do a thing like that. For an 8 to make P&Y he has to be pretty darn good.

Finally, last evening, just at dark, a big 8 came into one of my licking branch bouquets. I wasn't there...of course. ...another stand on another hill. He's a good buck for our big woods hill country.

Nothing. I just took a licking branch from a scrape a few miles away and transported it to that scrape and zip-tied it to the existing overhanging branch. Actually, the scrape did not exist at all there a couple years ago, but I put a large branch and zip-tied it to the tree. Then, put smaller licking branches on it. I have a tree stand 30 yards away. Not surprising, I've seen a lot of deer parade past so far this season. Some of my sites have a few old zip-ties on them after the licking branches rot and fall off. The bucks and does keep enhancing the branch with their saliva and pre-orbital scent, truly the gift that keeps giving. The only way to wreck it is put too much human scent around. I've tried over the years to enhance the sites with deer urine, but it does not seem to help and sometimes I see a drop-off in activity. But that is hard to quantify. Just my belief. So I don't use anything - other than another licking branch.

A couple bucks got into it at the zip-tied licking branch. I like the way the buck on the left in the first photo is obviously so pissed off at the other buck. Can see the look and posture. In the second photo, his hair is standing on end, and kind of ripply...like they do. These bucks tore it up for a while for about 14 minutes, from 3:42 to 3:56 pm. Then, two bigger bucks came in to the licking branch, one at 5:46 pm and the other at 8:28 pm. A lot of buck pheromones floating around that tree.

Maybe too it there are other factors as to why a certain county has larger antler beam diameter average than others...such as hunting pressure. Some counties, like the one I live in, is chock full of bow hunters... Great! Right? Like Allegany...my home or Chemung, etc. We have a lot of hunters who shoot every 2.5 year old 8 pt. that walks. How can we get bigger deer if that is the hunting pattern? We need to let that 2 year old buck walk and shoot the spikes and forks if we have to. Easy for me to say because I have a garage wall full of 2 year old eight point racks... But in an ideal world, where we let the little 8 pointers walk, where would the best bucks be? I'd say the lake plains because the soil is best there. Most of the minerals and elements have leached off the hills where I live and settled in the flatlands. I would have to say that the deer who live there would have to be bigger and stronger than the mountain deer where I live. We have lost all our good soil through over cutting of the forests. Topsoil was six feet deep when the pioneers came here. But now its pretty much hard pan unless amended. Sorry, I get a bit long-winded.

It blows my mind that we have been able to breed field trial English Setters from essentially Cocker Spaniels that can outrun hound dogs, or take the example of the pugs, or whatever weird dog breed, but they all come from wolves. My point is that selective breeding for a trait is pretty much a proven fact. So what you call, "a drop in the bucket" is just another case of what we used to call bad breeding. Wouldn't you admit that High Grading is a pretty much a fact?

That's the story of a bunch of my hunting spots over the years. It sucks...but hey, it adds to the challenge. Back in the day...down here on the NY-Pa. border, long stretches of woods were not even posted. Nobody cared if you bow hunted or spring gobbler hunted, or even rode horses on their property. But that sure has changed!

Our scent lingers around a stand for days. Go there twice, three times, four, and it builds up. Deer, especially the older ones know this and pattern us better than we pattern them. To see deer throughout the bow season in October I jump from one property to another, let alone from one stand to another. (I hunt four NY properties.) I've had a two small bucks this season walk under my tree, and smell the climbing steps and slowly sneak away, unaware that I was there. But they don't like it. Also, a good tactic is to try and access your stands on a different trail, come in from a different way too. Walking on the same trail day after day tells the deer that it is a high traffic area for humans and dangerous, so they shy away. But it is also normal to witness drop offs in deer activity, depending on a lot of factors from food change/availability, to their pre-rut behavior changes, to other hunter pressure, with the latter being as important if not moreso that the other two.

In areas of NY where there are mandatory antler restrictions, that buck would be an illegal buck to shoot. He would die of old age in Pa. and breed...and breed...and breed.

Here are the two bucks from the same neck of woods, northern Allegany County, Luckey buck on the left, the typical and the Boylan on the right, the non-typical.

Allegany County not only has the Luckey buck...top typical rack...but also, the top non-typical buck, the Homer Boylan buck, shot in Canaseraga. Both the top bucks in NYS were shot in Allegany County, a few miles from each other.

This is a good writeup of the yearling buck dispersal study. Yearling bucks are wanderers by Jeffrey J Mulhollem UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Hunters interested in how and why yearling bucks disperse should be intrigued by the findings of a collaborative research project on white-tailed deer conducted by Penn State, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey. "You hear a lot of talk among hunters and landowners about trying to retain or protect deer with superior genes on their properties," says Duane Diefenbach, adjunct associate professor of wildlife ecology and leader of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, housed in Penn State's School of Forest Resources. "The truth is that it appears yearling males are going to disperse no matter what -- on average 70 percent of them will disperse three to six miles. "The effects of Pennsylvania's antler restrictions, increased harvest of does and added attention to quality deer management by landowners and deer-hunting enthusiasts have not affected overall dispersal -- just the timing of it," Diefenbach adds. "This latest research has discovered why this is so." Published in a recent issue of Behavioral Ecology, the four-year research project was part of the Game Commission's evaluation of changes resulting from antler restrictions aimed at allowing male deer to grow older. The study involved 500 radio-collared deer from Centre and Armstrong counties that ended up in 10 other surrounding counties. Christopher Rosenberry, Game Commission deer and elk section supervisor and one of the lead researchers, notes that the combination of antler restrictions and increased harvests of does in recent years to control deer numbers boosted the number of adult males in the population and decreased the number of adult females. "This resulted in changes in dispersal behavior of yearling male white-tailed deer," he says. The research yielded the following conclusions that Diefenbach believes are of interest to Pennsylvania hunters and landowners: -Fewer yearling males will disperse in the spring if more adult females are harvested the previous fall, because orphaned males are less likely to disperse. In addition, lower harvest rates on bucks (due to antler restrictions) result in an older male age structure, which increases mate competition in the fall and increases fall dispersal rates of yearling males. "But the net result -- fewer dispersals in the spring and more in the fall -- is that the same percentage of yearling males end up leaving their natal home range," Diefenbach says. "In Pennsylvania, that appears to be about 70 percent." -In Pennsylvania, if you see a yearling buck on your property in May or June, there is a 30 percent chance that by July he will have dispersed and left the property. By the fall hunting seasons, there is a 70 percent chance he will have dispersed to a new location. This means that by the fall hunting seasons, 7 of 10 yearling male deer on your property likely will have immigrated from somewhere else. -Depending on the amount of forest on the landscape, those deer may come from as few as one or as many as 30 miles away. "But probably the most significant finding of this research for hunters and landowners," says Diefenbach, "is that if you see a yearling male on your property after the hunting season, there is a 90 percent chance he will survive and be on your property the following hunting season. That shows that antler restrictions result in more older bucks. The research, which occurred between 2001 and 2005, was unique, according to Diefenbach. "The questions of why and how young, male white-tailed deer disperse are fundamental to the species, not just Pennsylvania deer," he says. "This study is exceptional because state agencies rarely make large changes to deer-hunting regulations -- and if they do, they rarely study the results." Other states, such as Georgia and Arkansas, have implemented antler restrictions in the last few decades, but they never took the time and effort to study the results the way Pennsylvania has, Diefenbach points out. "We never would have learned what we did if the Pennsylvania Game Commission had not funded this large-scale experiment after it made major changes to deer-hunting regulations," he says. There is a lot of interest among hunters and landowners these days to manage their hunting land for quality deer -- larger, older bucks and a deer population in balance with the habitat, notes Diefenbach. "This research shows that worrying about genetics is fruitless because many bucks on your property may come from miles away," he says. "For those interested in this type of management, the best you can do is protect yearling bucks during the hunting season and provide quality habitat the rest of the year."

In my experience, deer have lots of different social groupings. It's pretty complex. As soon as we think we figure something out, the pattern of deer, ...there is always the exception. But that is what makes deer hunting so challenging and deer so hard to figure out. Some young bucks seem to have a greater attachment to their mothers than others... some take off for parts unknown, and others are homebodies. There was a very good study, I think done in Pa., years ago on the dispersal of yearling bucks. Radio-tracked yearling bucks showed up heading out over 100 miles! Some only went a few miles, and others stayed with mom.

Kinda looks that way...but it is leaf. Here's a better shot.

But they rarely...and I mean rarely...do. Bet that they won't be there...I'd win almost every time.

He is a bit more white underneath than most. I didn't notice that. Thanks for the observation.

Now that's what I call "positive thinking!"

I think it is. Same licking branch, and same camera. But one shot is from his back and in the morning sunlight. And the other is at dusk and front shot. I had to look at it for a while to decide.

This buck came in to a licking branch set up just past shooting light, but it was hot here in Allegany County, hit 74 degrees. The buck was panting like a bird dog running pheasants. But he still wanted to hit the zip-tied branch.

It's early yet. Things are just starting, now that we are past the Full Moon.

I don't think the soil is very important. But it is important to stay away...human scent seems to repress action at the scrape, especially older deer.