Buckstopshere

I am assuming it is archey season. If with a bow, I shoot them again in the heart, lung nexxus so they bleed out as quickly as possible. Stand back. They can hurt you. If it is a gun, I put it at the base of the skull, where the skull joins the spinal column. Lights out.

Here are a couple...ones I wrote back in 2010. https://www.heartlandlodge.com/hunting-news/social-scrape-networking-for-whitetails/ http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.galesburg.com/article/20100104/news/301049974&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjjxf7K3uLPAhWD4D4KHVw3BrAQFggUMAA&usg=AFQjCNF7t55NoA3emylWgoSUgtmdi_28lw My next column in the New York Outdoor News, the upcoming one. Is all about...guess what? Licking branches...you are right! I call them in the article as the Rodney Dangerfield of deer sign because..."they get no respect." Everybody thinks big deer rubs and ground scrapes are the big deal. But the licking branch, the overhanging branch makes the scrape.

I've written a few articles about this in the NYON over the last few years. I will try to find the links...I might have to go to other newspaper sites though.

Now that's what I call a close-up! Nice job!

Another big buck for my neck of the woods came in last night. Probably a 3.5 I'd guess. His tines are short. I cut and pasted a long-nosed doe like I did the small buck that came in to the overhanging branch a little past daylight to show the size difference. I know down in the lake plains bucks are larger. But they seem to be getting bigger here.

I'd call it the Donald Trump buck.

I'd guess 3.5 in good nutrition, that is farm country. Maybe 4.5.

If he was in my area near the Pa. border , Southern Allegany County, where there is farming is pretty sparse, I'd say 3.5.

I've seen big spikes chase bucks with much better headgear. The old saying that "it isn't the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" that matters sure holds true with whitetails. Last season was a perfect example. I had an ornery spike that chased every buck off the property. I kept hoping that a decent-sized animal would put him in his place. But it never happened through the final day of gun season. I named him, "Napoleon." It might happen more often than we think. We let some of these little pitbulls walk and they chase some of the better bucks away.

It is easy to make the mistake at this time of year of seeing and hearing one deer chasing another and figuring it is a buck chasing a doe, when, in my experience, it is much more likely it is one buck chasing another. Last night I passed on two 2.5 year old six points...and what a show! They really tied into each other and the bigger one without brow tines chased the other. Their antler crashing was loud, they snort wheezed a bunch of times, and took off, he!! bent, one after the other.

Yep, and if he makes it through the season, it will be interesting to see if that trait shows up next year when he is a 2.5 year old...if he makes it.

Two bucks came into the same zip-tied licking branch this morning, one early in the am and one later in the morning. But what a size difference! No wonder the little guys run like he!!. I cut and pasted the photo to really show the difference in body size as it was taken by the same camera, at the same zip-tied licking branch.

A couple more good ones at the zip-tied licking branch.

Great thing about studying nature and this wonderful mystery of the whitetail is that we learn new things that are outside what we consider "normal." And as we get older...ahem...like yours truly, our views tend to calcify and it is tougher to accept new things even though it is reality. I hope I can always learn...it is just that I also am suspicious of our technology. Nature resists being put in a box...there seems to always be exceptions.

Buck's testosterone and other hormones drop pretty significantly in February, March and April according to researchers. Not only do they drop their horns as evidence, but they shed their winter coats, and actually begin the process of antler growth. Is it possible that a fawn hit the ground in early September...? in New York?, sure. But highly unlikely. I would sooner think it is a camera dating error as more likely.

Gestation period for a doe is 200 days give or take a few. That fawn (if the date on the camera is correct. My cameras change their dates a lot. No knock on the manufacturers. But I don't trust them and always check if it makes sense.) Rule of thumb five months from conception to fawn drop. An April conception date is pretty farfetched...I only have one buck in hardhorn on camera in April. And that was just one horn, April 1st. I would sooner think the date on the camera is skewed...either the machine or the human error.

Not surprising at all to see what we call "early breeding." Not early to the deer, just their way. A few doe will always cycle earlier than the rest, and that is why we see an early fawn in early May during gobbler season. Just like a few doe will cycle later than the rest, and we see late action in December and January. Right now is the "first rut" and should peak this year next week this year around the full moon. But most does in our neck of the woods will be breeding about a month later which we call the peak of the rut, and then a month following, during the second week of December, the "post rut" will hit. That sequence (three rut peaks) think bell curves, happens every year, just at slightly different times, skewed by about two weeks. Next week, things should heat up, then drop off again as the first rut peak hits. But all along the way, once in a while a doe will cycle...at any time. But it is the exception. And when we speak of "the rut peak" it is a generality.

Congrats!

I don't think so. Deer are funny. Sometimes the perfect deep woods location lays an egg. And other times whitetails will rip a scrape next to a house. One of the best scrapes that I snip overhanging branches from is right behind an old farmhouse, with a fenced garden out back. There are a few fruit trees, and one little apple tree on the edge of a field is pounded by scrapemakers every year. The elderly folks that live in the house don't care if I "prune" a few twigs off their tree as they have allowed me to hunt their property for many years and due to their age, have let the garden and the fruit trees go wild. (But it is a good idea to ask all landowners if you plan on sniping any branches off their trees. Common courtesy goes a long way.) Bucks and does pound that scrape at night...but rarely except at the peak of the rut would they hit it in the daytime. The twigs I snip off are transported to my other scrape sites and zip-tied on them to make the deer think intruder bucks and new does are in their area. I have noticed over the years through trail cam photos that this is the best way to increase whitetail traffic at a scrape. The deer in the deep woods don't know the licking branch came from behind a farmhouse!

I don't think so. Deer are funny. Sometimes the perfect deep woods location lays an egg. And other times whitetails will rip a scrape next to a house. One of the best scrapes that I snip overhanging branches from is right behind an old farmhouse, with a fenced garden out back. There are a few fruit trees, and one little apple tree on the edge of a field is pounded by scrapemakers every year. The elderly folks that live in the house don't care if I "prune" a few twigs off their tree as they have allowed me to hunt their property for many years and due to their age, have let the garden and the fruit trees go wild. (But it is a good idea to ask all landowners if you plan on sniping any branches off their trees. Common courtesy goes a long way.) Bucks and does pound that scrape at night...but rarely except at the peak of the rut would they hit it in the daytime. The twigs I snip off are transported to my other scrape sites and zip-tied on them to make the deer think intruder bucks and new does are in their area. I have noticed over the years through trail cam photos that this is the best way to increase whitetail traffic at a scrape. The deer in the deep woods don't know the licking branch came from behind a farmhouse!

Not exactly like opening morning of gobbler for me...rain yes, but no action let alone a shot. Can't wait for the late afternoon sit! I have been seeing deer out in the late afternoon the last few days. They might move early.

I think the length of the day is most important too, because it is light after all that controls the rut timing. But isn't the moon just reflected sunlight? The way I like to think of it is that the sunlight is the major dial, but the moon fine tunes it, or is the fine tuning dial...set trigger. Sure, rutting activity is different that the actual breeding phase of the rut. But the crazy time, the running time, just prior to the actual breeding is when a lot of us love most to be out there. It's when anything can happen, and it is exciting. But activity at the scrapes drops to a low percent of what it was just a few days before. When the scrapes go dead, you know the breeding phase is on.

Looks pretty good. I don't think they will be able to resist a setup like that. Will be a perfect shot from that blind down at the far end of the field during gun season.

You wish!

Finally got a good one for my neck of the woods coming into the licking branch set up. He hits the branch...sticks out his tongue (that's why they call it the licking branch) and then comes up to the tree where I shinnied up it to fix the branch. He checks it out and goes back to the branch. I think he is an "old fashioned 12 point." His split G2s are cool. I call it old fashioned because we used to say that if you could hang a ring on a point...it was a point. But now with the technical scoring...he would be an 11 pointer.