Buckstopshere

I like to use the overhanging branch on a hot scrape, snip it off and transport it to a four foot high branch about 25 yards from my stand. Zip-tie it to the branch. I've never found a scent or setup that can beat it.

Thanks, and here's another. Enjoy!

I've tried to put photoperiodism as a driving concept in my writings...I know because spell check in my old writing program does not recognize some of its forms, and it's a pain in the butt to override. But yes, photoperiodism is the basis of the theory that the moon has an effect on "short day breeders" like deer, sheep, elk, etc. How it works is the light (combined sun and moonlight) goes through the eye and strikes the pineal gland. The suprachiasmatic nucleus, located there releases melatonin and other hormones/pheromones that prime the breeding biochemical system. As the full moon wanes and the nights darken...the breeding urge increases. It's essentially what sheep breeders do with melatonin implants in ewes so that their stock all cycle at the same time and the lambs are born together. The moon is nature's clockwork so that the fawns are born at the same time, overwhelming the predators and ensuring the survival of the species. Nature doesn't put all its eggs in one basket so to speak...and there are three flushes of fawns, an early one (does bred in October.) We see them in early gobbler season. The main flood of fawns in late May/early June, and then a few late fawns from a December breeding as proof. I like to say the moon fine-tunes the photoperiodic effect of the sun. Of course there is a lot more to it. For one thing...bucks and does utilize licking branches over scrapes to trade pheromones through saliva to in effect...get on the same page with their biological clocks. We all know what it's like to not be on the same page.

Here's another. Hope you enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q0B5JB7Uo4

I've discovered that there are three main peaks of the rut that vary in intensity and timing each year that correlate with the moon. Some years we have an early main peak (like last year and 2017) and other years a later main peak, with about a three-week swing...from the end of October to late November. This year we will experience a good old-fashioned peak in mid-November, just like we did in those years when the the moon was in the same cycle as this year. Moonlight (reflected sunlight) adds to the overall photoperiodic effect that stimulates the pineal gland. Next week will be the first minor peak of breeding and next month, during our last week of bow season, it should be a smoking hot rut!

Got this buck this morning on cam, flehming...giving the flehmen response behind a doe. The last three frames (5 seconds between frames) show the buck standing and not moving, except with its mouth, testing the pheromones of the doe. Good sign that this doe is nearing estrus, as predicted, so we should see some rutting action next week under the full moon. Big bucks moving in the daytime!

My two scents from the photo is that the blood dripped straight down, evidence that the buck was standing there and not running, or the blood would have shown spatter trails...showing direction. The tiny amount of blood supports the theory of a low leg hit, along with the baseball bat sound. I hit a buck low in the leg many years ago and it was tagged the next year during shotgun season with the broadhead in its leg bone healed over.

What kind of a sound was the impact? A smack, kind of like a baseball bat...then it is bone. But a deep "thunk" sound...usually gut, but maybe liver. I would tend that it was a good hit by the sound you mentioned first. A nick...or a graze, there would be no impact sound. If there was blood, there will be hair someplace. It was windy this morning and it would have blown downwind sometimes quite a ways. Big buck will run hard when hit often leaving little blood at first. Big bucks can go a long way with a lethal hit. Good luck!

I made a few youtube vids a few years ago. It's really a lot easier than you would think with the software out there. I used " iMovie" since I run on a MacBook. I like putting in vids from my trail cams...and others. It's fun and easy because we can insert other media...here's one I made back in the day (2009.) Have fun with it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9P2WR7sjuA

Got this guy in the fog...sorry for the poor quality. But you can make out his antlers if you look closely. Coming into a zip-tie scrape.

Well said. The one size fits all of mandatory antler restrictions doesn’t take into consideration that junkyard bucks may be more prevalent than we ever thought and in some areas may have a disproportionate effect on antler quality in a local population.

A few years back on a property I hunt was a bully of a spike buck I called Napoleon Bonaparte. The rascal would run decent bucks out of the area. I have trail cam photos of him, and saw/heard him from a stand a few times. He would snort, grunt and chase the other bucks...and some of them were wide racked older deer. At first I thought he was rutting behind does. Nope. He was just a bully. Here's Shooting Napoleon and other junkyard bucks Some of us have a tendency to anthropomorphize when it comes to deer hunting as we try to make sense of the behavioral rhythms of the mysterious whitetail. Anthropomorphize is a long word for those moments when we define our experiences by placing human feelings and emotions on animal actions. These days it's fashionable to believe that animals have thoughts and feelings as we humans do. The Disney/Pixar universe of cartoons has helped turn fantasy into reality for the multitudes. Let me elaborate. In order to attract deer, specifically bucks to a couple of small hunting properties, I came up with a new idea. Well, kind of new, but only in the application. By studying and musing about other ungulates and their breeding patterns, all with an eye on understanding whitetails, the concept of the lek kept surfacing. A lek is a very short word for a complex set of male pre-mating behaviors at a special or particular place or locus. What does a lek have to do with whitetail scrape making? After having experimented with whitetail scrapes and mobile licking branches for many years (since 2007) and mock scrapes for many years before that, I attempted to create a "whitetail lek.' By physically moving overhanging branches from scrapes outside the specific area and zip-tying them to a number of trees and branches on a small hunting property this season. This experiment would endeavor to create a huge vortex of buck and doe breeding pheromones on the licking branches, and all natural. Theoretically, bucks and does from all over the area would be drawn in like honey bees to a full bloom clover plot. I tried my best to overwhelm the specific bucks and does on my two small properties with scent from a multitude of scrapes and licking branches from surrounding towns all over the southern part of my county. This attempt at creating an artificial whitetail lek worked surprisingly well to say the least, as far as attracting bucks and does during the daytime and of course, mostly at night to this hotspot. Truly, the scrape cluster received an amazing amount of attention, all duly recorded on a series of trail cameras. And it was the gift that kept giving. As more and more bucks and does came in, leaving their scent, it exponentially increased the whitetail traffic. That is, it seemed to work well until a behavioral glitch or trait manifested itself. And this is where the anthropomorphizing comes in. The whitetail lek, that inordinately held so much attraction for both bucks and does, and if I may say so, unnaturally and unforeseen, tended to concentrate wild whitetails into these two hunting properties... into small areas. And as with human beings, the most aggressive, pugnacious, and confrontational tended to take over. In both cases the culprits, the perps that disrupted the plan were 2.5 year-old, (or possibly older) spike and fork-horn bucks. It may seem counterintuitive in the whitetail world, but sometimes the smaller package wins. Two spike bucks, and one four-pointer, were meaner than junkyard dogs. As soon as another buck came into the scrape cluster or lek, no matter the size, the spikes would attack and drive the newcomer away. And those driven away were sometimes dandy six and eight pointers! These larger racked bucks were evidently lovers not fighters. How can this be? We have always been led to believe the buck with the larger rack is always the superior animal. But like they say, "it ain't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." Whitetail researchers continually note that smaller and younger, more bold and feisty bucks drive older, larger racked animals away when the rut is on. The smaller buck actually dominates the larger bucks at times. And new DNA studies confirm that spike bucks are fathering as many as 25% of the fawns! So what do we do about these "junkyard bucks?" Well, I came to the conclusion to shoot them and allow the six- and eight-pointers to live another day. Studies have born out the fact that spikes and forks as 2.5 year olds will grow decent racks in time. But, it is hard to argue that a 2.5 year-old eight point may be a finer animal to let live to go on and create a much better specimen the following year. Since one of them is going in the freezer, and I already have a garage wall full of small eight pointers, the big mean spike I called Napoleon, took the permanent dirt nap. Of course the reason he was called Napoleon was because of his willingness to fight despite his stature. Most of us probably have known people who enjoy fighting. I remember an old friend of mine back in the day who couldn't wait to pick a barroom fight with bigger guys, no matter how large or tough. A little liquid fuel only fired him up more. We define these spike's behavioral syndrome as "the Napoleon Complex." But in reality, the bottom line to all this is, if you want to keep good bucks around your hunting property, make sure that you do not implement the simplistic notion that all spike and fork horns should be passed up because in fact some, may be "Napoleons" and are driving your shyer, bigger racked bucks away. And in conclusion, passing on feisty sub-par racked bucks may be one more reason why we are not seeing the bucks we expect and one more reason to save the little eight-pointer for another day next season by putting a tag on your Napoleon. Oak Duke/Wellsville, NY

Pretty cool sequence of a hen turkey going into full display to stand down a young buck and protect her little poults. On that property there are two different sized poults...one from the early hatch...and then this one from the late hatch in June.

When I get a rash, I immediately wash the red spot with soap and water, like 100 times rub the crap out of it. Rinse and do it again. You have to get the oil from the plant off your skin. Then I go to the Tecnu treatment. Then I cover the spots with bandaids and change often, like twice daily. What I do now is wear a long sleeve shirt and pants, gloves when I'm working in the woods...like this morning, cutting with a chainsaw and putting up a new ladder stand. I was wet with sweat...who cares? beats getting poison ivy.

Those fawn legs were probably chewed by this coyote's kin...moreso than a fox. Even if the leg is found at a fox (red or gray) den...chances are it was still scavenged. Around here, fox are just too small to take on a fawn. I've seen a bunch of fox dens and a few yote dens. Guess which one has the most deer bones?

Cheap knockoffs. But a great deal. Reminds me of the music business. Swapping out the hooks for Gamukatsu or Owner no prob. I'll have to check it out on Amazon.

My experience is that we are really talking about two categories of deer. There are the local deer that get used to our cameras and then there are the strangers from other home ranges...outliers. I think those (the outliers) are the ones that are spooked by our cams. Like snapping a safety off a rifle. They better jump.

I have a different take. I don't descent my cameras. My thinking is that they get used to my scent. Besides, with battery changes and checking the cams...my ambient scent gets on them with card changes, etc. The older deer in my hunting areas know my scent. They teach each other that I'm okay. Big mistake.

Thanks! Two good things about being such an old timer. One, there is a lot of history. And also since I have been a writer for so many years...I write it down so I can look back on prior ruts. I killed my first rutting buck with a bow in 1971 and as my family will attest, have hunted Pa. and NY hard in bow and gun since (except for the last few years in Pa.) Back 30 years ago the prediction model was new. Now we are coming up on the second Metonic cycle (moon cycles every 19 years) and the predictions are pretty much a slam dunk. Right...what I call the rut is "the apparent rut" when we hear grunting, chasing (lots of time it's actually bucks chasing other bucks,) peak incidence of car/deer crashes, all validated by the spring fawn drop. I like to hunt the peak of the rut. I kill or have my best chances then because they are moving and so distracted by everything that is going on...from does in heat to other bucks moving in on them. The rut will happen in mid-November this year...climate change/ heat or not. Think about it. The air temperature never affected me when I was a young man with amorous intentions. Did it affect you? I used to breed dogs. Try to break up two dogs in heat sometime then tell my how the air temperature is affecting their mood. Just pray for cool daytime temps so we can experience it this year and it won't just happen at night. I knew Charley Alsheimer since the mid-80's. Great guy. I differed with some of his predictions, definitions, and models but that is getting too deep in the weeds here.

The Boys of summer showed up. Came into the zip-tied licking branch and posed. And yes I have a tree stand right there.

Nice bucks. Hope you are right. I'm expecting this guy to be a heavy eight for my neck of the woods. Third week of May.

Don't know for sure. See my post above. Here's a photo of the survivor buck bachelor group on that hill sparring. They are a feisty bunch. He's was never with them in the photos that I could see.

He's kind of a thin, tall drink of water kind of buck, different. He isn't much of a fighter either from his rack last year...no dings or even broken tines. I noticed he was kind of a loner compared to the other bucks that were sparring all the time. My trail cams showed the major bachelor group on that hill with multiple shots. He was not in them. But I would get him by himself. I think this is him on New Year's Day. 'Course it might not be too, all just a figment of my imagination. Just a guess. But the photos were shot within a stone's throw of each other in the same corner of woods.

Here's a closeup of his ear.

Love to watch antlers grow! This guy has good bases...I think he was an eight-point last year. He could be a nine or 10, or remain an eight. His ears are pretty dinged up...older bucks get their ears crunched in fights and sparring so they have notches like this guy.