As a ildlife researchere, who has researched whitetails for 10 years, I hope Don does not mind if I explain about buck a little further.
Let me say that the powers that be here - have asked me to post a few articles tips and techniques, to help you guys understand game biology and behaviro better, and hopefully help you become better hunters.
With that said here is an excerpt From my complete Whitetail Addict's Manual:
The Dispersal Phase
One of the things I have learned over the years is that I can?t rely on when and where I saw bucks during the different phases of the rut, to hunt them in later phases of the rut. I often hear hunters say that (during the hunting season) they can?t find the big bucks they saw while they were scouting from late August to mid-October. That?s because the bucks probably weren?t in the same area.
Once the bucks (that you may have seen in bachelor groups in late summer/early fall) shed their velvet, they start to become more aggressive, and they eventually won?t put up with each other. Many of them move to new core areas where they don?t come in contact with other bucks. Some of them may also move out of their summer home range, to go to their fall home range, which may be as little as a half mile away, to as far as several miles away. This breakup (dispersal), and fall home range shift, usually occurs within two to three weeks of when the older bucks begin to shed velvet. In the upper Midwest it occurs sometime between the first week of September and the middle of October.
When this dispersal occurs you have to do go looking for the bucks. Since bucks usually start making new rubs and scrapes in the area they use in the fall, the best way to locate them is to look for fresh rubs and scrapes, in areas where they may not have occurred before. When you find rubs and scrapes you can setup where you can watch that area, to see which bucks are there. Once you find the buck you want, you can back track its rub route to locate its core area, where you can setup to take the buck. Information on how to do this is included in my Deer Addict?s Manual, Volume 2; Hunting Techniques, and my Scrape Hunter?s Manual.
Another way to locate the bucks you couldn?t find during the hunting season is to glass feeding areas, and scout for field sign after the rut or the hunting season is over. If you have rain or snow in your area, get out the door when the rain or snow lets up, and back track buck trails until you find their core areas and bedding sites. Then you can setup to take the buck (if the season is still open).
Transient Deer
One reason fewer deer are seen during the hunting season is because many yearling deer, particularly bucks, become transients. During his studies in Nebraska Kurt Vercauteren found that yearling deer are often forced from the home range by their mothers and other dominant does. He also found that these displaced, transient deer traveled an average of 12 to 15 miles, although some traveled as much as 40 to 50 miles. This leads to fewer young buck sightings.
However, Vercauteren found that most of the adult deer in the area reacted differently during the fall, they became sedentary and rarely left their home ranges. One buck trapped during the study was caught in the same trap a month later. Vercauteren did not see the buck for the next two years, until it was shot 200 yards from the original trapping location. Another deer, despite being pressured, stayed in the same forty-acre area during the hunting season. Other deer left the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, swam the Missouri River and crossed into Iowa during the hunting season. When the Iowa hunting season opened the deer swam back to Missouri. During the muzzleloading season eight deer used a different strategy to avoid hunters. They moved into a strip of posted land 60 yards wide by 100 yards long and stayed there until the season was over.
In a Missouri study Brian Root found that, instead of traveling more during the hunting season, bucks traveled less. In this study bucks moved about five miles a day during the pre-season. But, once the firearms season began the bucks reduced their activity by 20 percent, traveling about four miles per day. In this same study Root found that bucks whose home ranges were partially inside a refuge shifted most of their activity to the refuge once the hunting season began. The only time they reportedly left the refuge was at night. This suggests that some bucks do become "nocturnal" during the hunting season. In a Minnesota study deer left their home ranges and moved from 2 to 3 miles in response to hunting pressure.
I hope the helops some of you.
God bless and good hunting,
T.R.
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Topic: Question for Don Stenseth (Read 3495 times)
