Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i Deer & Deer Hunting

Finding prime areas to intercept lovesick bucks is only part of the equation when it comes to hunting the whitetail rut. After pinpointing those travel corridors and selecting your stand sites, you’ll prep those spots and anxiously anticipate this time of year — the end of October and early November — for when the woods erupt with deer moving at all times during the day. Is it really as easy as that? Of course not. The rut is the deer hunter’s version of the Super Bowl, but there’s one thing that can quickly and easily throw a wet blanket on all of those plans: pressure. Human pressure — be it from hunters, hikers or horse riders — is the No. 1 suppressor of daytime deer activity. Former D&DH contributor Charles…

Do you have an explorer in you? Here’s a 9-year-old who does. On July 19, 2019, while river-ratting with his mother and sister at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Conewango Creek, Timmy Giger dug a huge non-typical antler out of the mud. It’s a right beam with 4 main frame points plus at least 8 more non-typical points and some additional stickers. It measures right around 100 inches. Timmy’s find came from a historic spot. In 1749, French explorer Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville made an expedition south from Montreal, into the Allegheny River watershed and down the Ohio, a mission intended to strengthen the claim of France on the surrounding land. His entourage of 216 French Canadian soldiers and 55 Iroquois Indians marked the French claim by…

If you could only hunt a couple of hours a day during the rut, when would it be? Would it be dawn to 9 a.m.? How about the last two hours of the day? What about midday? As many Deer & Deer Hunting readers know, deer biologist and Vermont Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife Wayne Laroche and I began a fascinating study 10 years ago. Scheduled to run 15 years because of the way the rutting moon cycles from year to year, our work deals with the effects that sunlight and moonlight have on whitetail rutting behavior. STUDYING DEER Contrary to what some might think, whitetails are not difficult to understand. They have basic needs that center around food, water, cover and their physiology. How deer move within their core…

A truly unique mock scrape is hard to come by. There have been many articles written about finding a branch that hangs down at the right height, or putting a branch up in a highly traveled spot and working the ground up below it. Many hunters put a trail camera near these scrapes to get a good feel for the deer density and quality of bucks in the area. A while back, I read an article written by Jeff Sturgis of Whitetail Habitat Solutions that caught my eye. The following reviews his method of making a unique mock scrape. Try it for a month, and I believe the results will speak for themselves. SIMPLE SETUP So what is so great about this setup? Partly its simplicity — but the main…

Every year, a whole bunch of private land owners hire consultants to help them set up their grounds. I was one of those consultants for many years. Now, I’m not going to pretend that what I say next is the only thing a good consultant, key on “good,” will achieve for private landowners. That said, between the plans I’ve generated and seeing a whole bunch of plans and/or work from just about every other major consultant out there, I can very confidently state that the single biggest improvements consultants make to most hunting grounds is improving the hunter’s access and setup for low impact stands. Today, we’re talking access. Frankly, I think it’s the single biggest and/or greatest improvement most landowners can make, particularly the smaller, more real-world managers. SETTING…

In his excellent article "Velvet Buck Hitlist" in the August issue of Deer & Deer Hunting, Jason Houser points out the growing interest in early season deer hunting. However, he failed to mention that Tennessee had its first velvet buck (only) season last year. The hunt was also held this year (Aug. 23-25). This new opportunity is anything but a guaranteed hunt. Ahead of last year's season, I anxiously watched as a couple of bucks walked by one of my favorite tree stands. Then they failed to show up during the hunting season (when I often sat there dawn to dusk anxiously awaiting their return). I guess that's why they call it hunting. Fellow Deer & Deer Hunting readers might find it interesting that these bucks are walking within less…

I hate math and always have. We joke that all my sons inherited my math gene, but then my dad pointed out that Grandma was a math teacher. I guess, just as in deer management, you can’t blame genetics every time expectations aren’t met. Still, numbers (not math) can be interesting. The whitetail world is full of enlightening facts and numbers, so maybe it’s time we take a quick tour of deer by the numbers. ½ INCH PER DAY Antler growth occurs throughout the summer months for our deer in North America. The abundant blood flow in velvet covering the growing antlers makes them warm to the touch. Besides carrying nutrients to the growing antlers, the warmth promotes cell division and rapid tissue growth. Arteries mostly feed the growing tips…

A hunting log book is a great way for whitetail hunters to keep track of deer movements and behavior. Comparing weather conditions to times and dates of increased deer activity can help determine when and where to hunt. Each log entry should include the date, time, weather conditions — temperature, barometric pressure and cloud cover, or lack of — as well as the size, location and activity of each deer you observed. It should also include information about any deer killed — its weight, antler measurements, location, weather conditions and any other important data. I can truthfully say that keeping a log book has made me a better, more successful hunter, and it can do the same for you. For the past nine years I have recorded information on every…

When trying to accurately characterize the essence of the Southern rut, one term comes to mind: aberrant. The Southern whitetail rut definitely deviates from the expected course of action. The rut down South usually — if not always — differs from what is considered normal, or might be described in a textbook on the subject as typical of the species. In the South, the white-tailed deer rut can be anything but typical. The Southern rut — being highly unpredictable and variable from season to season, state to state and even region to region within individual states — makes hunting big bucks in the South one of the most challenging prospects in the world of hunting. There is no predictable, typical rut — that narrow envelope of time when hunters assume…

Kelly Wiebe leaned over and whispered, “Patience (grasshopper). We need to do this 1 yard at a time.” It was déjà vu all over again, almost a decade to the day when Wiebe and I made a long and painful butt crawl — sneaking in on the tall, dark and handsome Alberta mule deer buck that adorns the wall in my home office in Minnesota. And here we were once again, easing through a copse of aspen, shaving off distance to another nice 4x4 — one we’d been tailing for a day and a half. We were reasonably sure the buck was bedded in the brushy bowl below us, but weren’t sure exactly where. We’d spotted him from a high vantage point a couple hours earlier, but had lost contact…

Each year since 1992, Deer & Deer Hunting has provided both Southern and Northern readers with the “Whitetail Rut-Predictor.” This system has been featured in several D&DH articles by late contributing editor Charles J. Alsheimer. The Whitetail Rut-Predictor is also included in our annual wall calendar, which still features Alsheimer’s photography. The predictor lets you plan when, where and how to hunt. The rut follows predictable stages of deer behavior. These changes dictate the effectiveness of hunting strategies. Scrape-hunting, for example, might be effective when bucks seek does, but it won’t work later in the rut when most does are already bred or being tended. Not every buck exhibits the predicted primary behavior on a given date. Several factors, including age, nutrition, health and genetics, can affect the time and…

James Morgan and I had just settled into the 360 Hunting Blind when the first buck showed up. As luck would have it, it was on the hit list and James was about to get a chance to fill his first Illinois buck tag of the season. James and I had been on a few previous hunts, and while we saw some bucks just about every time out, the ones we were looking for seemed to be avoiding us. This hunt would be different, however. The 3½-year-old 10-pointer was quickly walking into range and I was about to witness James’ marksmanship skills for the first time. The buck stopped at 25 yards and James sent a well-placed arrow right through the boiler room. The buck bound away, but didn’t even…

Deer hunters tend to rely heavily upon deer sightings to determine hunting prospects and potential hunting hot spots. Researchers and managers also employ observational data to assess aspects of deer biology, such as relative abundance, adult sex ratios and fawn production. Deer managers use such data to set management regulations and evaluate management effectiveness. These determinations assume equal observability of sex and age classes of deer and that changes are indicative of real changes in population size and/or herd composition. While researching material for my September 2008 Deer & Deer Hunting article regarding adult sex ratios, it became apparent that hunters and biologists often draw rather debatable conclusions based upon deer observational data of questionable value. Research shows, for example, that observability and flightiness of bucks, does and fawns can…

What makes a deer rilfe a classic? Some say the answer to that question would come from composite sales reports. Others might say it all comes down to the gun’s mechanical design. Still others would say tradition is the ultimate deciding factor. THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE For the purpose of this column, I turned to a panel of national gun experts that offered their votes for the Top 20 deer rilfes of all time. All aspects considered, the experts agreed the top seven deer rifles of all time were made by five companies: • Winchester Model 1894• Winchester Model 70• Remington Model 700• Remington Model 742• Remington Model 760• Savage Model 99• Marlin Model 336• Ruger Model 77 Of course, the rankings are subjective, and hunters and shooters certainly will argue…

The 2018 deer season did not start off on a good note for Missouri hunters. Early that fall, the Mississippi River had left its banks, forcing deer off remote islands and banks. These are usually good hiding spots for mature bucks. My cousin Duwane and I had spent the summer cutting shooting lanes, trimming old ones and setting up stands in anticipation of deer season. I became overwhelmed with dread and apprehension when water started seeping under the main level and flooding the road to the farm we hunt. I was worried the deer would leave our area, and all of our preseason work would be for nothing. This farm has been good to me over the years. In 2017, I arrowed a 16-pointer on Halloween that grossed 181 inches.…