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Lets talk mature bucks...
QDM
Messages posted to thread:
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
guidermd 03-Aug-12
dihardhunter 03-Aug-12
Longbeard@home 03-Aug-12
dihardhunter 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
BC173 03-Aug-12
BC173 03-Aug-12
Rex Featherlin 03-Aug-12
lv2bohunt 03-Aug-12
dihardhunter 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
Clutch 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
Charlie Rehor 03-Aug-12
Ace of Spades 03-Aug-12
dihardhunter 03-Aug-12
dihardhunter 03-Aug-12
Habitat for Wildlife 03-Aug-12
Boone 03-Aug-12
Ace of Spades 03-Aug-12
Charlie Rehor 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
Charlie Rehor 03-Aug-12
7mag 03-Aug-12
Schmitty78 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
bowhunter22 03-Aug-12
bowhunter22 03-Aug-12
Charlie Rehor 03-Aug-12
Bowme2 03-Aug-12
bowhunter22 03-Aug-12
lv2bohunt 04-Aug-12
Bowme2 04-Aug-12
lv2bohunt 04-Aug-12
Bowme2 04-Aug-12
DaleM 04-Aug-12
Charlie Rehor 04-Aug-12
Lookin 4 PnY 04-Aug-12
lv2bohunt 04-Aug-12
turkulese 04-Aug-12
DC 04-Aug-12
dihardhunter 07-Aug-12
guidermd 07-Aug-12
Bowme2 07-Aug-12
dihardhunter 07-Aug-12
travis@work 07-Aug-12
Bowme2 07-Aug-12
MN Slick 09-Aug-12
dihardhunter 14-Aug-12
codyca 14-Aug-12
Jon Simoneau 15-Aug-12
12yards 15-Aug-12
dihardhunter 15-Aug-12
lv2bohunt 16-Aug-12
Lookin 4 PnY 17-Aug-12
Roger J 18-Aug-12
EmbryOklahoma 09-Sep-15
LINK 09-Sep-15
Zbone 09-Sep-15
Hammer 09-Sep-15
deerman406 09-Sep-15
Garrett 09-Sep-15
EmbryOklahoma 09-Sep-15
RutNut@work 10-Sep-15
Butcher 10-Sep-15
Butcher 10-Sep-15


By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

How large of a home range do you feel they have prior to the rut? Also... how far do you feel it is extended once the rut hits? I would like to hear first hand stories from your experiences.

Where I hunt it's hard to pattern a mature buck due to the terrain and food sources available. Kiled a few mature bucks... but they just "showed up". None that I've patterned and killed.

Curious to your run-ins with mature bucks...

Date:03-Aug-12

i beleive the mature bucks spend summer/early fall in their home areas. once ealy/mid oct rolls around, they usually start moving. i've seen bucks on camera on one property killed about 2-3 miles away, or on another camera. people watch nice bucks in late august hitting the fields, yet don't realize these bucks will likely be gone by oct/nov, but they still sett heir stands as if those bucks will do as they did in august. but the same goes for bucks that are miles from your hunting area, as they will travel as well and suddenly end up in your lap. then people comment that they've never seen that buck before.........of course not, he lives 4 miles away. its all about genetic dispersal, and the males do the traveling once bredding time starts. if the bucks survive, they will be back and seen again in december. seen that happen many times

Date:03-Aug-12

As someone who has completed a master's thesis and finishing up a doctoral dissertation on the subject, I feel like I might have some interesting insights on this topic.

I'll talk about home ranges from the standpoint of a 95% probability. In other words, 95% of the time, the buck could be found in X area. Core areas are usually talked about in respects of 50%.

I'll keep this post restricted to a little bit of the data I collected for master's research through NC State. In Maryland on the Eastern Shore (basically a mimicry of any agricultural/small woodlot Midwest matrix, summer-early fall home ranges were in the 80-150 acre neighborhood (core areas sometimes as small as 15-20 acres for an entire month or two at a time). If the bucks could, they would bed, eat, drink in a cornfield as long as water was available. Maybe a little bigger if they were traversing between a wooded bedding area and feed fields, but rarely anything bigger.

During mid-September following bachelor break-up and into mid-late October, home ranges were in the 500-700 acre home range spending roughly 50% of their time in an area encompassing 125-175 acres. As the rut peaked, ranges peaked to near 1000 acres on average, but core areas remained relatively stable below the 200 acre mark. Home ranges quickly shrink back to pre-rut levels as does are bred and bucks return to food gathering tasks.

Bucks did take excursions beyond their home range, though not as frequently as one might imagine. In my research, I defined excursions as trips going at least 0.5 kilometers beyond the 95% home range boundary and lasting at least 6 hours. In all, I think about 40 excursions were made by 30-something study animals, but not all bucks made excursions and some individuals made up to 4 individual excursions in one season. The vast majority of the time, deer are living in their 95% home range, but sometimes we as hunters have those deer boxed into a smaller home range than actually exists and the "excursions" we refer to are actually just shifts to different areas of the deer's home range.

One more interesting note before I close up this post, we did have 2 separate bucks that maintained 2 completely separate home ranges. To illustrate the most extreme example, one 3.5 year old male maintained a home range on an agricultural peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay but would leave for 3 or 4 weeks at a time to live at another home range 6 kilometers away in a suburban neighborhood bordering a boat marina. Every month or so, he would switch home ranges... Good luck coming up with a game plan to hunt a buck like that!!!

Hope everyone finds that info interesting. I sure did.

Date:03-Aug-12

Great Stuff Dihard...very interesting and something I always wanted to study...one question though, why Kilometers and not miles?

Date:03-Aug-12

Scientific literature wants metric units so I've gotten in the habit of using them. I did convert the hectares to acres for folks though. Little more unknown conversion rate than the 1.6 kilometers to 1 mile switch-a-roo.

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

Dihard... exactly the conversation I was hoping to find! Good stuff!

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

dihard... do you have any further reads on-line or a day to day breakdown you would like to share on your research?

I could read all day on this topic...

By: BC173
Date:03-Aug-12

Great stuff Dihard....A very easy "read", which makes for a better understanding of the subject.

By: BC173
Date:03-Aug-12

I'll second that Bowme2...

Date:03-Aug-12

dihard, Was this done near the Dupont estate?

Date:03-Aug-12

It will be difficult for anyone to top diehard. From my own much less scientific obsevations much depends on geography but the 50 to 100 acre core holds true for where I hunt in Arkansas. I will say that I killed a 5 1/2 year old buck last season that never left his core area even during peak rut. Probably not common but for him there were enough does locally or he wasn't interested for some reason.......don't know which was the case but do know that he never moved.

Date:03-Aug-12
dihardhunter's Supporting Link

It was ON Dupont's Chesapeake Farms south of Chestertown. They funded this research and several other graduate students before and after me. This research was done in 2006-2007.

For extra info, I've attached a link to my thesis if you are interested enough to read through 121 pages.

Also - and I'll put in a free plug here - I've run a blog for more than 5 years called The Outdoor Smorgasbord (http://www.skinnymoose.com/outdoorsmorgasbord) where I've chronicled nearly every deer darting mission, research endeavor, bowhunting adventure, and a whole bunch more (including the last 6 months of preparation for a 2 and a half week archery elk backpack-style hunt)...I think this audience will find it interesting.

And no, I don't get paid based on traffic so please don't crucify me!

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

Great! Gonna do some reading when I get to my home computer tonight.. thanks!

By: Clutch
Date:03-Aug-12

Dihardhunter---excellent

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

Lv2bohunt... would like to hear more on how you knew he never left and how you kept tabs on him. When did you first know he was there and when did you kill him? What stage of the rut were the deer in?

Date:03-Aug-12

This is good stuff. I have gotten to know a few areas in the Midwest pretty well in the last 13 years and I stratigize and share information with the land owners and land managers that know the "local" deer and properties from a year round perspective for many more years than me.

One place ear tags a few fawns every June and Bucks have been phoned into them from a half mile away, 8 miles and 21 miles in the last few years. All deer killed above 6 months are aged by cememtum annuli and every year we get does over 10+ years but the oldest bucks we ever get are 5.5 to 6.5. Why is this??

Every year in January we leave an incredible crop of 3.5 year old 140 inch bucks and the following year we expect magic and end up the year with another fine crop of 3.5 year old bucks for the following year (and a few great trophies once in a while:)

I believe it is because the nature of a big buck and his habits gets him killed in many more ways than just hunters. As hunters we think we are behind the major mortality. Vehicle's, injuries and buck fights are a few that come to mind. There are also some bucks that are just about "unkillable". They are the true magic of the gene pool.

Additionally, the deer herd size doubles and triples on this place as the season goes on each year and into the hard winter. Crops are harvested all around this place for miles. Many deer that live miles away will hang tight in mild winters but in a really tuff winter they will migrate back this area. DOES KNOW! These deer are coming in and going out at various rates each year depending on surrounding activity,hunting pressure,crops and weather patterns.

One other observation, big bucks love to hang out during July and August in corn fields for three major reasons, security, less bugs and to protect their velvet antlers.

The different areas we live in effect much of what happens. I live on a bow hunting only, 5,000 acre Island, in RI. Deer are different here and the same. What about whitetails in Idaho, Alberta and Washington State. It's all different and it's all the same.

PS: 34 years pursuing whitetails and I still don't know very much! I guess that's why I keep going after them and enjoying threads like this! C

Date:03-Aug-12

I think the distance traveled during the rut depends on the doe density. In tge Adirondacks in NY i have snow tracked bucks that went 12 or more miles in a straight line before i had to bail out for the hike out.

Josh

Date:03-Aug-12

Charlie, a few interesting thoughts there. I'll elaborate on a few.

I think we all know that a percentage of males disperse prior to their 18 month birthday. Why? That's highly debated, but inbreeding depression ("don't want to breed with mama"), maternal aggression ("I'm tired of you little twerp"), and intrasexual competition ("I'm gonna get my tail kicked if I stay around here") probably all play a role in different scenarios. At Chesapeake Farms, they have a long (couple decades +) dataset of ear tagging fawns and receiving calls from around the countryside - as Charlie mentioned, sometimes up to 15-20 miles away. A few yearling does disperse too, though not nearly as common as the matriarchal family unit is the foundation of white-tailed deer herds.

And Charlie, you nail it on the head. Bucks just don't survive as long as females - it is as simple as that. Just think about the human species, men live a shorter lifetime than females on average. Why? We take more risks, drive faster, eat more unhealthy, sow more wild oats for longer periods of time, etc. Deer are much the same way.

Lastly, I'll comment on Charlie's statement - "There are also some bucks that are just about 'unkillable'. They are the true magic of the gene pool."

Yes, there is a likelihood that older bucks probably sire more fawns than younger bucks, but all the recent research is pointing to a more uniform distribution across age classes where even buttonheads have been documented to successfully breed in traditionally managed populations (e.g., Pennsylvania 15 years ago) and yearling bucks may take up to 30% of sirings even in a QDM-managed population. Bucks can be dominant, but not nearly as totalitarian-esque as we think.

Date:03-Aug-12

'Ace of Spades' - you might think that but even at Chesapeake Farms where deer density exceeded 120 deer/square mile (yes you heard correctly !!!!!!!), males still took excursions during the rut but surely not for lack of breeding opportunities. Density may be correlated, but the true parameter that home range/ core area, movement is keying off in a deep woods situation is more likely habitat quality...very, very poor habitat quality.

Date:03-Aug-12

This is good information, thanks!

By: Boone
Date:03-Aug-12

I had a 3 year old buck last season that I got several mid September photos then he went off the radar until late October when I got several more pics of about 4 miles away. There were several older bucks on the first farm and one real agressive 4 year old that wonder if he pushed him out?

Date:03-Aug-12

I think the distance traveled during the rut depends on the doe density. In tge Adirondacks in NY i have snow tracked bucks that went 12 or more miles in a straight line before i had to bail out for the hike out.

Josh

Date:03-Aug-12

dihard: I explained myself incorrectly about the unkillable bucks being the "magic" of the gene pool. What I meant is they are unkillable because they don't take chances and I think stay away from most of the other deer and especially the aggressive bucks. Plain and simple they do things differently than all the other deer. I don't even think breeding is a top priority even in peak rut. I have seen small bucks dart in and breed a doe quickly while bigger bucks stood a few yards away.

I watched a "bomber" deer for an hour last November while he stood in CRP and watched several bucks chasing does around a water hole about 200 yards away. He did not move one step (only observing) until at least after dark. When I saw how he behaved versus the other mature bucks I knew he was a very different and close to unkillable deer. The big buck my son killed a few years back was killed New Years eve following 8 or 9 does/fawns to food at last light. Passing those does, extremely cold weather and late season foodplots brought that deer by and no one had ever seen him before. He still chose to let the does lead the way as they were "scouts" for him and also knew where to find the best food. This is fun. MORE please! C

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

I agree Charlie!

What is amazing about the deer your son shot last year, is the fact that nobody had seen him! That's amazing! Well.. unless it is a large piece of property that nobody hunts with the exception of a few.

Date:03-Aug-12

Bowne2: There are four full time folks around the property ALL year round and about 20 hunters throughout the year. The key is more than half the land is unhuntable sanctuary which is more important than foodplots!

PS: That deer was shot three years ago New Years Eve

By: 7mag
Date:03-Aug-12

In Ks they can cover many miles during the rut. As for early season, I have witnessed what diehard describes early season homerange as less than a few hundred acres. I have a friend that leased 10,000 acres for outfitting in SE Ks for a few years before the ranch sold. The second year, most of the bucks they killed during rut were ones they had never seen before on camera or in person. These 10,000 acres were not all continuous however, so there were many neighbors to the property.

Date:03-Aug-12

Your thesis was a very interesting read! Thanks for posting it.

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

This discussion should make some of us change our hunting tactics a little. Good read dihard!

Do you know where I can find some of the thesis or study done on the radio collared bucks at the ammunition depot in Oklahoma? I've looked before but could not locate study done by the students from Oklahoma st. Univ. This would benefit me much more as I hunt the same type of environment.

Thanks everyone! Keep it coming...

Date:03-Aug-12

I get very few pics of the same big bucks from summer to fall on a 700 acre piece cameras roll all Summer through February See some of the same in late December and January on cams

Date:03-Aug-12

By the way nice post diehard and Charlie love to study mature bucks can't learn enough

Date:03-Aug-12

I just want to repeat that I am in NO way an expert. Just an addicted student of whitetails. You never really get a handle on them but it is fun to think you do:)

By: Bowme2
Date:03-Aug-12

Charlie... WE understand. None of us are. This is what drives the most of us... it fills our thoughts... whether it be on the way to our hunting spot, while in stand and even before we shut our eyes at night and after.

It's just great conversation... the type that could entertain us bowhunting nuts until we meet our maker. Good stuff!

Date:03-Aug-12

I like to be knowledgable about deer. But I'd rather be lucky than good any day!! Lol keep the knowledge coming love to read and learn.

Date:04-Aug-12

Bowme2

I had seen the deer early in the season and decided to hunt him exclusively. I hunted the same stand several times moving around and hunting around what i thought was his bedding area with no luck. The deer was seen on trail cams in the same area several times. He never was seen chasing does while there were several hot does within a 100 acre area. Lots of chasing but never him. I felt like he was still close so late one afternoon I slipped in to what I figured was his bedding area and began still hunting just on the parameter trying not to pressure the area. I finally caught him moving out to feed. Not very scientific and breaking every rule in the book worked for me. Each sighting was within a 100 acre area and never did we see him chasing. He turned out to be 5 1/2 years old. This was during the peak rut on our property which totals 5000 acres with only 12 hunters. The deer are not pressured and we use lots of trail cams. We've seen some mature bucks move up to several hundred acres during the rut. This deer just broke all the rules.

By: Bowme2
Date:04-Aug-12

Thanks for the info, Mark! What part of Arkansas was it? (Assuming it was)

Date:04-Aug-12

Southwest corner of Arkansas. Our rut usually peaks earlier than other parts of the state. Don't know if the buck to doe ratio effects it but I tend to think it does. No other explanation I know of. We see lots of chasing by mid October.

By: Bowme2
Date:04-Aug-12

I hunt in SE Oklahoma... so I know a little of what you speak of.

By: DaleM
Date:04-Aug-12

dihard, I've read and heard that mature bucks will utilize different travel routes or corridors moving from one area to another. Instead of taking well worn game trails they tend to use secondary trails that parallel major travel routes. Any truth to that?

Date:04-Aug-12

Lvtobohunt: You hit on an area of vital importance in hunting mature deer. Part of my strategy where ever I hunt is to evaluate the typical patterns of the other hunters. I think deer become very understanding of the amount and frequency of pressure. Bottom line after evaluating what others are doing I try to avoid that area or habit. Quick example: If the farm you hunt gets hunted hard at both ends of the day hunt the middle of the day.

Date:04-Aug-12

On a pretty regular basis we kill the same mature bucks in Nov that we get pictures of in August. Very rarely do we kill a buck we don't have a bunch of pictures of. I feel like we lose a bunch of 2 1/2's each year once the velvet drops, but if we get a pic of a mature buck during the summer we get pics of him all fall. We hunt a 350 acre farm in WI.

Date:04-Aug-12

Mature Bucks are different creatures, their travel patterns are a bit different as well as their feeding patterns. I believe this is mostly due to two things, pressure and a solitary nature in the fall. They stand very little pressure so typical deer trails which hunters migrate around become a place to avoid. I also notice that mature bucks don't seem to be as social as younger deer so the need to be right in the middle of the rest of the herd is not as strong for them. They stay on the fringes. I think those two things are the biggest reasons we don't see them in typical deer places. When I decide to hunt a mature buck I start on the edge of where I believe him to be but fairly quickly move in closer to his bedding area. I am trying to cut him off before he busts me so I may only hunt a stand once before I tighten up on him. Sometimes it works sometimes not. They are smart and I just have to hope I am lucky.

Date:04-Aug-12

From years of studying big bucks the only true conclusion I have come up with: It is situational, with several ever-changing variables affecting each buck. I know there are general rules, but I have found that those are rarely followed by mature bucks. There are no certainties... which is why we love this: )

By: DC
Date:04-Aug-12

Here in Alabama just to find a mature buck to hunt is a challenge. If you do find one, you can bet he did not get old by taking chances. The ones I have been lucky enough to find or locate, act as if they hate the presence of other deer and are very much loners.

To kill one with a bow is another story.

Date:07-Aug-12

I was off getting a pre-elk hunt hike in this weekend, but I'm back in the office now and will address a few of the questions that have been raised since my last post.

Charlie - on do big bucks act differently to become 'unkillable' - As several folks have mentioned, mature bucks are just like people - each has his personality. By and large though, mature bucks don't waste time with exerting extra activity, movement, etc. outside the 2 or 3 weeks of peak breeding. My data has shown from both the thesis research and my dissertation research which I'm churning through right now that mature bucks wait to ramp up movement/activity until it's worth the effort. Something a lot of us deer hunters already knew anecdotally from our woods observations. The second biggest buck (180") I ever put a GPS collar on never even expanded his home range during the rut, so he was one example of a deer that would have been termed 'unkillable' by most folks. The biggest (a 220" non-typical) died in late October from hemorrhagic disease, so I never got to record rut data for that big boy - big bummer!

Bowme2 - Here is the link to Rob Holtfreter's thesis. His work was actually done at Auburn University where I'm currently stationed. He focused on mature buck movement ecology and McAlester was his primary study site.

http://etd.auburn.edu/etd/bitstream/handle/10415/1196/Holtfreter_Robert_20.pdf?sequence=1

DaleM - on do mature bucks use secondary trails as opposed to primary trails - In 2007, we had our fix rate ramped up to every 5 minutes meaning we could plot near real-time movement data as bucks moved across the landscape. We were interested in how bucks reacted to hunting pressure and looked specifically at instances where bucks came into "contact" with hunters in permanent stands. What we found was that if the wind was wrong, deer were sometimes reversing directions or swinging wide around tree stand locations up to 250-300 yards downwind. Waaaayyy farther than the hunter would ever known he had been busted. If the wind was right though, mature bucks behaved the same way all the deer behaved. Often showing up in agricultural fields right behind the does, and the only reason they were saved was the $3,000 piece of GPS jewelry hanging around their necks! 2 mature bucks were killable by hunters 4 and 5 different times during Maryland's 2 week shotgun season, some bucks - not at all. I'm not sure you can really talk about primary and secondary trails though because how we define trails is likely very different than how deer interpret trails. Wind did matter though and that's really what you have to think about. After that, most of hunting is being there at the right time.

Again, hope this information helps somebody out and lands a big buck in someone's freezer this fall.

Date:07-Aug-12

good info. does the dupont property get hunted? hunted by a few select folks, or hunted like private/public land. also, when talking about core areas and home ranges, these areas could be square, oblong, rectangular, etc. if the woods are 200 yards wide by 10 miles long, those bucks could be traveling alot more than a buck living in a wooded area 1000s of acres in size. thus his core area could be alot more limited. i think the core areas are dictated alot by the make up of the cover/woods/fields. i too have tracked and back tracked deer in snow that came or went considerable distances to the point where i picked up their tracks. often i january i will pick up a track at a bait and backtrack it. i have literally walked for hours backtracking some of these deer before ever finding their beds. i was amazed at how far they traveled just to get to a small food source such as a bait.

By: Bowme2
Date:07-Aug-12

dihard... thanks a bunch! Thats right in my alley. Looks like some reading tonight. You would be fun to have in camp, although you'd get tired of constant questions. :)

Thanks again!

Date:07-Aug-12

Hunted by guests of DuPont (e.g., consistent customers, salespeople, executives, etc.). You could say it is a executive retreat/agricultural spray/seed testing location.

Home range shape is highly variable but strangely enough nearly all of them have what I would guess to be between a 1.5 to 2.5 length times width ratio. Rarely do you see an exception. There are ecological/biological reasons for this, but too deep to discuss here and now...

Date:07-Aug-12

And then when it all comes together it seems so simple...lol...being in the right place at the right time...One thing I have learned as the years have gone by is that now I prefer to hunt in silence whereas I used to rattle and grunt a lot...I hate giving my position away..I have rattled in some real nice bucks over the years but the older I get the more I just want to melt into my surroundings as quietly as I possibly can..I`m after a 4.5 year old drop tine this year. I had him at 5 yards last november but he only had one side of his rack and would have went in the low 140`s...he has been on my mind for quite some time...I`ve watched this buck grow up...it will be bitter sweet if I do get him...

By: Bowme2
Date:07-Aug-12

Here's hoping you do, Travis!

Date:09-Aug-12

Diehardhunter, you mention mature bucks act like other deer if the wind is right. Can you elaborate on what wind the mature bucks were comfortable moving like regular deer, ie quartering into the wind, directly into it etc. Thanks

Date:14-Aug-12

MN Slick - got your PM yesterday and wanted to respond to your post. Unfortunately, we didn't pay that much attention to whether or not mature bucks moved normally with respect that much detailed wind direction data. I will say that if folks realized how much time mature bucks spent on their feet during daylight hours during the hunting season (the data doesn't lie), we would all be depressed and convinced that we sucked as hunters.

By: codyca
Date:14-Aug-12

Thank you for the literature sir. Info like that is extremely valuable to hunt mature bucks!

Date:15-Aug-12

dihard is right. The telemtry studies we did in college showed that deer are up on their feet alot even in extremely pressured land. The thing is...they do not move very far from their bedding area during daylight outside of the rut. And this includes deer that are not being hunted. The problem is getting to where they are moving during daylight without them knowing it. I really believe that more deer are spooked by entrance to a stand site than anything else. I also believe that most mature bucks regaurd bowhunters as about as much threat as a coyote. They easily get around you. We are mostly just an annoyance to them with the exception of extremely pressured land where the buck is likely to get shot just due to the number of hunters out there. All bucks make mistakes. No buck is unkillable. But there are some that are close to it!

Date:15-Aug-12

Very interesting info. I hunt public land that receives heavy gun pressure, but little bowhunting pressure. I rarely (almost never) see mature bucks. Whenever I make a post about our area needing antler point restrictions or other QDM, I always get the response, "the big ones are there, you just have to hunt harder". I don't believe it. I think if they were there, I'd see them and this research shows that. Big ones would be killable if they were there. They just are not there in numbers to consistently see, let alone kill.

Date:15-Aug-12

It is not coincidence that those hunting top quality property with a big chunk of bucks in older age classes are the ones consistently taking trophy bucks. Despite how we all try to complicate deer hunting (I'm guilty as charged as well!), it is essentially a pretty simple numbers/odds game. Most big bucks are not that much smarter than the other deer (adult does in mind when I wrote that), we just think they are because there are so many fewer of them on the landscape. You can shift the odds a little based on how awesome of a hunter you are, but the game is really pretty fixed!

Date:16-Aug-12

Dihardhunter

I agree 100% with your last post, I believe most hunters make the big bucks look much smarter than they really are. The property you hunt has much to do with how good of a hunter you look like.

Date:17-Aug-12

"The property you hunt has much to do with how good of a hunter you look like."

Some of the best hunters in the country will never shoot a 150" deer. A lot of average hunters out there have walls full of giants. It is all about location.

Date:18-Aug-12

One thing I have learned from mature bucks is that over time they will give away the secrets to the farm. Hunting in rugged Mississippi River Valley terrain (mixed ag) in Western Wisconsin we have found that the mature bucks tend to use the same travel corridors and trails as their ancestors. The longer we hunt the same property the more efficient we tend to become at intercepting the true giants. Oddly enough, the best pattern to date has been saddles in long, narrow ridge top fields where the oldest bucks are taken every year between 10-2 crossing open harvested crop fields all by themselves to get from one ravine to another.

Mentally record every mature buck sighting that doesn't include the chasing of does. You can bet in following years you will continue to see different mature bucks doing the same thing. The trick is to get enough 'true' mature buck sightings to form patterns.

Date:09-Sep-15

Bowfisher... Not sure if you've seen this thread, but here's some more good read if you didn't.

By: LINK
Date:09-Sep-15

In my area of northwest Oklahoma most bucks home areas are probably 200 acres, there's not a lot of cover, water, and food so they have to travel some. I work for an outfitter and we have killed deer in Oklahoma during the rut that we had one camera two days earlier ten miles(as a crow flies) north in Kansas. I've personally had a buck at two different locations five miles apart on a consistent basis, pre-rut. That specific buck moved more than any I've seen outside of rut.

By: Zbone
Date:09-Sep-15

Yeah, 10 miles is believable, especially during the rut. I think it may have been Rothhaar wrote of one traveling 12 miles during the rut... Helps explain why some disappear, and some appear out of nowhere not to have been seen before...

Something I haven't seen brought up is - some will migrate somewhat, meaning they may have 2 different ranges, like a summer range, and a fall/winter range, which can be miles apart... I mean they may not migrate like mule deer a hundred miles, but 10 miles is not unheard of for whitetail bucks... Whitetail does may be homebodies, but its like a flip of the coin if you'll find mature bucks in the same area during hunting season as where you were viewing them eating beans during summer, but I do believe mature whitetail bucks may travel more than most think...

By: Hammer
Date:09-Sep-15

during rut... depends if there are any gals around.. lol.

Outside of rut.. Pretty small area

Date:09-Sep-15

I happen to hunt a property near my house that has a creek running through it. I also hunt another property in a bow only area that by road is about 4 miles away. Now as the crow flies I would say it is about 2 miles away, it has the same creek running though it.Probably 7-8 years back I had a giant 10 pt. on the bow property and saw him 2 days before Thanksgiving. He had an unmistakable scuff mark on his left shoulder(patch of hair the size of a baseball missing) On Thanksgiving morning two days after seeing him in the bow area I watched him tending a doe about 4 hundred yards from my house.(he had traveled at least 2 miles in roughly a day and half) My point is I believe a lot to do with how far they travel has to do with the terrain in which they live and the personality of the deer. This creek bottom allows bucks to travel a long ways from their core area in relatively secure cover. I know he spent most of his time in a small piece on the property I hunt of about 32 acres, probably 90% of his time was spent there. During the rut, I know he traveled far and wide as I heard reports of him being spotted as far as 5 miles from his home that Nov. I believe some bucks ecsp. 3.5-4.5 year old bucks tend to do a lot of the breeding and may search far and wide for does as to when they get older than that and have been shot at or hunted hard they tend to limit their movement as well. Also bucks younger than that do not travel as far, due to the fact the 3.5-4.5 year old deer are in pretty prime shape and they do not want to compete with that. By the way I never did kill that buck and the last I had seen him he was on his way down hill and probably a 140" 8pt and probably 8.5 years old. Never heard of him being killed by anyone, but a friend of mine found a skull and rack that could of been him 2 years ago and it scored right around 140" and by the teeth the deer appeared to be at least 8.5 years old. Shawn

Date:09-Sep-15

In my experience, it not only depends on deer density, age of the buck but also the deer in particular. I have been very fortunate in harvesting several great deer over the years and each one of them had a different personality. I call 5 year olds ghost, they always seem to get a little goofy at that age. But as the bucks get older, i feel like they tend to narrow down their home range. The buck i killed last year lived in a 250 yard area. Sounds crazy, but he had everything he needed and he was 8.5 years old. With such a small core area, he was the hardest deer ive ever hunted. Just my two cents...

Date:09-Sep-15

I love this talk. I could read everyone's experiences and gain zero knowledge on the bucks I hunt. But the stories of bucks that travel far and wide and are documented, are incredible.

Date:10-Sep-15

Excellent, informative thread. IMO, this is one of the best threads ever on Bowsite.

Date:10-Sep-15

I have had some similar bucks like that here in ms, problem here is that amount of thickets we have, Bucks never have to come out. I had one buck that lived on my parents place. I had on camera everyday during the summer and as soon as velvet dropped he was gone. He would pass that from time to time. 2013 never had any pics of him at all. I shot him 2014 December crossing a powerline. Same deer. Only scored 127 but in ne ms that's a good deer. Don't where he went. Always figured someone shot him.

Date:10-Sep-15

The other deer I would get pics all summer as well then nothing. Wouldn't see him til the next summer. Well a buddy of my bought a new place this last year and told me to come out and hunt. Mostly pasture for is horses but had a 1 acre pine thicket that the previous owner let go and just turned into something nasty. His property was only 2 miles from ours but had some crops to the south. Needless to say I saw that deer entering that small lot 3 times before I killed him. I guess that he would just move in there when pressure increased on the surrounding areas.


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