Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Pick A Date: When To Hunt Bucks
Some of the questions posed to an archery shot owner defy description. A few are wonderful questions, and some seem to come from out of left field, and defy description.
Last weekend a hunter put the questions to me while I was selling him a new Black Eagle Extreme bow. It became apparent that he was earnest about his questions, and had put some thought into them.
“Claude, I don’t get a chance to bow hunt very often,” he said. “I’ve got 10 days of comp time coming at work. Knowing what you know about deer, their behavior, and key times to hunt, which 10 days would you choose to be in the woods?
Great questions. The number of days he had to play with was part of an intriguing question, and it required some thought and an answer to one question.
“Can you take any 10 days off?” I asked. He said he could take the comp days whenever he wished.
I told him I’d think about it, and give him an answer before he left the shop with his new bow. I installed a Bo-Doddle rest, a Pollington 33mm red-dot sight, and worked with him on the target range.
He was a good shot, and had hunted with Oneida bows for years, and he took to the red-dot sight like a duck to water. Within a half-dozen shots he was laying them consistently into the bulls-eye. He slit the vanes off two Maxima arrows, and I replaced them before he left.
He paid the bill, and asked: “Did you forget my questions?
I told him that I had not forgotten them, and noted that I wanted to see how well he could shoot, and needed some time to seriously consider how to answer. I noted that having 10 days of his choice was an important part of the puzzle.
“OK, here is how I see it,” I told him. “Since you can take 10 days whenever you choose, it makes it a little easier. If you do a good bit of preseason scouting, and know where and where deer are traveling, I think you should take the first three days of October off to hunt.
“Deer are still in their summer mode of travel, and if you can set up on a buck, one of the best times to hunt is the first day of the season. By taking the first three days off, and hunting hard, it would give you an excellent opportunity to fill one of your tags. Three days is long enough to give you ample opportunity to hunt even if it rains heavily one day.”
I told him that the second best time to hunt is during the pre-rut and early-rut periods. The pre-rut or chasing stage is a wondrous time to be afield, and once the rut really kicks in, it can be a peak hunting period.
“My next seven days, providing you hunt here in Michigan, would be October 27-31 and November 1-5,” I said. “And this is why. The rut kicks into high gear in early November, and the chasing stage is the tail end of October.
“The chasing stage is when bucks come to scrapes, and once they get onto a doe that is soon to come into estrus, that doe will lead him on a merry chase. The rut isn’t an exact time, and hunter activity or heavy rain or high winds, can stall it. You’ll hear bucks following does with a tending grunt, and often, the does are several days from estrus.”
I told him this 10-day period encompasses the end of the pre-rut and the beginning of the rut. He was told that when bucks stop hitting the scrapes is when the full run is underway.
We discussed different tactics like hunting about 40 yards downwind from active scrapes. He was told that bucks often wind-check active scrapes from about 25-30 yards downwind, and a hunter at 40 yards will often have a randy buck right in front of him.
He thought on that for a few minutes, and felt that perhaps that would be the ideal way to spend his 10 days of comp time. He left with a new bow that he could shoot well, and some solid advice about when to hunt.
And best of all, I suspect he will make his own luck by hunting during two really peak periods.—The Whitetail Wizard