After sending in my blog last Monday, I headed to Clinton to help the wildlife crew with a project. I had plans to make an evening hunt, but the project work dragged on until about 4 p.m. I headed to the 60-acre tract I hunt and had to opt for a very short hunt up front in the tripod stand. It had been hunted a couple of times, and one hunter had seen a nice spike and another had seen three does. It had been raining all day, and the weather was now very overcast and there was a light misting rain.
The hunt began at 4:45, and at 5:05 I caught movement to my right and turned just in time to see a deer stop behind the cluster of Japanese Plum trees that I had put a cage around to protect them from the rubbing activity of bucks. I moved the .444 into position and the deer stepped out and began walking across the patch. The patch has a good stand of clover and winter grass along with a nice hedgerow of privet that is always heavily browsed. There are a few young red mulberry trees I had to cage a few weeks ago because some buck decided they were just right for rubbing.
I didn’t really look at the buck too hard: I could tell that it was an adult with branched antlers. I placed the crosshairs on the shoulder and fired. The deer was hit hard and made a short run to the other side of the plot before falling, and when it hit the ground it did not move. I walked back to the truck, filled out the tag, returned to the deer, tagged it, loaded it on the buggy, then into the truck, filled out the kill data sheet at our check-in station and left for Camp David to do the skinning and cleaning.
When I first looked at the deer on the ground I thought it might be a nice 2-year-old, but the lower jaw revealed that it was a 3-year-old. The buck weighed 140 pounds and had 8 points. This adult buck is typical for our pine-dominated forest with cattle pastures. It is on the low end (below the average statistics) for our 3-year-olds. A good one should weigh about 170 and should have 8 points with a 14-inch inside spread. This one had a 12-inch inside spread. It would never make the 16-inch buck that we try to manage for.
Examination of the stomach contents revealed heavy use of privet shrub along with a moderate sample of water oak acorns. I was surprised to find no corn, since the feeding is quite heavy around our little tract. Kidney fat was excellent due to the mast it was eating. The neck of the buck was begin to develop the muscle mass indicative of some heavy rubbing; however, the tarsal glands were only slightly stained, an indication that it had not been working scrapes very much. The rubs on the property had increased from the past week but the scrapes were not being used.
Tuesday morning, I left Camp David at 4 a.m. in a fairly heavy rain. Deer were everywhere, feeding in rights-of-way, moving across roads and bedded down in the open areas around the woods. At 7 a.m., I watched a 4-year-old buck cross a field and come my way. It basically covered the distance of several hundred yards in a couple of minutes and began feeding on a corn pile that was part of our project.
This buck was also a below-average 4-year-old, had 8 points with a 14-inch inside spread. It appears that the drought we had for five or six weeks starting in June, a prime month for antler growth, may have had an impact on our deer. Wednesday morning at about 9:30 a.m., we watched a similar-sized buck following a doe in the same area.
I examined the ovaries of three adult does that day and it appeared that egg follicles were beginning to develop in the ovaries, which means they would have been ovulating within a week or so. I think this week and next week will be the first peak of breeding activity for these deer. This means that if you hunt in Area 6, the first peak of breeding should be at about this same time in January, since our rut is usually a month ahead of Area 6.
It looks like rain on today and tomorrow and clearing for Wednesday and the remainder of the week, which means Wednesday is the time to start looking for a good buck chasing a doe.
I think I can fit it into my schedule!