Goin' Home
With A Buck
Part 2
... There are four main types of cover on the ranch. Ranking them from best cover to worst cover they are; Manzanita brush, Madrone forest, Douglas fir forest and finally Oaks and grassland. I have hunted each of these types of terrain extensively, but almost all the deer I see are in the oaks. In the firs, Madrones and Manzanita, I'll hear deer escaping but I almost never see them. Because of the dense vegetation, they here me approaching long before I am any where near them. I'll always find deer beds in the thick stuff.
... Once as an experiment, I spent hours crawling through tunnels in the Manzanita on my hands and knees. I wore knee pads, gloves and goggles. My 12 gauge shotgun, loaded with slugs, hung from a sling below my chest. I didn't see a deer but I spent so much time crawling through deer beds that I was covered with about a million fleas when I emerged.
... I have come to the conclusion that during late summer, the old bucks spend their days in the densest cover that they can find. I believe that they are almost 100% nocturnal, venturing into the oaks and grassland to feed only after nightfall. Usually they return to the brush before first light. If there is no heavy cover available they might spend daylight hours in more open areas. Unfortunately. On our ranch there is abundant heavy cover, making it easy for the mature bucks to disappear during the day.
... When I speak of the tendencies of mature blacktail bucks that make them so difficult to hunt, I am just speaking about their behavior during deer season in our area. The area that I am referring to is California's "A" zone. Some hunters may have different ideas about how blacktails behave in other areas but chances are the differences in behavior are attributed to differences in terrain, available cover, food sources and the time of year of hunting season. I believe that all deer will behave very similarly in like environments.
...The California Department of Fish and Game(DFG) is well aware of how the activity of bucks changes throughout the year. Most of the deer seasons in California are scheduled for the time of year when it is most difficult to kill a mature breeding buck. This is the period of about two months that precedes the beginning of the rut. It is amazing at how accurate the DFG is at forecasting the start of the rut in each area. The closing date of deer season will usually be just days before the first signs of the rut are seen.
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Bucks like this old battle scarred 4x4 seem to appear out of nowhere once the rut begins.
...Personally
I agree with California's philosophy in setting deer seasons. As I mentioned
earlier, I think killing a buck should be a real challenge. I also believe
that healthy deer populations are more important than a high rate of
hunter success.
...I am, for the most part, opposed to hunting
during the rut, but it seems like there may be a degree of hypocrisy
in my logic. Toward the end of a long and tiring season of searching
for a trophy buck, I usually start hoping for a drop in temperature
or maybe some rain that might help the rut begin a little early. If
rutting activity was to start a little sooner than usual and a big buck
appeared, I would take it immediately, but if it were a month later
( and the season was still open) and the same 140 B&C (Boone &
Crocket) buck was standing out on an open hillside, as they do every
year, staring at a doe, oblivious to everything else, I would have absolutely
no desire to shoot it. The challenge would be gone.
...We often read about how difficult eastern
Whitetails are to hunt. Since whitetails are so close genetically to
Blacktails, I'm sure that the same challenges are present when there
is a lot of heavy cover available. What I find interesting is how eastern
hunters can brag about how smart Whitetails are and how difficult they
are to hunt but downplay the fact that all bucks become incredibly less
cautious, more vulnerable, and much more active during the rut which
is right in the middle of most whitetail seasons in eastern states.
The thick forests of the east probably make hunting during the rut necessary
if hunters are going to be successful at all. When it comes to comparing
the difficulty between sitting in a tree stand in November waiting for
a rutting Whitetail buck to walk by or climbing chaparral covered hills
with the temperature near or exceeding a 100 degrees, looking for a
blacktail buck that is bedded down in thick brush, I would have to say
that nothing could be more difficult than Blacktail hunting in certain
areas.
... So, what really drives the big bucks
into thick cover and why are they so much more nocturnal that does and
smaller bucks? Is it simply the extra wisdom that they have gained by
surviving more years? That probably has something to do with their behavior
but I'm not convinced that that is the entire reason the trophy bucks
disappear during deer season. I don't think that it is hunting pressure
that causes this reclusive behavior among the really big bucks. Hunting
seasons in California simply coincide with a natural yearly pre-rut
lull in mature Blacktail buck activity.
... I've learned a lot by observing the
Blacktails on our ranch all year long. each year I see the same behavioral
changes in the bucks, Their habits change as seasons change.
... On our ranch, hunting pressure has no
effect on the behavior of the deer. I can say this confidently because
human activity is low all year long. There is really not difference
between buck season or any other time of the year. We keep things as
quiet as possible trying to never harass the deer but there is always
the occasional truck on the road, or a project going on or a hiker.
I'm sure that the bucks cannot tell the difference between when they
are being hunted and when they are not. Sometimes and entire year will
pass without a single shot being fired on the ranch...
