Goin' Home
With A Buck
Part 3
... All the deer behave similarly in early spring. When the grass is tall and green, bucks and does alike take advantage of the abundant food. Often they can be seen grazing on open hillsides. Midmorning and dusk are the periods of greatest activity.
... It appears that predation is highest in the spring. I find more kills in the spring than at any other time of the year. The reasons for this are that the deer population is at it's highest with the addition of the new fawns and that the lions and coyotes must kill more prey to feed their young.
... Wouldn't you think that those incredibly smart old bucks, the ones that the old timers say can tell when deer season is about to open by the amount of traffic on the highway, would be laying low with so many deer being killed by predators. That would make sense to me but no, you see bucks with growing horns feeding during daylight hours right out in the open.
... This pattern of feeding out in the open continues until the bucks horns are completely grown and the velvet is scraped off. It is at this time that the bucks go into hiding, The bigger the buck the more reclusive he will be. The forked horns and small three points will still hang around in little bachelor groups and can still be seen feeding in the oaks. The bucks with the biggest antlers disappear into the brush. These are usually the mature 5 to 7 year olds, but a younger buck with larger than average horns will exhibit the same behavior as a more mature buck. The reverse is also true. A mature 6 year old with a small rack is much more likely to be seen feeding out in the open and more likely to be seen in the company of small bucks.
... This is a very interesting phenomenon that I would not have believed if I had not seen examples of it myself. A couple years ago, after the season closed and as the rut was in full swing, I was out with my video camera looking for bucks to film. I was glassing down into some huge oak trees in an area in which several small bucks had taken up permanent residence. I had seen them many times during the season. I never bothered them so they always stayed in the same area. This day the forks weren't around but I spotted what I ,at first, thought to be a huge Blacktail buck. As I looked more closely it became apparent to me that this was not a big buck with an enormous set of horns but rather a very small buck with a really nice rack. Through the spotting scope I could tell that this was a very young buck. With his short nose, small ears and less than a hundred pounds of body weight. I doubted that he was even 2 1/2 years old. I'm pretty sure that he was only 18 months old. A buck of this age and size will normally grow thin forked horns that are maybe ten inches wide. This little guy already had an adult sized rack that looked out of proportion on his small body. Although his horns were a fairly thin, he was a beautiful three point about 19 inches wide and 18 inches high. What was really impressive was his 15 inch back tines. He also lacked eye-guards, another sign of a young buck.
... His behavior was also very interesting. He was marking low hanging branches with the scent glands located near his eyes. As I watched he also used his front feet to make a scrape ( this was the only time I have ever seen this behavior in a Blacktail). It was obvious that this little buck was marking his territory in preparation for the rut. I doubt that he could actually have been successful in battling a 160 pound buck for a doe, but for some reason he thought that he was a contending breeding buck. Why was it that I had never seen this young buck before? Why was it that he never associated with other young bucks in the area? Why had the other young bucks moved out of the area seemingly not interested in the rut while this 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 year old was marking his territory? I believe that the answer to all of these questions is antler size.
................
...As
strange as it may seem, I believe that Blacktail bucks are aware of
the size of their own antlers and how their racks compare to other bucks
in the area. I think that it is how and individual buck perceives his
own horn size that causes him to either be a recluse or not.
... If a mature buck of breeding age does
not develop antlers that he considers adequate, he will probably not
go into hiding like his big horned buddies. A few years back by brother
Dan and myself had hunted the entire season without either of us finding
a buck that we wanted to hang a tag on. It was the morning of the last
day of the season and I had decided that if we were to see a medium
sized buck I would shoot it for meat. We were sitting under a small
oak tree glassing down along a brushed over dry creek bed. Suddenly
three average sized forked horns appeared across the creek, feeding
among the oaks. A quick shot from my 7mm put the biggest one in the
freezer. All three bucks had appeared to be about the same size and
age, 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 year old, 14 to 15 inch wide forked horns, with
no eye guards. It wasn't until the next day when I was boiling out the
bucks skull that I discovered that the buck I had killed was actually
5 1/2 or 6 1/2 years old. We have been boiling deer skulls clean for
many years and by studying and comparing tooth wear on our many specimens,
we have become proficient at judging the ages of the bucks we kill.
... There was
no doubt that this buck was not the young deer we thought he was. So
why was he associating with young bucks and behaving like one himself?
Once again I believe the answer to this question is horn size. This
buck did not have the antler size necessary to be a successful breeder
so he never developed the reclusive behavior of mature breeding bucks.
... I've heard a lot of hunters say that
the reason you see big bucks out in the open more when their horns are
in velvet is because their horns are soft and tender. They say it is
painful to a buck when his horns touch brush so they stay out in the
open more. The second part of this theory says that when their horns
harden up, the bucks go into the brush to hide. I don't buy this theory.
... I believe that somehow this reclusive
behavior among mature breeding bucks is just another step in their yearly
breeding cycle. I think that there is a hormonal change in the bucks
body that occurs when their horns become fully grown. It is my opinion
that this hormonal increase triggers a change of behavior for the bucks
that feel their antlers are big enough to battle other bucks, and big
enough to impress does.
... Everything that a buck does is some
how designed to ensure that the healthiest, strongest individuals breed
the most. I'm not sure why it is beneficial for the breeding bucks to
be solitary and reclusive but I'm sure there is a reason.
... It seems
to me that most animals simply mate during mating season. What I mean
by this is that the female ovulates, the male is attracted, they breed
and produce young. It's not that simple for the deer family. Male deer
of all types go through a metamorphosis that changes them from skinny
necked wimps to rut crazed swollen necked gladiators.
