Reprinted from Oct 7, 2007 column in Morgantown Dominion Post, and material from "Whitetail Advantage" found elsewhere in this website.
It’s happened to every bowhunter I know. Gun hunters too. You’ve scouted a good buck, got him figured out, you are ready to do the deal, but then he just up and disappears. You move your stand, hunt hard for the next few days, but he is gone.
In the past, when that has happened to me, I attributed the disappearance to a variety of reasons. Maybe another hunter shot the buck. Maybe there was too much hunter activity in the area so he became totally nocturnal. Did he get hit by a car? I know that happens to some dandy bucks every year.
We know that in whitetail country yearling bucks disperse in the fall. In our area around 50-70 percent of all yearling bucks leave their birthing area in September and October. This dispersal is normal, and the bucks will move to an entirely new home range, usually around five miles from where they were born (though some go much further). The reason they leave is because of aggressive encounters with other yearling bucks. In areas where there are lots of older bucks, the yearlings do not fight as much (because they are intimidated by older bucks), so dispersal rates are lower. But in this part of West Virginia, where we have a ton of yearlings, dispersal rates are probably fairly high.
No matter what the cause, the result is the same. A bunch of young bucks that live on the farm you hunt, leave. However, a bunch of young bucks that live on surrounding lands, also disperse, and they will come to your area. Yes, some come and some go. If you hunt in good, thick cover (i.e. good habitat) then more young bucks that disperse may take up residence there. But if your habitat is over browsed, then fewer of those young bucks may decide to live there. Though no one has ever collected such data, my guess is that if the area you hunt is poor deer habitat with little understory, more yearling bucks disperse out of the area than bucks that come in.
But as I described at the outset, bigger, older bucks also disappear. Not all big bucks disappear, but some do. I wanted some answers, so being the old Professor, I went to the scientific literature and discovered some answers. I found a recently completed thesis done by James Tomberlin from North Carolina State University. His work gave me a possible answer to why some big bucks suddenly become invisible. It isn’t magic. The data prove otherwise.
Jim did his research on Chesapeake Farms on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The farm is 3,300 acres of great deer habitat; a good mixture of agricultural crops and hardwood forests. Jim put radio collars on 15 bucks over several years and followed them every day from summer, through the pre-rut, rut, post-rut, and winter. All of the bucks he followed were at least 3 ½ years of age.
He found that some of these older bucks make some long range movements out of their home range. They may stay only a few hours, they may stay a few days, or they may stay away even longer, but the point is that they leave and go to an area they have never visited before.
Let’s look at the data. In late September to mid-October 13 percent of the bucks left their home range for an extensive movement. From mid-October to the first week of November, 40 percent of these older bucks did the same thing. During the rut, from November 5-25, 58 percent of the 15 older bucks Jim was tracking left their home range. After that, these excursions into new areas dropped and by January on 17 percent of bucks were leaving and returning to their home range.
Since Tomberlin had radio collars on the deer he also knew when they moved. From mid-October to early November 70 percent of the excursions were initiated at night. But during the peak of the rut in November, 73 percent of these movements were done during the day. So we’ve got over half of the older bucks moving clear out of their home range and much of that movement is initiated and takes place during hunting hours. If this doesn’t convince you to stay in your tree stand all day long during the peak rut, nothing will.
We know that bucks get a little crazy chasing does in November. In fact, that is why we see so many dead deer along the highways in November. But they also just up and leave their home range at this time of the year, apparently looking for does. Tomberlin found that some bucks kept moving and then returned to their original home range from 8-30 hours later. But he also found that a few bucks got to their new area and then remained in one spot for up to 24 hours. He speculated that this was because the buck found a hot doe and tended her. If she was bedded, then he also bedded nearby. Since the doe is in estrus for 2-3 days, the mature buck will stay with her until she is ready to breed. That is apparently what was happening.
So, there you have it. No magic here. The big guys just leave, and return later. They may be leaving your area, and some may be coming to your area. Either way, you need to be out there. For many of us, we are now approaching the greatest time of the year. Time to hit the woods.
