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Observing nature’s long-standing rituals a real treat

Last archery season, thousands of deer were harvested, about half of them on the first day! Opening day has always been the most productive day for bowhunters, just as it is for rifle hunters. Don’t be fooled by that figure, however, it still represents only about two percent of the archers afield. It is not easy to take a deer with a bow and arrow.

It’s one thing to admire a deer in a field 100 yards away, it’s quite another to get within 30 yards of one without its seeing, hearing or smelling you, and managing to draw a bow on it.

Archery Pro Shops do a big business as archers realize that bows, arrows and related gear must be fitted to the individual archer for consistent shooting success. Indoor ranges are packed with practicing shooters and the competitive element of archery, namely

3-D target competition has grown beyond anyone’s early expectations.

When the Game Commission opened that first archery season in 1951 they thought they were simply accommodating a fringe minority,a group who wanted to mince around the woods with longbows and recurves. Almost yearly since then, the needs of the archers for longer seasons and better equipment plus their increasing harvest totals have had to be taken into account in deer management programs.

Archers won a big victory when two weeks were added to the season to allow them to hunt during the rut. Of course, they have to share the woods with turkey and other small game hunters during that two weeks but that has proven not to be a big problem.

Archers may use deer calls, attractant and cover scents and broadheads with retractable blades. Prohibited are the use of baits, salt blocks, liquid mineral mixes and transmitter-tracking arrows.

Bowhunters must wear 250 square inches of fluorescent orange while moving to and from their stand locations from November 1 until the end of the season. Once on stand, the archer may remove the orange clothing and place a band containing at least 100 square inches of orange within 15 feet of the hunting position.

According to the Game Commission, archers tend to be more successful in Special Regulations counties and, in fact, anywhere there is extensive urban-suburban sprawl because deer populations are at their peak in those places and are crowded into smaller and smaller pieces of habitat. It is not nearly so difficult to locate or pattern deer in concentrated areas as it is in large hardwood forests. Residents who live in these rural residential places, don’t think deer are so “cute.” They are sick of them eating their shrubbery and gardens and having daily car-deer collisions. They are happy to allow archers to crop some of these animals.

Remember, too, you may not have a firearm while archery hunting, even if you have a protection permit.

One year, as I was out scouting, several deer were walking all around me. I was trying out a new deer lure. Before I sat down in my chosen spot to watch I walked 30 yards ahead of me and deposited a few drops of the lure on a bush there.

When the first group of deer came out into the field, they began to graze, then it was obvious when one doe caught the scent. Her head jerked up, nose in the air, then she turned and began walking toward what she smelled. She came to within 10 yards of my position, something that has never happened before when I’ve been in that spot and that’s often. She and the other deer stayed in that area, often looking around as if to try to spot the deer that left the scent they were inhaling.

When I left the woods, just before dark, there was the most brilliant red streaked sunset I’ve seen in many a day and I thanked God that I had the eyes to see it and the good sense to be out there enjoying not only the scenery but deer nearly walking over me.

Archers are mainly concentrated around feeding areas for this and the next two weeks: apple trees, cornfields, grain fields, acorn ridges, wild grape hotspots and so on. But the stirrings of the rut will come in as the month of October wanes. Bucks, of course, are ready to proceed with this breeding business before does are fully in estrus. So bucks chasing does all over the woods is a common sight in the last half of this month.

Archers on watch are likely to have a shot at a buck they haven’t seen in the area before because bucks are patrolling larger and larger territories seeking ready does. One of the signs that hunters look for now are the rubs that bucks have made on trees as they rubbed off the itchy velvet.

Bucks create meeting spots with does by scraping away leaves down to the bare earth and depositing their scent in it. Does are drawn to this perfume and will dally around the scrape until the buck shows up. As the season goes on, many post their stand in the proximity of a fresh scrape.

Fresh scrapes are marked by deer tracks right in the middle of the scrape and a small branch that hovers over the scrape on which a buck rubs his antlers, leaving scent there as well.

Just being in the woods and watching this centuries-old ritual carried out is a great experience.

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