Early rut action?

Young bucks spar over a scrape

12/21/2015

      I am seeing a lot of scrapes in our woods and have been since late November. I have eight cameras spread around the property, mostly all watching active scrapes.  What I find interesting is that what I see mostly working these scrapes is one and two year old bucks. The occasional buck that appears three years old will breeze by but almost never do I see an older buck working a scrape, especially at this point.
       We also saw several small bucks pushing does on a greenfield Saturday afternoon.  What we witnessed seemed more like a mid January day than a mid December day.  There is little doubt that much of this has to do with the younger age structure of bucks are working to establish the pecking order of their generation.  The older bucks are well suited in their dominance and they will stay out of the fray until the action really heats up.
        I tend not to believe that the actual rut varies much from year to year.  Sometimes I, as a hunter, get a clearer look at it than in other years, based on the days I get to hunt and the weather that greets me on those days.  What I do know is different this year is that the scrapes appeared early in the fall and most have been tended regularly since then.  I did not see that last season.  

Scrape action

A buck for Andrew

Cabin weekend

Alexander, a voracious reader

12/21/2015

     The cool front that brought a brief but welcome change in temperature to south Alabama was well timed for our family.  In what has become a tradition for us, we all spend a night at our little cabin a few days before Christmas.  We settled in on Friday night and kept warm by a big campfire, listening to Christmas carols streaming on Pandora.  Andrew was dressed in his Auburn jersey and football pants and retreated from the heat of the fire to throw and catch the football deep into the evening.  My oldest, Alexander, stayed glued to his book as usual.  He is the intellectual of the crowd and will hopefully invent something great one day so we can all retire. (Wouldn't that be nice!)  

Campfire at the cabin

      At daybreak Saturday morning, Andrew and I headed out through the frosty hardwoods for a little squirrel hunting.  He dropped three in three shots with his single shot 410 before he started talking about the bacon that he was sure was being cooked by his mother and brother back at the cabin.  So an hour into our hunt, we were on the way back to camp. 

Andrew and his morning's harvest

       Alexander and my wife, Daphne, returned to town for the evening and left Andrew and I to enjoy one more night at the cabin.  For the afternoon we planned to sit in a stand and hope for a deer to show that might become Andrew's first deer.        

Daphne and Andrew preparing breakfast

      At seven years old Andrew had just learned to ride a bike earlier in the week.  It is not that he couldn't learn, but we had not pressed him or helped him enough to catch on until now.  He was instantly hooked on his new skill and wanted to ride his bike to the stand as I followed along behind him on foot.  

Biking to the stand

     We crawled into our largest shooting house stand on our largest greenfield around 3pm.  It would be coolest Saturday afternoon of December and the deer began to come out soon after we arrived.  It was a far cry for the warm afternoons we had endured on recent hunts, swatting mosquitoes in our shirt sleeves.  I knew this hunt would be far more productive and Andrew fed off my excitement and I off of his.
       We watched a half dozen does feed in the patch and they were joined by several spikes, a four point and a six point.  As fate would have it, the bucks were all at the far side of the field, a good 200 yard shot.  And so we waited patiently.

       Finally two of the bucks began to move closer and closer to our end until one got to within 125 yards.  Andrew steadied the .243 and began to ready himself for a shot.  But the buck would not turn broadside and give him the shot that he wanted.  And so we waited patiently.  

      About fifteen minutes until dark a larger buck, a 7 point that would weigh 180 pounds, charged out of the pine thicket and into the green field.  Andrew immediately recognized his larger size and turned his focus onto this newcomer.  

       The buck stopped and offered a 125 yard, broadside shot and Andrew took it.  At the shot the buck lurched forward and I knew he was hit.  He ran farther into the field, stopped, and then fell over.  Andrew proclaimed, "I got my first buck!"  

        We watched a few minutes to make certain the buck was down and then we headed out to see him.  Andrew stopped twice on the walk to give me a big hug and say "thank you."  Times like those will really melt your heart.  

         After a round of pictures we got the truck and took the buck back to camp to field dress him. We spent the evening grilling supper and staying warm by the campfire, reliving the hunt over and over as the buck hung on the pole nearby.  

Andrew's first deer, a 180 lb. 7 point.