Sep 10, 2016 4 min read

It was a tough decision to make that day. The Steelers were playing Cincinnati but it was October and archery season was also calling me to the woods.

I had watched a good buck back in September but hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since. The decision was actually not all that tough. After all, the game story would appear in the Observer-Reporter later but whether or not the buck in question would be seen again before dark was the question.

I headed for my stand. That’s the way it was for us back then.

My wife, Eileen, and I would spend hours watching the deer whenever we had a chance. Our watching paid of dividends later during the hunting season.

Sighting in the rifle and shooting the bow are part of the pre-season workout. I have already started changing from groundhog loads to those used for deer. It is not too early.

For example, I occasionally carry a 6mm when deer hunting and load it with 70-grain bullets for groundhogs and 87-grain bullets for deer. It’s time to load the heavier loads.

I found out a long time ago while hunting the mountains of McKean County that deer, travel uphill the same as we do. Find a saddle or an easy way up and that’s the way the deer will travel.

A gentle saddle will be a good place to sit and watch as the other hunters move in the low lands. The same is true here in Washington and Greene counties. Our hills might not be as high and hold more undergrowth but still the deer travel the path of least resistance.

Since we have fields, find a saddle with a narrowing of the field where the deer when disturbed have less clearing to cross and you have found a hotspot. They might feed in those same fields when at ease, but they avoid them when all those orange-clad people are out in their bailiwick.

Watch a single doe, and if it’s traveling with another deer, it will keep looking at it. The same if there is a person behind it. Watch where she is watching it just may be the buck you are looking for.

I was once hunting a dairy farm and noticed all the heifers crowded in one corner of the pasture.

Something at the far end of the fenced in field had disturbed them. A study of that field revealed a large 10-point buck. The heifers gave him away.

While this season for archers is early in Wildlife Management Unit 2-B this year, the hot time to hunt is still early- to mid-November. Some hunters still believe the rut – breeding season – is in October but in reality the peak of the rut is in mid-November. The closer one hunts to this date, the better their chance of success.

I learned a long time ago when watching deer in November that I would frequently spot big bucks I hadn’t seen on that farm before. They might have been nocturnal or lived on a neighboring farm during most of the year but had become more active at breeding time and had expanded their range. It is during the rut they are most vulnerable and make mistakes.

By the end of October, the scrapes found on ridges will be active ones and not those early season scrapes that are made and then forgotten.

The tracks in the scrape can fool the observer because doe that are around might leave their footprints in the bare ground also. Rub trees may indicate a buck is present and can tell the hunter some ideas of its size but he might never return to it.

A small buck will seldom, if ever rub a big tree, but a large buck will rub both small and large trees. Remember, a large tree indicates a large buck.

That is body size but not necessarily rack size. Eileen once shot a huge-sized deer with a short heavy rack that was nothing to write about. With it unseen by her then was a large-racked, small-bodied deer.

I remember telling her she shot the wrong one.

If you worry about the deer smelling human urine near your hideouts, more than one time I have relieved myself in a spot I could see from my stand and watched deer come up to that exact spot and take a whiff.

It didn’t bother them at all they went on about their business of feeding. While not an exact science experiment I don’t think they pay any attention to human urine on the ground. If you believe me, just leave the bottle at home.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.