Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 35

it an instinctive or deliberate response?
Only whitetails know for sure.
What's more important is following
up any shot taken. Watch that departing
deer - with binoculars, if you have them
- as long as you can. Then wait at least
30 minutes - even if you see the deer fall
- before going to the spot where the deer
was hit with your shot. It's the best way
to confi rm if your round/arrow struck the
deer. Look for hair and blood. Remember,
too, some deer bleed internally; that's why
looking for hair is so important.
NO MAN'S LAND
Whenever hunting pressure picks up
in the big woods, deer often change their
daily routines, particularly their hangouts.
Mountain heads, steep rocky slopes, large
woodland swamps and laurel thickets
along busy interstate highways all become
potential hideouts. Those big boys you
sometimes see at a distance cruising
through your bowhunting areas during the
rut often head to these tougher-to-reach
areas as the orange army heads afi eld on
the rifl e-season opener. It's a fi rst-class
disappearing act.
Few woodland intrusions cause as
much widespread and sustained disruption
as the rifl e-season opener. And that's
why those older big bucks, now making
up a sizeable portion of Pennsylvania's
deer herd, employ countermeasures. It
used to be older does - veterans of several
hunting seasons - and a handful of big
bucks were the savvy ones.
But that's changed.
For most mature bucks, the opener no
longer is their fi rst prime-time rodeo. That
changed a couple years after the startup of
antler restrictions, prior to which a majority
of antlered bucks were 1½ years old.
Such deer just weren't as experienced and
didn't know the landscape like today's
JANUARY 2024
bucks. Most had been on their own for
only several months.
Now, more than 50% of antlered bucks
are at least 2½ years old or older, know
their home range intimately and have
experienced the blitz of rifl e-season pressure.
That's why they head into swamps
and onto laurel-choked ridges when safe
passage to their bedding areas requires
more than detouring around a bowhunter
in a tree stand.
Still-hunting and snow tracking after
the rifl e opener will help sort out where
some of these buck bunkers are. Usually,
they're hard to reach and well off the
beaten path - no man's land.
Sometimes you'll stumble into one,
just catching a glimpse of the exiting
buck. Don't throw a shot after it. Instead,
wait for the next high-pressure Saturday -
even if it's in next year's rifl e season - to
set up and ambush the buck on its return.
Situate yourself downwind and plan
to be there before the buck, reaching its
hideout on a route that won't parallel the
buck's approach. It's often a guess. Figure
that buck will be moving away from hunting
pressure facing the wind.
Then hope you're right.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
While it's true whitetails prefer to
munch on milder white-oak-group acorns
(white, chestnut and saw-toothed), in
Pennsylvania's recent warm autumns,
most have fallen by mid-October.
After that, it's anybody's guess where
deer are feeding.
Nearby cornfi elds, apple trees and a
variety of other acorns will draw them.
In lean acorn years, particularly when
May frosts stunt annual white-oak acorn
development, farm-country whitetails
come to corn sooner; in the big woods,
the draw might be beechnuts.
35
Jacob Dingel

Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024

Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - Cover1
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - Cover2
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 2
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 3
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 4
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 5
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 6
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - 7
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Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - Cover3
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2024 - Cover4
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