The Mature Buck

Being a whitetail enthusiast, I could not live in an area without great whitetails. Fortunately, coming from a whitetail hunting family, I also inherited a great farm with neighbors who are mostly deer hunters as well. After a bit of lobbying, my neighbors and I instituted a polity of quality buck management--primarily, passing the younger bucks and letting them reach maturity. This has led us to several great buck spottings during the summer months and high expectations for the fall hunting season. While this has increased our odds collectively, closing the deal on a mature buck is still very difficult.

My neighbors and I all log many hours afield each year, sitting stands and glassing fields and food plots, yet we actually spot very few of these mature bucks during the season. This begs the same questions every year: "If they are being killed, why are we not hearing about it? Why are we not finding mature bucks that died of natural cause or predation? If they lived, why are we not seeing them? Where are they going during the season?"

Where Are They?

This is the biggest and most relevant question asked by deer hunters each season. Just because you go all season without spotting a mature buck in your area does not mean that they are not there--nor does it mean they have gone strictly nocturnal as many hunters have believed in the past. The proof has come from technology, namely GPS collars. Several bucks were captured and had GPS tracking collars attached. The collars reported the bucks' location every few minutes. At the end of the season all of the data was compiled and plotted on maps. This provided greater accuracy than similar tests that were performed in the past using radio collar technology.

Unfortunately for the hunters, that data has confirmed that it is very difficult to stereotype mature whitetail bucks. During the rut and times of heavy pressure, some bucks still roamed a wide swath, while others stayed local to the areas where the collars were placed on them when captured. This likely rings true with most dedicated whitetail hunters' experiences. Some deer can successfully be patterned, hunted and harvested. Others, even though the hunter has spent countless exhaustive hours scouting, both physically and electronically with trail cameras and the like, were harvested without being detected in the area. Whitetails are simply individuals and as such behave accordingly.

Not Seeing Them?

Assuming that a mature buck is in your area at least part of the time, should you be seeing him? The short answer is probably not. Most mature bucks got that way by having a preference for remaining nocturnal. A tendency toward remaining nocturnal is a natural behavior for older bucks, but it is also a learned behavior. Let's face it, the bucks that did not lean toward a nocturnal life at a young age ended up in the freezer before too many tines sprouted. This is proven in collared deer residing in areas where they were pressured less. These deer are as much as 25 percent less likely to become nocturnal by age three.

It is not just the bucks, though. Fawns learn behavior from their mothers that start them on a path. From there, it's personal experience that shapes a deer's behavior. As hunting pressure increases and maybe a less than well-aimed shot gives the buck an early education via a second chance, he quickly learns that things go bump in the night and boom during the light.