Hunting Big Bucks: Some Observations and Differing Experiences from Two Wildlife Biologists

By Chuck Hulsey, Regional Wildlife Biologist, Region D, Strong I grew up deer hunting with family and friends.  There were no great deer hunters in my group.  As the oldest of eight, my dad was a teen during the Great Depression and lived in rural Arkansas and Oklahoma. He hunted more for food than sport. There certainly wasn’t any such thing as going to deer camp in those days. Fox squirrels and jack rabbits were the game. World events resulted in an invitation to participate in the Second World War. Marriage and a move to suburban Massachusetts meant he did not hunt again until reaching middle age and a move to Maine. Around age 11, I started to hound him into taking me hunting. After successfully completing a hunter safety course at the Windham Road and Gun Club (required by dad, not by law), I was introduced to squirrel hunting with a .22 single shot Remington rifle, which he bought for his younger brothers circa 1939.  I still have that rifle. Together we slowly graduated to deer hunting which was new to him.  At first, he hunted with a rifle borrowed from a co-worker. In time we started to deer hunt with friends from our church. My older brother began joining us after return from college but he was new to hunting as well. The people I deer hunted with for 35 years were mediocre to fair deer hunters. Many years nobody tagged a deer.  The effort was always good, but nobody set a blistering pace.  I relied mostly on being at the right place at the right me. So, I sat a lot, and this was before lures and calls were used.  I got a deer about once every six years, but nothing anyone would ever care to put on a wall. Nobody in my company ever took a trophy buck. But all were so law abiding, and ethical, that a game warden could share a truck with the Maytag Repair Man, if everyone else had same values. Considering my eventual career path, all those experiences were gold. I only bird hunt now but I’ve been collecting biological data from the deer harvest for a long time.  Every November I chase these data via deer hunters in camp, at home, at game registration stations, at meat processors, and just randomly at travel stops. It is only my opinion, but my take is that the skill and methods of most deer hunters today closely mirror those described of my friends and family. Further, I think only a very few hunters have the skill and perseverance to legally harvest a trophy buck on a frequent basis. Why?  Because it is so darned hard to do. In college at the University of Maine I made friends with a fellow wildlife student who was and is an avid deer hunter.  Mark Scott is from Rutland, Vermont. Today he is the Wildlife Division Director for Vermont Department of Fish and Game.  After college he pursued a Master of Science degree at the University of Vermont, with the focus on habitat preferences of deer. His career has been with Vermont Department of Fish and Game, but he always hunts deer in both his home state and Maine. Mark is by far, the best deer hunter I’ve ever known. And though we have hunted ducks and birds together, I’ve never deer hunted with him.  In part because his dogged perseverance to the task frightens me somewhat. I can’t forget a late winter snowshoe hare hunting trip, in a steady rain, with temperatures hovering just above 32 degrees.  Mark stalked snowshoe hares, looking for small black circles in the brush.  Those are their eyes. I was looking for whole hares while he was looking for a single eye, maybe the size of a pea. On that day he killed three and I had nothing, and we were soaked.  Mark was lobbying to hunt another cover to get his last hare while I was so cold I could not even hold onto my car keys to unlock my car door. He got a bit mad when I said I was finished, and was perfectly content with nothing, and with his getting only three of the four allowed by law. This past November Mark and his son Doug stayed at my place for their deer hunting trip.  Both are only interested in hunting big bucks.  I directed them to places where they wouldn’t encounter many other deer hunters.  They didn’t meet anyone in the woods in the dozen days they hunted. Their style is to get in the woods early and follow a big buck no matter where it goes. They often separate and don’t quit until the end of legal time, or until successful. Take note that end of legal time often arrives when a great distance from the truck, so orienteering in the dark is a necessary skill. Even though they did not hunt where deer densities were high, they passed on quite a few deer.  Eventually both took a big buck, one just over 200 ponds and the other just under.  I asked Mark if he would share some of his experience and knowledge for hunting big bucks.  He graciously provided the following specifically for this article. [caption id="attachment_3313" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Mark Scott (left) with 191-pound buck and son Doug Scott (right) with 211-pound buck taken a week apart in the Bigelow and Avon areas.[/caption] Tips from Mark Scott for hunting older (larger) deer:

1. Don’t shoot the first deer you see, if it’s not the size you prefer.  “Once you squeeze the trigger, you most likely are all done hunting.”  Prepare yourself that sometimes you may not bag a deer that year.
2. Find time to hunt.  Some people get lucky and see a big deer during the first few trips to the woods.  Older deer are not as common; therefore, you need to find more time to spend in the woods.
3. Be prepared to hunt different areas.   A big buck leaves sign behind; scrapes, rubs.  Their hoof prints are bigger (longer and wider); Look for exposed soft dirt for this or in scrapes made by bucks; big bucks will rub small trees but when you find rubs look for tine marks higher on the tree being rubbed or on adjacent trees.
4. Find overlooked areas by local hunters, such as ridge tops, thick cut-over areas from tree re-growth, woods where you must cross a stream that most people will not want to walk across; softwood swamps.  Older deer get older by being seen less by hunters.  Occasionally an older deer spends time near a road, field or where people are more apt to go – but that is more the exception.
5. Concentrate your time in the woods along streams, breaks in the terrain and tree cover, such as where softwood trees abut hardwoods.  Spend less time in open easy-to- walk in woods.  Hunt all day – time spent back in camp or in your vehicle has cost you time to encounter a big deer.  11:00 am to 1:00 in the best time to be in remote woods being on stand or still hunting.  Older deer as the hunting season progresses will often bed shortly after sun-up, but generally get up about mid-day to walk around a bit before bedding again.

It was great to hear the nightly recaps from Mark and his son Doug.  They came back every night exhausted, sometimes wet, and usually a few complaints from Mark that he could no longer climb hills in the snow all day without paying a high price.  For me, I was glad to live vicariously through them, knowing my “hunting” the next day would be limited to driving a truck and looking for deer to sample.