Where do these bucks hide during hunting season!

BSK

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Great video!

But on my place, I don't think they have to hide very well. While hunting, we see a shockingly low percentage of the bucks we've photographed on the place. I guess we just suck at hunting them!
 

megalomaniac

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I'm not so sure bucks 'hide', as in LOOK for a hiding place... but rather by default get pushed to an area they feel secure and don't encounter anything they deem a threat. They stay there until they get pushed out (by humans, other deer, other animals, etc) and stay in a new spot until they get pushed out from there. No reason to leave what had become their safe space except to search for a mate if there is adequate food, water, and comfort available.
 

Ski

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I'm not so sure bucks 'hide', as in LOOK for a hiding place... but rather by default get pushed to an area they feel secure and don't encounter anything they deem a threat. They stay there until they get pushed out (by humans, other deer, other animals, etc) and stay in a new spot until they get pushed out from there. No reason to leave what had become their safe space except to search for a mate if there is adequate food, water, and comfort available.

That pretty much sums up the way I see it, too.

IMO there are two types of bucks. Those who live where I'm hunting and those who do not. Knowing the difference is easy. If he's showing up on cam all the time during daylight and dark then he's living very, very nearby. If he's only on cam every so often and usually at night, then he lives somewhere else and you caught him passing through.

Killing a buck that doesn't live where you're hunting is akin to buying a winning raffle ticket. Sure it can happen. The odds are stacked heavily against you but the sun shines on a dog's @$$ every once in awhile. On the flip, killing a buck that lives where you hunt should be fairly easy.....or at least as easy as killing a big buck can be. The trick is recognizing the difference and accepting it. If the buck isn't living where you're hunting, every time you hunt you are adding another pile of human pressure to the spot. It can quickly become a downward spiral.
 

BSK

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Killing a buck that doesn't live where you're hunting is akin to buying a winning raffle ticket. Sure it can happen. The odds are stacked heavily against you but the sun shines on a dog's @$$ every once in awhile. On the flip, killing a buck that lives where you hunt should be fairly easy.....or at least as easy as killing a big buck can be. The trick is recognizing the difference and accepting it.
Yeah, that's the excuse I'm going to use! Much better than "we suck at hunting older bucks!" We have very, very few older bucks that live on our place full-time. Being a doe Mecca, I may only get 4-6 bucks living on our place in summer, and most are yearlings. All the old guys only show up for the rut, and 95% of their pictures will be at night. Where do they actually live? I have no idea, but not on my place!
 

Ski

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We have very, very few older bucks that live on our place full-time. Being a doe Mecca, I may only get 4-6 bucks living on our place in summer, and most are yearlings. All the old guys only show up for the rut

For me that right there is the conundrum of habitat management. Too many does and no bucks except the ones who travel through during rut, but since they're coming from somewhere else I don't get to see them until after dark. Too little does then I have plenty bucks all year except for deer season because they leave to go find does! It's like trying to put together a puzzle where the picture is always changing.
 

BSK

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It's like trying to put together a puzzle where the picture is always changing.
Oh, you said a mouthful there! I've got 35 years of detailed data from a single property and I'm still trying to figure out the deer's ever-changing patterns. Then change the habitat and all the patterns you've been figuring out change once again.
 

Headhunter

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That pretty much sums up the way I see it, too.

IMO there are two types of bucks. Those who live where I'm hunting and those who do not. Knowing the difference is easy. If he's showing up on cam all the time during daylight and dark then he's living very, very nearby. If he's only on cam every so often and usually at night, then he lives somewhere else and you caught him passing through.

Killing a buck that doesn't live where you're hunting is akin to buying a winning raffle ticket. Sure it can happen. The odds are stacked heavily against you but the sun shines on a dog's @$$ every once in awhile. On the flip, killing a buck that lives where you hunt should be fairly easy.....or at least as easy as killing a big buck can be. The trick is recognizing the difference and accepting it. If the buck isn't living where you're hunting, every time you hunt you are adding another pile of human pressure to the spot. It can quickly become a downward spiral.
I disagree, well at least during the rut. For the most part, bucks killed during the rut, especially the mature bucks, are not killed on their "home range", but out looking for does. So your chances of killing a buck that does NOT "live" where you hunt are much greater than killing a buck that "lives" where you hunt.
 

Ski

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I disagree, well at least during the rut. For the most part, bucks killed during the rut, especially the mature bucks, are not killed on their "home range", but out looking for does. So your chances of killing a buck that does NOT "live" where you hunt are much greater than killing a buck that "lives" where you hunt.

If you're hunting where the does live then yes, your logic could be partially correct. I say partially because every buck in the area will be scent checking does so your odds of seeing one particular buck are likely no higher than seeing a random buck.

But if you're hunting where a buck lives, you're not likely to see many deer except the buck who lives there. And when he's home you'll see him everywhere.

That said, it's a bit more complex because a given buck will have a particular home range that spans several square miles. By maturity he has already explored the entire area and decided which parameters to stay within. Inside that range he will have many, many cores, smaller areas that he'll live in for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. He shifts around from core to core for various reasons such as food/browse, looking for girls, evading danger, etc. He may have dozens of cores inside that range. Furthermore, other bucks' ranges overlap his and they have some of their own cores inside his home range. Also inside that range will be many individual/unrelated doe family groups. One of the very few seemingly concrete patterns I've noted over the years is that while two or more mature bucks may have overlapping home ranges and cores, they almost never inhabit a core at the same time during fall. They actually seem to purposely avoid it, and whenever they can't avoid it one of the two has to assert dominance by show of force or sometimes fighting. But for the most part only one mature buck will be living inside one core area at any given time.

So when I say a buck lives in a spot, I don't mean he's there 365. He's there only sometimes, and only for a finite amount of time. Like Mega pointed out he's always being pushed out by something, so he's constantly on the move. But for the time he's comfy & well fed & safe, he'll stay. That's his current home. And that's where I hunt & kill him. It's most generally far removed from where I would expect to see a doe. Bucks only like being around does to breed them. And contrary to popular belief, a buck doesn't spend 24/7 searching for does until rut is over. A mature buck knows where the does are, when they'll be hot, and that's when he travels to her or else she comes to him. Otherwise he keeps to himself.
 

Headhunter

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I agree, bucks and does will tend to areas where they don't get bothered and much of the time may not move until pressured to move regardless of what their "home area" is.

My reply is, why do so many bucks get killed that you hear any or some of the following:

we have never seen that buck,
we never got a trail cam pic of that buck,
we don't know where that buck came from,
for the most part the neighboring hunters kill the bucks I get on camera,
we had a great buck on camera or a several bucks on camera, but we never see them during the rut,
ETC

During the rut, I believe you are way more than likely to kill a buck that "lives" somewhere other than you are hunting.

Myself and several friends I know almost prefer to not see any bucks using the area we actually hunt (so long there are good bucks in the area in general)
before the rut (which is basically the month of November) because we believe a buck is more likely to show up from a neighboring property than to actually see the buck that "lives" where we hunt. Those that use cameras that I know, basically discount the bucks they get on camera before the end of October to November.
 

Ski

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why do so many bucks get killed that you hear any or some of the following:

we have never seen that buck,
we never got a trail cam pic of that buck,
we don't know where that buck came from,
for the most part the neighboring hunters kill the bucks I get on camera,
we had a great buck on camera or a several bucks on camera, but we never see them during the rut,

Here's some food for thought. It's often said 10% of hunters kill 90% of big bucks. That means 10% of big bucks are being killed on accident by people who don't actually know how or why. They just happened to be at the right place at right time. But who do you reckon says all the stuff you listed, the 90% or the 10%?

During the rut, I believe you are way more than likely to kill a buck that "lives" somewhere other than you are hunting.

That only makes sense if you assume a buck lives only in one spot. Picture yourself as the man in a polygamist compound. There may be three or four houses and each house is home to one or more women and their children. You are free to roam from house to house as you please, breeding with whichever woman is hot & ready, eating dinner wherever it's best that particular night. When you're exhausted and stressed you go hang out by yourself in the barn. Regardless of where inside that compound you're at, whichever woman you're breeding, you're at home. It's all your home.

That compound is a mature buck's home range, and each of those houses and the barn are his core areas. If you were going to hunt him, how would you approach so that you could get in and get it done without him knowing you're there, and without making a big disturbance inside the compound? If you try hiding inside one of the houses the women & kids will bust you for sure. If you try climbing a tree in the yard to catch him coming & going then you might have to wait a very long long time before he uses that path and chances are very good one of the women or kids using it will bust you before you ever see him. And you can't hunt him at the dinner table without disrupting everything. If you were smart you'd do your due diligence and identify the barn. Find the path where all the paths coming from each house converge to lead to that barn. Women & kids don't go to the barn. Only he does. And he goes there pretty much after every stint he spends with one of the women & kids to regroup & rest so he can go see another woman & kids. Hunting him inside that barn or on the path to it is your best chance at killing him while his guard is down and no one else around to pick you out. If you know that he's currently at one of the houses then you've got a very, very good idea where he'll be headed when he leaves. Be there before he gets there.

I know that's a strange analogy but it paints a picture. That's basically how I see the deer woods and how I target specific mature bucks with a decent degree of success. When I kill a buck it's not an accident and it's not random. I was specifically hunting him. I did my homework and familiarized myself with his personality & tendencies. When I step foot in the woods I do so with a degree of confidence that I'll be killing that particular buck on that day. It doesn't always work. Actually it doesn't work more often than it does. But it works often enough to keep me coming back for more.

Myself and several friends I know almost prefer to not see any bucks using the area we actually hunt (so long there are good bucks in the area in general)
before the rut (which is basically the month of November) because we believe a buck is more likely to show up from a neighboring property than to actually see the buck that "lives" where we hunt. Those that use cameras that I know, basically discount the bucks they get on camera before the end of October to November.

Man I don't discount anything! It's all pieces of a puzzle and only when all pieces are present & put in their respective place can you see the whole picture. Hunting mature bucks is one heck of a puzzle. That's why we're so interested in it I guess. There's always a problem to solve. We could debate all day long where a buck travels & when but we'd never get anywhere because every buck is different. The longer I hunt & the more I learn about deer, the more I focus on individual bucks because it's easier learning one deer's behavior than it is grouping them all together. You'd be better off herding cats. That's how individual they are.
 

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