In the Outdoors
The Rut: Washed down the tubes
With Oak Duke

The final week of the Southern Zone archery season in New York state was theoretically the time to be in the woods, according to most of the Rut prognosticators, those of us who predict the whitetail breeding peak and therefore diurnal (daytime) movement.

But the weather forecasters had predicted another week of milder than average temperatures along with nearly constant rain every day except for the final day, the day before the regular firearms season opened on Saturday.

Dreams of success with a bow and arrow in the deer woods were quickly being defeated by Mother Nature in her liquid form.

And the final week proved the weather forecasters right and those of us who try to time the whitetail rut, left in the mud; shaking our heads in disbelief and then shaking our fists at the dreary, drizzly clouds.

October had been a washout in the archery woods in New York and northern Pennsylvania. The final precipitation tallies from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that indeed, New York and the entire northeast had an unbelievable record rainfall total in October, literally washing away the old records. The average rainfall for the Northeast is about 80 mm in October. We almost hit 250 mm.

And early tallies on November totals through the middle of the month showed the continued, near constant deluge.

There were three main reasons why the 2006 New York archery season was all but washed away.

One, is that access to the more remote ridgetops and steep hollows was all but denied by mud, slipping and sliding, and treads caked with packed hardpan.

But it wasn't just the remote areas that were tough to get to with a vehicle.

Many of the flat and more benign trails leading to the hunting camp or tree stand were so water-logged, and swampy that they seemed more suitable for a raft of woodies and some wingshooting than a quiet stalk through the deer woods.

And if you notice that there is more standing corn this year, thanks to the farmers, you are right.

Those tractors and farm implements in the middle of the fields that have been there for weeks alongside the corn stalks are there because the soil is still too super-saturated to hold up the big wheels.

And there are more than a few woods roads that have been torn up from this past deer season, and the eroded scars through the topsoil down to the subsoil, hardpan and rock. And remember it takes 500 years to build up one inch of topsoil.

And two, my personal preference is not to hunt during bow season when it's raining. And I know it is a great time to hunt. The deer are moving. We can move quietly though the woods and field edges. But shooting a deer is only part-way there during archery season. It is difficult enough to track a deer under optimal conditions. Rain quickly washes away a bloodtrail and sometimes it all comes down to a speck or two on the leaves.

And three, the breeding scent of the whitetail deer was washed away.

And it is obvious that many whitetail bucks were not in a normal breeding mode during the rut in 2006 when their tarsal glands were checked. Oak Duke, publisher of the Wellsville Daily Reporter, is the author of two hunting books and a history book of Allegany County. His column, In the Outdoors, appears regularly in the Wellsville Daily Reporter and several other publications in two states.