In the Outdoors
A different way to look at bucks and the whitetail internet
With Oak Duke

Oak Duke is editor of The Wellsville Daily Reporter and writes regularly on the outdoors.

At the risk of being unorthodox - heck, downright heretical, the following pronouncement ought to get me, if not excommunicated from "The Traditional School of Whitetail Understanding," at least sanctioned.

But I've had a flag or two thrown on me before.

So anyway, you've been warned. Read no further, unless you have broad shoulders and can take a punch. Because once you have read the following postulate, you may very well be always and forever tainted, always have doubt, even question what you see, when you see a buck or the sign of his passing.

There are dangers in going against traditional dogma and doctrine. Not the least of which, ridicule and shame greet the heretic. And none of us like to be laughed at by the group, especially hunting buddies at camp or at the archery range.

But the weight of evidence, empirical and experiential has led me to conclude that: bachelor buck groups never break up.

The buck group expands

and contracts, experiences times of seeming dissolution, but for all intents and purposes, one could say, all the time, remain demonstrably intact.

Now all avid deer hunters and serious whitetail researchers would agree that most of the calendar year, antlered bucks over one and a half years of age are in bachelor groups. So in that light, I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with "The Traditional School of Whitetail Understanding."

To define it even further, the common understanding would say that whitetail bucks form a bachelor group after the rut and these bucks hang together, through the winter, the spring, the summer, the early fall, and then break up.

So, most of the year, except for a month or so, bucks appear together as a unit.

And there seems to be different bachelor groups, some comprised of mature (two and a half year-olds and up) and immature (one and a half year-olds) on ranges with a relatively dense population of deer. Then therefore there may in fact be two bachelor groups or male units moving around separately in the same range.

And we may also conclude that whitetails are extreme social creatures, the literal definition of a herd animal. Yet, common understanding by hunters has it that bucks are solitary. The vast majority of whitetail literature speaks about "a buck made a scrape," or "a buck made a rub," or when setting up a stand it is "for a buck." And the emphasis is on "a buck" and not "the bucks in the area."

Prelude to the Pre-rut: Early in the archery season, here in the Northeast, bachelor groups are the rule. That is one reason why it is either "feast or famine" out there on stand. Bucks are hanging together and moving together, en masse, checking out various feeding areas and doe concentrations. And this unit may be wide at times, or at others, more concentrated.

Now as the days in fall shorten and photo-periodicity begins to work its hormonal magic, our buck units (bachelor groups) begin to grow, expand in size. That is, the number of deer doesn't necessarily

increase in the unit, just the space between the individuals.

Now if we look at the individual bucks, as we always do, their antlers have hardened, their coats are heavy and dark, their musculature makes them seem like they are on steroids. And grooming and licking is replaced with sparring and antler testing.

But as the days tick on toward the peak of the rut and the "running time," bucks begin to chase each other off more and more. Some seem to be pals and they hang together even during the rut. But others, increase the distance between each other. And it is precisely here that common understanding has pounded the pulpit of orthodoxy and pronounced, "The bachelor groups have broken up."

But have they?

What are most rubs and scrapes, if not communication tools between bucks? Now granted, there are different categories of rubs and scrapes. Some rubs are made by bucks early in the season, stripping off their velvet. They seem to take pleasure and enjoy eating the bloody velvet and the bark. And there are times when a buck drives his tines deep into a sapling as if it was an enemy. But most of the time, bucks rub and leave their scent for the other bucks to read.

We may see a number of rubs in a corner of a field, or thick patch of small maple saplings and common wisdom would have us think, "ah, a buck has been working this patch."

But to deer, it must be much more than only the sign of another deer's passing, more than just a slash on a tree. Buck rubs must be complex chemical, olfactory "message boards" on the internet or like cork community bulletin boards in a grocery store, where everyone pins up notes to each other, announcing what's for sale and what they want.

"Sign post rubs" or "perennial rubs" those trees or posts that bucks hit year after year are great examples of this behavior. And some scrapes deemed "primary scrapes" are opened up in the same spot, year after year.

Bucks can not stand to physically be around many of the members of their bachelor group during the rut, but since they are herd animals, they only expand the distance between each other and communicate, not through grooming, but at this time by "message boards" - rubs and scrapes, the whitetail olfactory internet.

And we see a buck and assume it is alone because the physical space between it and the rest of its companions in the bachelor group are out of our immediate perception. It's "A" buck and probably looking for a doe."

But maybe we would be more accurate, but then considered heretical, if we assumed, when we saw a buck that there are undoubtedly others around. And the buck was relating either in a negative or positive way to a one of his "bro's" in his posse.

And then we may even say to ourselves, "There's one, get ready, they are here."