Far Afield
When bucks are in 'The Lull'
With Oak Duke

It seems like each and every whitetail archery season, bowhunters report a lull, or slow time when activity and deer sightings drop off.

It's significant because some archers lose their confidence, quit hunting, think they are doing something wrong, because they don't see the deer they were accustomed too seeing during late summer.

What's going on?

Much of the world of the whitetail deer is still hidden and mysterious to all of us, even though unbelievable amounts of money, time, and technology has been thrown his way.

For most bowhunters, the beginning of the archery season always holds great promise.

Early stands show typically increasing whitetail activity; rubs on the side of saplings, scrapes pawed up next to dense woods in the corners of fields and deer on the move are becoming more and more evident.

Scars on small trees begin appearing like mushrooms overnight.

Bark is peeled off by newly polished antlers.

All of a sudden the rubs are there, white and shiny, showing us the inner core of the tree, the living part, the cambium layer where the sapling is truly alive.

And just yesterday, those white scars were safely wrapped in tree armor, tight as bark.

And we see whitetails on the move at dusk and dawn.

Then, one day, it seems so quiet.

Too quiet.

Like someone blew the whistle.

Half time.

Timeout.

All the players left the field.

Bow hunters are spectators, sitting on the sideline, waiting for the second half to start, looking around, and driven by frustration, moving too much.

And when the next day is like the last, and each slow day grows into a string of action-starved time.

Our patience is tested.

And if we didn't know better, we would think it's all over.

And with so many other pressures and desires going on in other aspects of our lives, those final quickly shortening days of late October and November have precious little daylight.

We can't do it all. Leaves fall quickly. Bow hunters lose heart. Sleep in.

Wait until the weekend.

Action slows down during archery season, as it always does, and the famous "October Lull" sets in.

The Rut is usually viewed by hunters as that time when the bucks are chasing does. The "running time," the Peak of the Rut that exciting time when we have the best chance for the whitetail of our dreams. And he'll come grunting through the thorn brush and thorn apple like a bull, and appearing foolish compared to the stealthy critter of a month earlier.

The evidence of the impending rut, or breeding time for whitetails, may vary a few days from ridge to ridge.

On your ridge, that visual evidence of the rut may be one week, but on my favorite ridge, it may be the next.

But what about "The Lull?" What is it?

A few seasons ago I observed, from 20-feet up in a pine tree, an interesting phenomenon - a pattern of behavior, I never seen before, recognized or labeled, read about, or even discussed.

"The Lull" was just about to end, thank goodness.

From my dawn tree stand, I heard a buck grunting (which sounds as if the buck had hiccups, or a tree creaking in the wind) of a rutting buck about 30 yards, in a group of small pine trees.

I watched a small doe move past my stand into the group of pines where the buck was located. And then she hopped out with the buck grunting behind her.

But he followed her for only about 50 yards, and then went back to his clump of pine trees. Every once in a while, 10 minutes or so, I'd hear him grunt again.

Another group of does moved down from the steep ridge above, and he repeated his behavior. He scent checked them, and moved right back into his little "fort" in the clump of pines. Those does were "shagged" by another small buck. That buck quit, and turned around and went back to his "fort."

I saw that buck come down to a crab apple, following doe, then he went back to his spot.

And maybe that's what happens when there is the "Lull." The bucks are not moving, but are setting up in their favorite places in order to intercept doe movement. And they wait, actually "on stand," in very much the same way that we do.

Seems like wild whitetail bucks actually go through a phase of inactivity by simply staying in one spot and not moving as a prelude to the rut.

The autumn breeding cycle of the whitetail buck is like shooting a bow. The Pre-rut activity is like drawing the bow, "The Lull," just before the deer start running, is like aiming, and the Rut is the release.

Oak Duke, publisher of the Wellsville Daily Reporter and the Sunday Spectator, writes regularly on the outdoors.