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Aside from a rifle, perhaps the best thing a deer hunter can pack with them into the woods for the Nov. 28 season opener is their lunch.
Duane Diefenbach, Ph.D., a Penn State professor, deer researcher and leader of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, has studied deer movement extensively with the use of GPS collars. He said the increase of human activity in the woods prior to deer season and hunter pressure during the season forces deer to whittle down their core range from a square mile to 100 acres.
The increase in activity also causes deer to restrict their movements.
Diefenbach said bucks typically will lay low in the morning, reaching their bedding areas by 4 or 5 a.m., and won’t begin moving again until the afternoon during rifle season.
“Usually you feel like in midday you’re not seeing anything, but if you want to increase your chances, stick it out,” he said. “If you want to find a buck on the move, eat your lunch in your treestand.”
And when it comes to older, larger bucks, finding them on the move or even at all is more difficult.
While archery hunters pattern buck movement during the rut, Diefenbach said those patterns are meaningless during rifle season when deer are reacting solely to hunting pressure. The increase of human activity in the woods during bear season and even the weekend before opening day when hunters are working on their treestands triggers the reclusive behavior of deer. By opening day, they’ve already adjusted their movements in response to the increase in pressure.
Those deer that move into a spot where they aren’t disturbed are the ones that survive to next year, and they will make a habit of returning to those same overlooked locations.
“A lot of deer move to those spots at 4 or 5 a.m. You’re not going to beat them there,” Diefenbach said. “How do you deal with that? I don’t know except for drives.
“Hunters have to work cooperatively to kick deer out of those hiding spots.”
The home range of an individual deer, particular bucks, expands and contracts several times throughout the fall. Understanding those patterns could provide a good indicator of what to expect during the rifle season.
A buck that’s spotted in a particular area in September is likely in its core home range of a square mile, Diefenbach said. “Late October and early November, who knows? During the rut a buck’s home range will greatly increase.”
And after the rut?
“They’ll go back to those areas where they’re most familiar,” Diefenbach said.
So hunters are basically left with two choices when it comes to the rifle season. They can work together and put on drives to get deer moving in the morning, or they can enjoy lunch in their treestand and wait for deer to move on their own at midday.
And while Diefenbach has a pretty good idea of how deer will react to the increase in hunting pressure during rifle season, he said there’s still plenty more to learn.
“On some of the collared deer we’re following we’re getting 2,500 to 3,000 locations a year. If we really want to understand how things like habitat and weather influence deer movement, we need to get locations every 15 minutes to a half-hour,” Diefenbach said. “Then we’ll have the data to evaluate how this affects deer behavior. Right now I can follow every three hours for three years. When the technology is better 5 to 10 years from now, we’ll be able to follow deer every 15 minutes for three years.”
Stay tuned.