The moment we work for

The moment we work for

The first rubs showed up weeks ago. A few small trees along the edges of the trails had their bark peeled away, and fresh dirt started appearing beneath overhanging branches where bucks had opened scrapes. The velvet was gone from their antlers, and in the fields, young bucks that had spent the summer feeding together began pushing one another around. At first, those little sparring matches didn’t amount to much. One would lower his head, the other would push back, and a minute later they’d be feeding again.

As October winds down, the pushing gets harder. Bucks that tolerated one another a month ago aren’t nearly as agreeable. Scrapes get worked more often, new rubs show up, and deer begin traveling farther as they check for does. Before long, some of those encounters turn into serious fights. The bigger bucks get involved, and the stakes are considerably higher than they were during those harmless matches in September.

For a bowhunter, this is what we’ve been waiting for.

Think about how much of the year goes into preparing for a few weeks in the fall. There are stands to hang, trails to clear, cameras to check and countless hours spent trying to figure out where deer are moving. Some hunters plant food plots. Others spend their time studying bedding areas and the routes deer use to reach them. Then the season opens, and you begin putting in hours, often watching the same few deer or going entire sits without seeing much at all.

Meanwhile, there’s usually one buck that seems to have everything figured out.

Maybe you’ve gotten his picture a handful of times. He’s there after dark, then gone again before morning. You know he’s using the property, but that doesn’t mean you have much chance of seeing him from a stand. He doesn’t need to cross the food plot at 5 in the afternoon. He can stay close to his bedding area until the light is gone, take a different trail, or simply wait until there’s less activity around him.

A mature buck doesn’t get that way by making a habit of exposing himself.

But as breeding season approaches, even those deer begin taking chances. Bucks start covering ground in search of does, and some will travel through areas where nobody has ever seen them before. A buck that has avoided daylight movement for most of the season might suddenly cross an opening at 9 in the morning. Another might follow a doe past a stand he’s walked around all fall.

That’s the opportunity. Not that every mature buck suddenly forgets how to survive, but that for a short period, finding does becomes important enough to change how he behaves.

I’ve always believed some of the best bowhunting happens before the actual peak of breeding. When bucks are still searching, they’re moving. They may check several groups of does in a day, and every bit of ground they cover creates another chance for a hunter to encounter one.

Once a buck finds a receptive doe, things can get frustrating in a hurry. He may stay with her for an extended period, and if she spends the day bedded in a patch of cover or standing in the middle of a field, there’s not much reason for him to come past your stand. You might be sitting only a couple hundred yards away from the buck you’ve been hoping to see, with no way of knowing he’s there.

That’s why these next couple of weeks mean so much. We’re getting into the stretch when bucks are looking, when daylight movement can pick up, and when a deer you’ve never laid eyes on might come through. A quiet morning can turn into several deer chasing through the timber, and sometimes it happens so quickly that you barely have time to get your bow ready.

It’s also why the people who take bowhunting seriously find ways to be in the woods right now. Vacation days get used. Plans get moved around. An afternoon that might have been easy to skip in early October suddenly seems too important to miss. You can put in months of work and still have your entire opportunity come down to a few seconds when a buck steps into range.

Of course, being there doesn’t guarantee anything. You can hunt every day of the rut and never get the encounter you’re hoping for. But it’s awfully hard to have that encounter from home. The opportunity is coming, and it won’t last long. Every morning now carries the possibility that the buck you’ve been waiting on will finally make one mistake, follow one doe, or step across one trail at exactly the right time.

By the time November winds down, we’ll remember the mornings we hunted and the evenings we left the stand too early. We’ll remember the cold, the quiet, the missed chances and the moments that happened too fast to explain. Right now, the activity is already picking up, but some of the best hunting is still ahead of us. Somewhere beyond the edge of the field, a buck that has spent most of the fall avoiding daylight is beginning to take chances he wouldn’t have taken a month ago.

The first rubs and scrapes have told us what’s coming. Soon, the timber will feel charged before daylight, with leaves shifting under unseen feet and distant antlers knocking in the dark. Long before sunrise, alarms will sound across the country, and hunters will climb into cold stands carrying bows, hope and months of preparation. Then the woods will begin to wake, and for a few precious weeks, anything can happen. Don’t waste it.