Dr. Karl V. Miller

October Lull? In Fact, Buck Activity Will Increase This Month

Online Editors — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:16:49 -0400

The Symptom: For the first week or two of archery season, the guys at camp were seeing bucks at evening food sources with shooting light to spare. Everybody reported good activity. But since about the first of October, those early-to-rise bucks have been scarce, and the hunters are now complaining.

The Diagnosis: A real or perceived slowdown in deer activity commonly referred to as the “October lull.”

Last-Minute Game Plan for Trophy Bow Bucks

Joe_Cermele — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:56:13 -0400

The Symptoms: The boys at Last Minute Hunt Camp have been scrambling to get ready for the bow opener. They’ve scouted every feeding area, inspected possible bedding cover, and scoured every terrain funnel on the property, scouting for buck sign. Only they didn’t find much—just a few fresh rubs. Now they don’t know where to hang their stands and time is running out.

Scouting Tips: How to Find Whitetail Bucks After the Bachelor Herds Break Up

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:00:00 -0400

THE SYMPTOMS: It's a week before the first whitetail season, and the guys at deer camp havebeen busy glassing fields and checking trail cameras. Every day after work,they hit the property to spy on one of the several groups of bucks that havebeen showing up in the same places like clockwork.

The last fewdays, however, have been a disappointment. A lone deer has appeared here orthere, but those bunches of bucks seem to have vanished like smoke. Whathappened here?

THE DIAGNOSIS: Seasonal social dissociative behavior exacerbated by altered food preferences.In other words, the bachelor party is over.

All summer, buckshang out with their buddies, mainly resting and feeding, in what are commonlycalled bachelor groups. But as summer turns to fall, shrinking daylight bringsdramatic changes in their physiology and behavior. Testosterone levels rise,antlers harden, necks start to swell, and bucks get increasingly intolerant ofone another. They begin sparring to work out who's the toughest guy on theblock. Ultimately, each bachelor goes his own way.

Food supplies areshifting as well. Deer that have been frequenting certain fields through thewarm months are finding new options in the woods. Acorns, persimmons, apples,and muscadines (in the South) are falling—and whitetails know it.

THEPRESCRIPTION: You must change gears. Get out and speed-scout diverse areas just ahead of theseason.

The bucks you'vebeen observing are likely still in the area. You just have to relocate them.Start by finding current food sources, such as soft mast and white oak acorns,which tend to drop early in fall and are deer favorites.

Move your trailcameras from field edges to natural funnels and trails between thicker beddingareas and the potential new grub. Keep a keen eye out for fresh rubs. This signis a good indicator of where the bucks are traveling now, and we know from ourresearch at the University of Georgia that early rubbing is generally done bythe more mature animals.

The same holdstrue for early scrapes: Young bucks don't start pawing the earth in earnestuntil much later in the season. Set up on the freshest buck sign near favoredautumn food sources, and some of those big deer you watched all summer willlikely reappear right under your tree stand.

Deer Professor Karl V. Miller Answers Your Questions

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 20:00:00 -0400

WHY DO A LOT OF GUYS THINK THAT DEER HUNTING IS A MAN'S SPORT? I'M 17 AND A GIRL, AND I HUNT JUST AS WELL AS MY MALE COUSINS. KAT WILKERSON, SOUTHAVEN, MISS.

In the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that 12 percent of males and 1 percent of females ages 16 and older hunted in that year. Of the 13 million total participants in the sport, 91 percent (11.8 million) were male and 9 percent (1.2 million) were female.

While this data shows that the vast majority of hunters are male, it certainly does not mean that men are better hunters than women. I'd suggest that you just ignore your cousins or anyone who thinks otherwise. It's been my experience, in fact, that many women are better hunters than men. Patience—a quality that women are frequently blessed with to a greater degree than men—and less of a tendency toward macho, competitive posturing are both helpful attributes for hunters. Keep hunting and I'm sure you'll get a trophy that will shut their mouths for good! And send us a picture when you do.

PERHAPS YOU CAN SETTLE AN ARGUMENT FOR ME. WHEN I HARVEST A DEER, I'VE NOTICED THAT IT HAS DOZENS, MAYBE HUNDREDS, OF SMALL BUGS IN THE HAIR BETWEEN THE HIND LEGS AND ON THE BRISKET. MY HUNTING PARTNER INSISTS THAT THESE INSECTS ARE TICKS. I DON'T AGREE BECAUSE THEY'RE NEVER ATTACHED TO THE DEER'S SKIN. WHAT ARE THEY? BILL KELLEY, HENDERSON, N.C.

You're right, he's wrong. The bugs that you see are a type of wingless fly called a deer ked, or louse fly. Winged forms of adult keds emerge in the fall and fly about in search of deer. As soon as the ked finds a host, the wings detach and the ked takes a blood meal. It mates on the deer and remains throughout the winter and into the spring or summer. That's when the female deposits a fully formed larva in the hair. The larva immediately pupates and falls to the ground, where it will develop into an adult fly.

Keds do not seem to cause any ill effects on deer. They will also bite humans, although this appears to be fairly infrequent. The bite is painless but can produce an itchy welt that may last for a couple of weeks.

WHY DO DEER NEED FOUR STOMACHS? RANDY MILLER, CORNELL, WIS.

Deer do not actually have four stomachs. Their stomachs, rather, are composed of four parts. Animals with this digestive system (such as cows, goats, and sheep) are called ruminants. A four-chambered stomach is designed to maximize foraging efficiency. It allows deer to consume a lot of food quickly and then retire to more secretive environments to digest.

After being swallowed, food enters a large compartment called the rumen, which makes up about 80 percent of the stomach. There, trillions of bacteria and protozoa help the deer digest their high-fiber diet. The material is constantly mixed by strong contractions. Interestingly, this fermentation also produces a lot of gas, so deer belch frequently.

The second part of a deer's stomach is the reticulum, which has a honeycombed inner lining. One of its functions is to help bring food back up to the mouth for more grinding, a process that is commonly referred to as "chewing the cud."

Next, food passes to the omasum, which absorbs more nutrients and further reduces the particle size and water content. The fourth compartment, known as the abomasum, is the deer's "true" stomach, and it functions in a very similar manner to yours.

Submit questions, including your name and home-town, to deerquestions@yahoo.com.

REASON TO SMILE: Hunter Danny Soldan, 14, of Michigan, posing with two huge bucks.

The Deer Professor: Pass the Salt

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 25 May 2005 11:40:00 -0400

Why are deer so attracted to salt blocks?

Matt Wermert, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Deer may visit salt blocks throughout the year but use them most frequently by far during the spring and summer. That's when they commonly have a high intake of succulent browse with a high water content, and thus require more sodium. Lactation in females and antler development in males creates an additional sodium drain. The drive to obtain adequate levels at this time can be intense. In one study in West Virginia, we observed deer traveling up to 3 miles outside their normal range to visit a sodium source. The activity at this particular site peaked during the second half of July. Similarly, an Indiana study recorded deer moving well outside their normal home bases to visit salt licks. Interestingly, in that study, individual deer used the licks once every one to 12 days, averaging about once every three days. Most visits occurred one to two hours after sunset. Dependence on salt blocks tends to drop off during the fall, so even in states where hunting over salt is legal, it's an unpromising tactic. You'd be better off concentrating on natural food sources.

I'm always reading about how important white and red oak acorns are in the whitetail's diet, but there are no oaks where I live. Does this harm the deer herd? Should I look for beechnuts when hunting? Pete Pattavina, Watertown, N.Y.
Acorns are highly preferred as forage by deer in the fall, but I think that sometimes their importance is exaggerated. First, there are many regions of the country with few or no oak trees where deer still do quite well. Second, they are a high-energy, low-protein food-important for adding fat before winter, but contributing little to body growth. Third, their production is highly variable from one year to another, and even when abundant, acorns provide food for only a short time. Deer have to eat year-round. The grasses, forbs, vines, shrubs, fruits, and berries that make up the bulk of the diet are just as important.

Nevertheless, there are some areas of the country where acorn production is critical to the deer population. In the southern Appalachian Mountains where alternative fall and winter forages are very limited, as well as on some coastal islands, research has demonstrated that reproduction, fawn survival, body weights, and overall health are closely tied to the annual variation in mast production. Even antler development can be affected in the year following a mast failure. In these areas, providing an alternate source of nutrition such as food plots is good insurance against the periodic failure of oak trees to produce acorns, which occurs every three to four years.

Beechnuts are also sought after, but deer, turkeys, bears, squirrels, and myriad other wildlife quickly consume them. They are only available for a short time. Crops of these nuts vary even more than acorns do, so when you see that beechnuts are present, count it as a blessing and hunt those areas.

I've noticed that in the same field, some of the deer feces are in scattered pellets, while others are large clumps. Why would deer eating the exact same food have different types of pellets?
Sam Lyon, Charleston, W.Va.
Typically, the types of foods that deer are eating determines the consistency of the droppings. When they are foraging on coarse vegetation with a high fiber content such as leaves and browse, their pellets will usually be well formed and scattered about. However, when their diet is composed of more succulent vegetation or fruits and acorns, the pellets may form a looser mass that falls as a clump of poorly shaped pellets. Factors other than diet, such as high parasite loads, disease, stress, and perhaps individual variation, can also result in irregular pellets. You can't readily determine sex or age by the shaape of scat.

Dr. Karl V. Miller is a professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of Georgia's D.B. Warnell School of Forest Resources and one of the country's foremost whitetail experts.

Submit questions, including your name and hometown, to deerquestions@yahoo.com.

The Deer Professor: Pass the Salt

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 25 May 2005 11:40:00 -0400

Why are deer so attracted to salt blocks?

Matt Wermert, Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Deer Professor: Three's a Crowd

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 07:20:00 -0400

Last summer I saw a doe that was accompanied by three fawns. They all seemed to be hers. How common is it for does to have triplets?

Dwight Caines, Bowman, Ind.

Although two fawns are the norm for whitetail deer, reproductive output is tied directly to nutrition and therefore habitat conditions. In poor-quality habitats, many does may only produce single fawns. For example, in some areas where forage is limited in abundance or low in quality, conception rates as low as 1.14 fetuses per adult doe have been reported. When habitat conditions are very good, however, this ratio rises dramatically. As you would expect, it peaks in some of the agricultural regions of the Midwest. One study found the rate to be as high as 2.1 fetuses per adult doe, which would indicate that triplets are not uncommon in these areas. This certainly underscores the importance of harvesting sufficient numbers of does to prevent populations from exceeding the capacity of the range.

Last year I killed a whitetail doe, and I didn't get as much meat back from the butcher as I had expected. How much should a 110-pound field-dressed deer yield?

Dan Coyne, Mechanicsburg, Pa.

A good butchering job of a cleanly killed deer should yield about 45 to 50 percent of the field-dressed weight in boneless, lean meat. Expect about 45 to 55 pounds of venison.

Incidentally, count on a 25 to 30 percent decrease from the whole-carcass weight to the field-dressed weight of your kill, although that might vary by the size of the animal.

These figures depend on where the deer was shot and how efficiently it was butchered. If a deer is hit in the shoulders, or worse yet in the hindquarters, there will be a significant loss of venison. There is also a lot of variability among deer processors, but few can afford the amount of time necessary to glean every bit of available meat from a carcass. I butcher my own deer and therefore can take the time necessary to limit waste and ensure maximum quality control.

Dr. Karl V. Miller is a professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of Georgia's D.B. Warnell School of Forest Resources and one of the country's foremost whitetail experts.

Submit questions, including your name and hometown, to deerquestions@yahoo.com.

Field and Stream Presents Deer Facts with Dr. Karl V. Miller

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Last summer I saw a doe that was accompanied by three fawns. They all seemed to be hers. How common is it for does to have triplets?

DWIGHT CAINES, BOWMAN, IND.

Last year I killed a whitetail doe, and I didn't get as much meat back from the butcher as I had expected. How much should a 110-pound field-dressed deer yield?

DAN COYNE, MECHANICSBURG, PA.

A good butchering job of a cleanly killed deer should yield about 45 to 50 percent of the field-dressed weight in boneless, lean meat. Expect about 45 to 55 pounds of venison.

Incidentally, count on a 25 to 30 percent decrease from the whole-carcass weight to the field-dressed weight of your kill, although that might vary by the size of the animal.

These figures depend on where the deer was shot and how efficiently it was butchered. If a deer is hit in the shoulders, or worse yet in the hindquarters, there will be a significant loss of venison. There is also a lot of variability among deer processors, but few can afford the amount of time necessary to glean every bit of available meat from a carcass. I butcher my own deer and therefore can take the time necessary to limit waste and ensure maximum quality control.

Dr. Karl V. Miller is a professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of Georgia's D.B. Warnell School of Forest Resources and one of the country's foremost whitetail experts.

Submit questions, including your name and hometown, to deerquestions@yahoo.com.

The Deer Professor: Whitetail Migration

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 08:20:00 -0500

What triggers whitetails to move to winter yarding areas? Is it cold temperatures or snow depth? And do deer do this every year or just when conditions make it necessary?

Travis Hall, Jackman, Maine

Yarding behavior, when deer migrate to areas that can better sustain them through winter, is a complex annual phenomenon in the northern portion of the whitetail's range, so the answer is not simple. Some research from northern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan suggests that a prolonged period of cold temperatures (less than 20 degrees) can trigger such movement to yarding areas. There is a lot of variability in migration dates, however, as different family groups head to their traditional winter grounds at different times. An early onset of adverse conditions can accelerate their departure, and there is also some indication that nutritional levels or habitat conditions on the summer range can affect the timing. Bucks traditionally migrate later than does.

Farther south, yarding may occur only during years when the weather is more severe. For example, in northern Wisconsin, researchers have shown that individual does may remain on summer range during mild winters but will move to yarding areas when heavy snows and cold temperatures develop.

I had two of my best hunts ever last year during the rut, and on both days, it was raining. Does rain increase rutting activity?

Steve Naylor, kirksville, Mo.

There's no question that weather can influence deer movements. Although I have no specific data about rain and the rut, mist or a light rain certainly seems to increase deer activity at all times. A heavy rain, however, will suppress deer movement. Perhaps a light rain makes a bedded deer less comfortable, or perhaps scenting conditions are better then. Whatever the reason, a light rain certainly is not a reason to head for the truck.

My favorite weather during the rut is clear and cold. On crisp mornings, bucks just seem to be everywhere.

The Deer Professor: Air Whitetail

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 05:45:00 -0500

Last season, I watched a deer jump a fence that must have been at least 7 feet tall, and it did so without the slightest difficulty. How high can a deer jump? And while we're on the subject, how far can they jump?

Paul Henry, St. Cloud, Minn.

Whitetails have tremendous agility and speed to evade predators. Free running deer have been clocked at almost 40 mph. Although I don't think anyone has attempted to determine the ultimate height that deer can jump, I know of some reports of their jumping fences at least 9 feet high. However, deer will almost always opt to go under a fence rather than over-even if it's only 4 or 5 feet high. Interestingly, deer typically won't jump over a barrier that they can't see through. A solid fence 4 to 5 feet high seems to be as much of a barrier as an 8-foot woven wire fence.

Measuring the distance that a deer can jump is much easier-you just have to measure the gap between tracks. From the reports that I've seen, a running deer can easily clear a span of 25 to 30 feet, and perhaps more.

I feed corn to the whitetails in the woods behind my house. It gives my whole family a chance to watch deer up close, and I think it helps the herd make it through the winter. But I've heard that you should never feed deer. Why?

Frank Brennan, Brodheadsville, Pa.

There is a time and a place for everything, but in most cases feeding deer is a bad idea. Deer easily become habituated to feed and will certainly lose some of their natural wariness of humans. Once they get accustomed to coming to your yard, corn won't be the only thing they'll eat. Gardens and landscaping are prime targets, and you'll be inviting property damage not only for yourself but also for your neighbors. Soon this animal that we view as a magnificent game species will become a hoofed rat in many people's eyes. Also, once deer become habituated, the potential for collisions with vehicles rises.

Remember that the more we artificialize wildlife with handouts, the less wild wildlife becomes. Perhaps Aldo Leopold said it best over 70 years ago when he wrote "TheÂ¿Â¿Â¿value of a game animal is inverse to the artificiality of its origin and the intensiveness of the management system that produced it." To get more information on feeding wildlife, contact the Wildlife Management Institute and request their publication Feeding WildlifeÂ¿Â¿Â¿Just Say No! (available at www.wildlifemanagementinstitute.org).

Will smoke from a campfire affect deer during hunting season?

Lori Michalski, Merrick, N.Y.

Only if it gets in their eyes. Seriously, I doubt very much that deer have the deductive ability to equate smoke from a campfire with the presence of a hunter. In fact, deer seem to be attracted to areas that have been recently burned. Here in the Southeast, I've seen fresh deer tracks in burned areas where some stumps were still smoking. Smoke in the woods does not produce the panic among wildlife that Disney films portray.