Unread postby JoeRE » Sat Aug 06, 2016 2:45 am
As far as telemetry studies showing deer movement trends, I think we have to be careful in reading too much into them, myself included. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the information we are getting from these studies the last couple years. Seems like we are on the very front edge better understanding deer behavior through telemetry studies.
For instance, telemetry studies have shown buck movement increases steadily up to the rut. That is a very general statement which I will be honest doesn't mean much to me as a hunter. Hunters care about precisely WHERE and HOW a buck moves. Most of the studies I have looked at just measure distance covered in certain increments - every hour or two or even bigger blocks of time. A lot can happen in 2 hours out there! Showing locations on a topo map or aerial does help, but a lot more analysis could be done. Many conditions on the ground do not get documented - what food sources are there and where are they? Where is it believed deer bed in the area - not just the deer being tracked, that can be figured out, but other deer as well. Where are hunter access points, what other disturbances could there be in the area. How predictable/pattern-able is movement that is observed through the year? All of those questions are really important to hunters and have barely been touched by researchers - yet.
I think there is a lot more that will be understood in the coming years. For instance, while bucks move more every passing day peaking in November, we hunters know that the predictability of that specific buck goes down at the same time - it is easier to get any buck that time of year, but harder to get within bow range of a specific buck if he is now moving across 1000s of acres. Also, every hunter knows deer move differently in various weather conditions. I wince every time I see those studies just broadly looking at that and not finding correlations. I think a lot more precision is needed. Maybe they move just as much across large blocks of time, (broadly makes sense, they need to eat and need to sleep) - but I would be comfortable staking a lot of money things like big weather fronts, high winds, snow, rain, etc do change exactly HOW and WHERE deer move over the course of a day if you have precise enough measurements. Researchers simply measuring total distance traveled over a certain time period as summed up on a spreadsheet excluding the how and where factors, as tied to that deer's home range....like I mentioned before, those are very important to us hunters.
I don't mean to disparage what researchers are doing - these studies are awesome and have provided some really great information already. But this is just the tip of the iceberg for deer research. With research in any field you start big and slowly fill in the holes, I don't want to read too much into what we have so far.
Anyway, when it comes to October, I still love hunting it. Second half of October is my favorite time to be in the woods for a lot of reasons - its beautiful that time of year, I can watch all critters getting ready for winter, and for whatever reason I have been able to find and kill a lot of good bucks in that time period as well. Thinking about it, the first 10 days of October is the time period I have found the most challenging to hunt - not the middle.
