daverichey November 4th, 2009

The mood crept up on me like a thief in the night. All of a sudden, there it was. A new and different way to hunt deer, and admittedly, I'd fallen into the rut of just bow, muzzleloading or rifle hunting for deer. I needed a change of pace, a break for a year from these more traditional hunting methods.

Handgunning for whitetails isn't all that different except a hunter  must be, within reason, close enough to kill the animal with a bullet large enough to effectively do the job.

At the time I had three handguns that would do the job nicely. One was a Thompson/Center Contender with two different barrels that offered me a choice. One barrel was a .30-30 and the other was a .44 Magnum.

Making a choice between handguns

I also had a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, and I was a pretty good shot with it. I thought about putting a scope on it, and decided I'd rather use iron sights and keep any shots within 50 yards.

The T/C Contender was a single-shot pistol. The hammer had to be manually cocked, and it's true I could have used a scope on it but doing so didn't make me feel quite right. I had time to practice shooting at 50 yards but chose not to put a scope on either handgun.

A .44 Magnum is a powerful handgun, and with a 240-grain hollow-point bullet, it would do the job. The recoil when shooting this revolver is substantial but I'd had it ported by Mag-na-Port of Mt. Clemens, Michigan, and that tamed it down considerably.

I could shoot a dozen rounds a day, and eventually got to where I could put five rounds into a two-inch circle with iron sights. It was plenty good enough if I had time to cock the hammer, aim and squeeze off a controlled shot.

The .30-30 was a different story. Shooting it was a far sight different than shooting the .44 Magnum revolver. The revolver had also been ported, which helped reduce felt recoil and eliminate some of the muzzle jump.

Getting used to heavy recoil

The .30-30 was another story. The recoil from this cartridge came back more into the palm of my hand rather than back and up, and 10 shots of practice each day was all I wanted to handle. In fact, it was more recoil than I was comfortable with.

I found myself much more accurate with the .30-30 at 50 yards although the felt recoil seemed much more punishing. It took several weeks to get used to it. A pair of thin leather gloves helped ease the felt recoil.

The practice continued through the summer, and the more I shot, the better I became. My eyes were good back in those days, and if I could spot a buck at 50 yards, I knew that killing the animal would be easy.

Shooting the T/C Contender for three months enabled me to condition myself to the felt recoil of the 30-30, which still seemed to be much more than with the .44 Magnum. The Nov. 15 firearm opener should be a snap if everything went as planned.

Opening day came that year with some snow on the ground and partly cloudy skies. My stand was well positioned 40 yards downwind of where three active deer trails came through a tag alder swale, spread out, and gradually came back together to neck down into a funnel between two heavy patches of thick cover.

It was a coin flip as to which handgun I'd use, and finally settled on the T/C Contender with the .30-30 barrel for the opening day. I had two extra cartridges in my pocket, but a single-shot handgun doesn't offer fast reloading. One shot means taking enough time to get the right shot and then nailing it.

I'd been setting on stand for two hours. It wasn't a cold day, and dozens of does had trickled past but I wanted a buck with the handgun. It didn't have to be a wall-hanger because the area I was hunting didn't produce many big deer.

Here comes my buck

Soon a young buck was seen easing through the cover. He came down one of the deer trails, and it gradually merged with the other two at 40 yards. The buck stopped where all three deer trails came together, turned broadside and looked back over his off-side shoulder at some other deer.

Satisfied, he turned and took one step. The sight picture looked perfect, and I took up the last ounce or two of trigger slackl with the sights behind his front shoulder and shot.

The shot seemed excessively loud that morning but my eyes continued to track the animal. I could see the red stain behind his front shoulder, and after 50 yards he crashed to the ground.

Later,  I shot another buck with the .44 magnum revolver, and also shot a wild boar with the T/C and the .30-30 barrel, and a javelina with a 9 mm pistol. I once shot a black bear with the .44 Magnum revolve. It's not that I don't enjoy hunting with a handgun, but now I basically just shoot paper holes to maintain some form of consistent practice.

Can handgun hunting be a challenge for you? Of course it can, and I know a number of people who hunt all the time with a handgun. Who knows, I may go back to it again one of these years. If Michigan hunters plan to hunt deer with a handgun this season, they had better start  practising.

But, for me, I'm still locked into hunting with a bow, centerfire rifle or muzzleloader during those respective seasons. And, although handguns are fully capable of killing game far beyond my 50-yard capabilities, long-range handgun shooting is not for me.

It may be your cup of tea, and if so, I know why you enjoy it. But after a lifetime of bow hunting, it still gives me a big kick to have game within 20 yards when a shot is taken. Up close and personal is what bow hunting has always meant to me.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: dave richey, deer, handgun, magnum, Michigan, outdoors, recoil, revolver, single-shot, Smith-Wesson, T-C Contender

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daverichey November 4th, 2009

Trying to anticipate what a rutting buck will do is much like listening to a politician’s promise. Both can be a risky venture.

Frankly, the only predictable thing about a rutting buck is his unpredictability. They do things that make absolutely no sense to the bow hunter, but apparently, their actions make complete sense to them.

Bucks can act completely addled, and once they begin chasing does, some bucks dart across roads only to get themselves killed in a deer-vehicle collision. I’ve watched bucks run head-long into a fence post even though the doe jumped the fence.

Rutting bucks never lose their fear of humans

The oddities of rutting bucks have been well documented. What is seldom stressed is how their mood swings influence their actions, but seldom will a buck become totally clueless. They do not lose their inherent fear of humans, and a buck that hears, sees or smells a hunter, will waste little time getting out of Dodge.

This means that hunters can take no liberties with being downwind of known travel routes. We also must sit still, don’t move and take only high-percentage shots. Another thing to note is that bucks are seldom still during the rut, and hunters must be prepared for a quick and accurate shot on a moment’s notice. Keep your bow in your hands at all times. Reaching for a bow hanging from a nearby branch often is a waste of time.

The most predictable thing about a rutting buck is he is never far from his latest squeeze. Of course, as soon as he’s had his way with her, he is off on a continuing search for other estrus does to breed. For the larger and older bucks, breeding does is a never-ending process in which a mature buck will lose 25-30 percent of his body weight.

Find the does and you’ll find the bucks

Remember, a buck will always be near the does. He may hang back in heavy cover near a food source, but once she moves, the buck cuts her trail again. It’s one reason why hunters often set up a stand in the heaviest cover near a food source and near a field corner.

A buck will cruise back and forth as the doe feeds, and will check other nearby does to determine how close they are to estrus, but he keeps a close watch on his latest lady friend.

Bucks will often be seen crossing open fields as they course a doe. He will go where she goes, and if she is almost in estrus, he will be even closer. If she goes left or right, he will cut her off, and if she head-fakes him into going one way while she goes the other, he will soon catch up with the wayward doe.

Hunting these animals can be great fun, and almost every hunter will say; “So close and yet so far away” at one time or another. The bucks and does often move just out of bow range, and it’s not a deliberate thing on their part. The hunter has simply made a mistake by setting up just out of effective bow range.

Hunt near field corners with thick cover

It’s difficult to go wrong by hunting fairly close to fields where does will feed. Choose one of the corners, and especially the field-edge corner with the heaviest nearby cover. That is where bucks will hang out to watch the does, and they often pace back and forth like an expectant father. Their reason for pacing is the driving need to breed when she enters estrus.

None of this means the buck won’t enter a feeding field, and often by luck or design, a doe will lead an amorous buck past a ground blind or tree stand, but it’s not something to bet the homestead on.

Tending bucks often are vocal bucks, and one about to breed a doe will be grunting with almost every step it takes. This tending grunt is low and guttural, and sometimes can be heard for 100 yards while at other times the buck may only be 20 yards away when the sound is heard. In some cases the sound is much like a ventriloquist “throwing” his voice; it’s almost impossible to tell where the sound comes from during a heavy fog or a misty rain.

Bucks will sometimes still check ground scrapes, but once the rut really kicks offs, they stop opening up and freshening scrapes. They have used those scrapes over the past two or three weeks to locate estrus and soon-to-be-ready does, and every buck in the area knows which does will soon be bred. The earliest does to breed often are among the oldest does in the area.

This also is when young bucks try to mount the does while the big buck is busy elsewhere, but most does will not stand for a younger deer unless big boy gets killed. Few 1 1/2-year-old bucks do any breeding. Their day will come in two or three years unless they get shot by a hunter.

Hunting the rut is entirely different than hunting bucks at other times. Hunters must start thinking like a buck, and once they figure out where the does are, and where the thickest cover is (where much of the breeding will take place), it becomes a bit easier… but not by much.

It’s easy to make an obvious error in judgment in retrospect, and hunters who know the land they hunt like the back of their hand will usually know from past experience where the bucks and does head during the rut. They can arrange to be there at the right time.

Two tips to remember about hunting rutting bucks

Two last tips on rutting deer is this:

• Bucks often rest up a bit after daybreak but begin cruising in search of estrus bucks between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. This four-hour period during mid-day can be a hot time to be on stand. Few hunters are out at that time of day but the bucks are often moving.
• The same holds true with hunting just before a bad weather front moves through. Check the weather, and hunt just before bad weather hits your area, especially if it features a substantial drop in temperature and either rain or snow.

Rut hunting is never easy, but hunting it properly and knowing a few of these tricks will stimulate your brain and make hunters think each daily situation out thoroughly. And that usually is a good thing to do at this time of year.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: anticipate, behavior, buck, dave richey, deer, doe, estrus, hunt, Michigan, outdoors, rut

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