I May Never Hunt the Rut Again
By Reggie Theus
For the last three years, my good friend, Rod Nutter and I have been hunting the mid-November rut for whitetail deer just outside of Columbus, Ohio. Early in October of 2000, there was some very cold weather along with a very good acorn crop. Rod called me to say that there was good buck movement and he had found a scrape line and large areas with rubs, so we decided to hunt the pre-rut. However, by the time I could get away, the cold weather had ended and they were having unseasonably hot weather (high 60’s to mid 70’s). All of the buck movement came to a screeching halt and the fresh sign had dried up. There were leaves covering scrapes and there was no sign around the rubs.
My first day and a half of hunting, all I saw were first year bucks play-fighting, getting ready for the day when they would have to do it for real but I almost didn’t care about the deer or the heat. I just focused on the color of the trees. I had never been in the woods at the height of the changing of the color. They were on fire with red, orange and yellow. With the acorns dropping around me, they made their own type of music. I felt like I was sitting inside a rainbow. I enjoyed the serenity so much; I may never hunt the rut again.
Now, it was time to get to work and find some buck sign. Rod, Mike Rex and I put a couple of tree stands on our backs and headed to thicker woods where we thought the bigger bucks were trying to beat the heat. We found an area at the end of a very brushy patch that had acorns above a flat green field with clover growing, water and two natural funnels on both sides. I set my tree stand up so I could hunt that evening.
That afternoon, because of the hot weather, I got in my stand at about 5 pm. Around 6:30, a couple of does showed up. All of a sudden, three basket bucks came in to my area. One buck was chasing the doe, not totally unusual but then, a larger buck came in and chased the smaller bucks off and started making a move on the doe. That’s when I realized that this doe was in early estrus. Just before dusk, I saw a large set of horns coming my way at full gallop, making rutting sounds, scattering all the deer under my tree stand. There was no question that this buck was a trophy I would be proud to harvest. It stopped about thirty to forty yards from my stand, trying to locate the doe in heat.
I started talking to myself trying to calm my heart down. I slowly got my bow. I knew I only had about 30 seconds before the big buck realized which way the doe went and would take off after her. I was wearing a Scent-Lok® suit, hat and breath shield. I was planning to pull the breath shield down when the large buck came into range. Things were happening so fast that when I came to full draw, I realized I hadn’t pulled down my shield. The deer was now standing just seventeen yards away with his mouth open and his tongue hanging. He was so close, I could hear him breathing. I knew it was now or never. I got the best anchor I could and let my PSE Mach-10, with my Easton ACC and two-blade Magnum Flite broadhead do its thing. The deer ran about twenty yards and expired quickly. It took me about ten minutes to climb down out of the tree because my legs were shaking so badly.