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<p>Don&#8217;t get too attached.</p><p>If you&#8217;ve been watching a particular buck or two over the last month while scouting for archery season hoping one of them will pass by your stand, the odds of that happening may be declining.</p><p>According to the ongoing Deer-Forest Study conducted by Penn State, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, U.S. Geological Survey and the state Bureau of Forestry, yearling bucks tend to hit the road in September and October, dispersing an average distance of 5 miles.</p><p>And for good reason.</p><p>Does are in estrus for about 24 hours, and when it occurs they shrink their home range. Because the window to breed is brief, bucks are constantly on the go during the rut in search of a receptive doe. According to research revealed by the study, one buck in 2014 spent September on a home range of 180 acres, but much of its time was limited to a 40-acre area. In October, the buck expanded its home range to 794 acres and its travel patterns greatly increased beginning Oct. 15.</p><p>And that&#8217;s why a buck you may have routinely seen on your trail camera during September may be long gone during the October archery season.</p><p>But it&#8217;s not a reason to give up. While bucks that inhabited a particular area for most of the year may be somewhere else, others will undoubtedly move in.</p><p>And even though bucks will be on the move in the fall, it doesn&#8217;t mean that all that preseason scouting before archery season was a waste of time. By learning food sources, deer trails and bedding areas, for example, it all provides an indicator as to where those bucks that wander in from other areas will likely be when they reach the place you hunt.</p><p>Buck movement, however, is also a reason why scouting shouldn&#8217;t stop once the season opens.</p><p>On many occasions I&#8217;ve hunted areas early in the season that were loaded with deer sign in September but devoid of any sightings or activity after archery season got underway.</p><p>But I&#8217;ve also encountered places where there was minimal deer activity before the season but plenty of it later in October.</p><p>Several years ago, I set up my treestand at the base of an oak ridge where there was a well-worn deer trail connecting the food source to a bedding area. I spotted deer in the area during numerous preseason scouting trips and felt the spot would be active when the season began.</p><p>But it wasn&#8217;t.</p><p>I stuck with the location for the first three weeks of the season, but it wasn&#8217;t until I was walking to my stand one morning that I startled a nice buck standing against a small thicket. After a brief staredown, the buck bounded into the briars and I found a fresh scrape where it had been standing.</p><p>Needless to say, I moved my stand and changed my hunting location that day.</p><p>Sure, a buck that&#8217;s there in September may be long gone by October, and once the rut kicks in there&#8217;s no telling what&#8217;s going to leave and what will arrive. That&#8217;s why archery season is unique in that the last day is often better than the first.</p><p>So be patient. It&#8217;s a long season and deer will come and go.</p><p>But the best part of it all is you never know what&#8217;s going to happen, and when.</p><p>That alone is reason enough to settle, day after day, in a treestand, letting it all play out.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Venesky </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/web1_Venesky-1-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Venesky </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Outdoors with Tom Venesky: Buck movement adds to unpredictability of archery season