For early season archery, use pre-rut tactics

Even though Labor Day last week felt like the end of something, the calendar and nature still think it’s summer.

Days are getting shorter photoperiod is starting to impact animal behaviors but for Pennsylvania’s pre-rut deer the weather, smells, food availability and lush green foliage tell them it’s summer and the living is easy.

When the state’s earliest regular deer season opens Saturday in some areas, archers seeking antlered and antlerless deer also should be in summer mode.

“You can get away with a lot more when there’s foliage,” said Garrett Hartley, who is still hanging onto his Steelers jersey on the reserve-injured list. The backup place-kicker has a backup gig as co-star of “Southern Chaos,” a hunting lifestyle reality show recently renewed for another season on cable TV’s Sportsman Channel.

Drawing on years of bowhunting experience in the leafy South, Hartley said abundant foliage presents clear advantages to hunters, but also can increase the challenge.

“Obviously you’ve got to have your (shooting) lanes cut properly,” he said. “That’s where scouting comes into play knowing your lanes, knowing what opportunities you’ll have at different distances.”

Even in clearings, sight lines can be interrupted.

“It’s not just the leaves but the branches,” Hartley said. “Once you’re 15 to 25 feet up in the air, your perspective is going to change. Allocating that factor into play is obviously very crucial to a successful hunt.”

More important than what the hunter sees, however, is what the deer see. Tree stands hung higher than the first branches, or set in pines above the first gathering of needles, are generally better hidden than in the fall. But that can be deceptive, Hartley said. A green area that is not rustling with the surrounding leaves, or moving when the other greenery isn’t, will be instantly noticed by wary deer.

“You’re in camo,” he said, “but your movements have to be a lot more particular, even with all the leaves.”

For several weeks, Jody Maddock has been scouting the over-browsed woodlands of Mt. Lebanon. A Pennsylvania-based project manager for nonprofit wildlife management group White Buffalo, Maddock is organizing a controlled archery on mostly private land in the densely populated suburb. Properties, hunters and hunt managers already have been selected, he said, and the Mt. Lebanon hunt starts Saturday.

“I’m very careful with treestand selections. I have spots chosen for early season before the leaves drop,” he said. “The hunting is different before the rut.”

To comfort non-hunting urbanites, White Buffalo restricts its archers’ shots to 15 yards. In the early season, stand height isn’t a concern.

“When the leaves are gone I try to get up to 20-22 feet,” he said. “But in the cover of leaves I don’t care if (the stand) is 12-15 feet. It’s really about scouting and site selection.”

While cutting lanes, consider also blocking pathways where you don’t want the deer to go.

“In late summer you don’t want to open areas so much that the deer can see you,” Maddock said. “Make a nice lane, but close off other trails. Deer won’t go through a pile of brush when they can go around it. If you do any trimming, use that and other brush.”

Surrounded by suburban smorgasbords, neighborhood deer have an endless supply of food. But in most late-summer hunting situations, Maddock said, the criteria for site selection should include natural food sources.

“I want to find a place where I’m hunting over acorns. Deer prefer them more than apples,” he said. “White oaks are better than red oaks that’s where they’ll go first. White oaks drop less frequently than the reds, but hunting near a white oak tree that’s dropping can be phenomenal.”

One thing stays the same when hunting deer in any season.

“Wind is everything,” Maddock said. “In the morning, first thing I do is check the wind direction and look at my list of where I put stands. South wind, north wind, and I will not go to those stands when the wind isn’t right. It’s just educating the deer.”

And as for carbon clothing and scent-reduction sprays, Maddock has the same opinion year round.

“I think it’s all baloney,” he said. “Be careful of your scent on the way in, and trust in your placement of stands.”

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