Abad season last year might mean good bow outings for archers seeking deer this year.

That’s the take Bob Wolf, taxidermist at S&S Taxidermy in Springville, has for bow hunters this archery season. Bow shooters could legally begin hunts at sunrise Oct. 17, and archers able to get out and look around the first week have come back with good reports.

“So far we’ve taken in 16 bucks since the opener. A couple are nice ones, but they haven’t been scored yet,” Wolf said of deer brought in for mounting at S&S this past week.

“The guys I talked with are seeing a lot of good bucks,” he added. A nasty start to the gun season and less than ideal hunting weather throughout the times open to firearms hunting left a few extra deer out there this past season.

For updates and rates at S&S on Route 16 in Springville, call 592-2404 or go to sstaxidermy.com.

Jeff Pippard at Niagara Outdoors pegs the current deer run as “good for bachelor groups.” Most of his customers see good numbers of deer, but the boys are running in packs and have yet to scatter in search of doe company.

Pippard has yet to get out with his own bow. “Right now I’m doing repairs on ‘last minute oops’ things such as strings cut with sharp heads,” he said.

In general, he suggests hunters look for bachelor groups to break up this week and the rut to begin sometime around Election Day (Nov. 3). “Some point to Halloween as the rut start; I wait till just into November before starting to hunt seriously,” Pippard remarked.

Hoax of the year

Every season seems to generate yet another questionable monster-deer photo, especially with modern photo-altering techniques.

This year’s apparent hoax photo is of an older gentleman kneeling behind a massive, non-typical buck with the caption “shot in the town of Boston.” That’s the first version I received. If you’re into product, at the lower left corner of the shot is a Mathews bow resting against the deer’s hip.

Later, after checking with several area archery-shop operators, it seems this buck is showing up as a kill in several other places around Western New York. One version has it a kill made earlier, at the start of the Pennsylvania bow season.

And, no, I’ve not yet received a version that included an Amish boy —or any of my close friends who like to send trick photography. If, in fact, you are that hunter in the variously-sent photo, please contact me at the e-mail address at the end of this column.

First forays

After setting out three corner food plots, cutting lanes, and clearing areas around tree stands, I had a typical start to the season here at home in my first week of hunting—pure fun.

Formally, I like calling it a “reconnaissance” week. That’s a four-syllable, French-sounding word which means “I still don’t know what I’m doing out there, so I’ll just keep looking around.”

Three seasons ago I took a fair buck opening week, but, as usual, this season has been mainly a climb-and-see operation.

Deer watching can be frustrating. Every year, deer experts alter the value of checking rubs and scrapes, defining funnel areas, using rattles to attract aggressive bucks, and all kinds of other get-the-big-one suggestions.

We’ve been at these new digs in Pavilion three years now. Each year I clear limbs on nice, high-climber trees in corners where deer should cross. After seeing where they cross, I’ve even run a brush hog to clear lanes for the next season.

Deer, lacking sidewalks, aisles, lane markers, and arrows on the floor, just don’t walk the same path at the same time each day, week, month, and year. As with all the “funnel point” spots I’ve set up at other areas regularly hunted, the deer come out, cross, and enter cover at different places each season.

True, tracks show they sniff nicely scented mock-scrape spots, but that’s often well after legal hunting hours. Neighbors often see that monster buck in their back yards more often than I view them from my well-placed stands.

During four of the first five days of bow season, deer crossed somewhere around the two fields I could view at distances up to 400 feet. One doe was almost in range. A cluster of cedar waxwings, about 20 or so (some less than 10 feet from my face), surrounded me with their chatter the first morning as I reached the 20-foot mark in a hardwood tree. They seemed to object to that tree-trunk intruder. Beautiful.

I hope you can enjoy similar sightings this fall season. If you should finally get that buck of a lifetime—or have a photo of a youth with a first-time trophy (not an Amish boy from Ohio)— please send it to the e-mail address below.

Happy hunting.