Rutcation

As I write this, I’ve just completed a week-long “rutcation.” Aside from a chance to fill a buck tag and enjoy a rejuvenating soak in the deer woods, such time helps me generate new writing ideas, and now I’m writing this: I will not be taking any more rutcations without a major strategy overhaul.

Rutcations may be designed to fail. I’ve struck out two years in a row, and I now believe a solid week or more of hunting pressure can be counterproductive on most hunting properties. But I’m not giving up yet, and I have a plan to fix the flaws.

Pressure, Acreage, Science

I live in north Georgia, a four-hour drive from the family farm where I grew up in southeast Georgia and where I do most of my hunting. The idea of getting seven days of hunting instead of two every time I make that roundtrip drive to Grace Acres is very appealing. Our coastal Georgia rut peaks around Halloween, so I spent my first week-long “rutcation” at the farm in late October 2021 and the second in 2022.

Both times I had the same experience. By mid-week, I was struggling to stay on deer activity, and sightings were steadily diminishing. I’m now convinced that a week of steady deer hunting activity is too much for Grace Acres, where the huntable land area of about 400 acres is less than the home-range size of the average whitetail buck.

The same is probably true of most private hunting properties of a similar size. We have abundant science that makes it clear: Deer react quickly to avoid us when the pressure is on, and it takes two to four days for that avoidance to fade after the pressure subsides. Let’s look closely at one important study.

Science Says: Hunt Thursday

In fact, the highest point of overall weekly deer movement rates was on Thursdays and Fridays before hunters returned in force.

This study emphasized that deer react quickly to heavy pressure – responding in less than 24 hours – and did not return to previous levels until after two to three days of lighter pressure. This makes a week-long rutcation extra challenging!

Strategy Failure

I didn’t enter my latest rutcation ignorant of the science on hunting pressure. I had a game plan for minimizing pressure and remaining unpredictable. I established multiple stand sites, including ladder stands, lock-ons and ground blinds. I had a portable climber and an extra ground blind on stand-by. I brought enough odor-killing body wash and scentfree laundry detergent to scrub a high school football team after a full-pads practice in August. I knew enough about atmospheric wind conditions that week to substitute as a live reporter on the Weather Channel.

Whitetails did not outlast cave bears and saber-toothed lions only to ignore the sudden sweet aroma of Oatmeal Cream Pies on the wind. Adding such signals on top of your daily stand presence can have nothing but a negative impact on your rutcation success.

In his master’s research at Auburn University, Kevyn Wiskirchen used GPS tracking collars to study the movements of 16 bucks and 16 does, on private and public hunting lands, after the start of rifle season in Alabama. He found hunting pressure peaked on Saturdays and that deer movement changed significantly by Sundays.

• Immediately following peak hunting pressure, deer decreased their overall movement rate by 18%.

• The probability of activity during daylight hours decreased by 25%.

• “Net displacement” decreased by 31%, meaning deer held closer to small areas and explored less.

Even though hunting pressure dropped beginning on Mondays, these deer movement measurements remained below normal through Wednesdays but rebounded by Thursdays.

It still wasn’t enough. On a 400-acre hunting area, I’m now convinced you can’t hunt every morning and afternoon for a week without deer knowing you are there and reacting. If that’s true on 400 acres, I’m sure it’s true for most properties that are smaller and many that are larger.

In the Auburn University study mentioned above, peak hunting pressure on the public land rated 1.5 hunters per square mile per day. When I hunt Grace Acres alone for a week, it’s 1.6 hunters per square mile per day, and often I’m not alone because other family members may be hunting as well.

What’s the precise formula of acreage divided by pressure for determining how long you can hunt a particular property? There’s not one, and it’s going to vary based on a lot of factors like cover type, deer density, topography, non-hunting activity levels, and more I could name.