Now the big bucks come to us
Photo courtesy of Joe Correia
Eric Correia of Dartmouth bagged this 235-pound, 10-point, monster buck in Dartmouth near the end of archery season in November. Once found far west or north of this area, big deer are being tagged in greater and greater numbers in Southeastern Massachusetts. |
MARC FOLCO
OPEN SEASON
In the not-so-distant past, area hunters either traveled west to the largely forested Berkshires or north to the far reaches of Maine and New Hampshire to find big, heavy-antlered bucks near the 200-pound mark. Southeastern Massachusetts wasn't what you'd call "deer country," so hunters journeyed hundreds of miles to remote areas where bucks grew big. But that's been changing.
Even though many hunters still enjoy a week or so of the true northern "deer camp" experience every fall, many return home empty-handed, only to fill their resident deer tags within a short drive of home. And some of those deer are big-racked, 200-pound bucks that rival their northern, ridge-running counterparts.
Reedy's Archery Shop in Middleboro is our Southeast Wildlife District's busiest deer check station and, according to Alan Cunningham, store manager, the shop checked in a total of 514 deer for all three seasons combined in 2003 -- archery, shotgun and muzzleloader. Of those deer, 20 bucks weighed 200 pounds or better (dressed, or gutted) and most of them were taken during the archery season. A few 200-pounders and many in the 170- and 180-pound range were checked during the shotgun and muzzleloader seasons.
"As far as numbers and weights, we saw the most and biggest deer we've ever seen during this past hunting season," said Cunningham.
One of the largest deer checked in the state during the 2003 deer season was taken in Dartmouth by Eric Correia of Dartmouth, on Nov. 17, toward the end of the archery season. His buck weighed 235 pounds and sported a heavy, symmetrical, 10-point rack, which is almost sure to make the Pope and Young Club (record keepers of trophy animals taken with bow and arrow).
"It was the biggest deer I'd ever seen," said Correia, an experienced hunter and avid archer with a "William Tell" (splitting one arrow with another arrow) to his credit. "And it was just a short drive from home. I've got to give MassWildlife credit for managing the deer herd so well that we don't have to drive hundreds of miles for a chance at a big buck. I've never seen as many deer as I have in the past few years locally."
Another big buck from Dartmouth was taken by David Sousa, also of Dartmouth, on Oct. 16, during the first week of archery season. His buck weighed 207 pounds and had a heavy, nine-point rack. Craig Winsor of East Bridgewater also hunted with bow and arrow in his own hometown where he bagged a nine-pointer weighing 225 pounds.
Scott Freitas of Lakeville killed two nine-pointers with a single shot, just a short distance from his home on the first Saturday of the shotgun season. It had snowed and he cut two sets of tracks (two bucks walking together) while en route to his treestand early in the morning. With the wind in his favor he began tracking slowly. After only a hundred yards or so, he spotted a set of antlers under a tree. A nice buck was bedded down in the snow about 30 yards away, but offered only a neck shot -- lethal, but a smaller and more difficult target than the usual vital area behind the shoulder.
Freitas aimed and fired, killing the buck instantly. As he approached the animal, he discovered that the two bucks he was tracking had been lying side by side. The rifled slug went through the neck of the first deer and into the neck of the second, killing them both. One weighed 173 pounds and the other 141.
"I was lucky enough for the tracking and wind conditions to be right to get a shot at one buck," said Freitas. "But to get two nine-pointers with one shot was just amazing dumb luck. It'll never happen again."
The phenomenon of beautiful bucks in our area wasn't planned, however, and is rather a byproduct of sound management policies and favorable conditions.
"It's not the policy or intention of MassWildife to manage our herd for big bucks," said Tom O'Shea, Southeast District manager. "Management strategies are based largely on the harvest of does. We manage the deer herd to be compatible with the carrying capacity of an area (how many deer a particular habitat can support year-round) so that the deer remain healthy and so there is minimal damage to the environment and minimal human conflict.
"The major factors which determine deer size and antler size are nutrition and genetics, are here in Southeastern Mass. we seem to have the right combination, which is resulting in lots of healthy deer with many big, heavy-antlered bucks."
Suburbia is another factor, O'Shea said. The suburbs provide excellent deer habitat with the three main ingredients -- food, water and shelter. In deep, remote woods, deer face stiff competition for food when it's scarce and covered by heavy snow, but here, winters typically are milder, and deer can always find lush plantings near houses. The woods in Southeastern Massachusetts tend to be thick with briars, which also provides plenty of shelter.
The high number of 200-pound bucks, however, is also relative to the increasing number of bowhunters because they're harvesting the deer when they're at their heaviest weight of the year. But once the primary rut (mating season) begins, usually in mid-November, which is toward the end of archery season and before the shotgun and muzzleloader seasons begin, the bucks forget about eating and sleeping and get down to the business of procreation.
"On average, a buck can lose approximately 20 percent of its body weight from the rut period through winter -- a time when they depend largely on fat reserves to sustain themselves," said O'Shea. "But that's an average. A young buck with a lesser drive may lose less weight, but a buck in his prime with a tremendously strong drive that spends most of his time seeking and mating does and driving off other bucks -- day and night -- without much food or rest can lose more weight."
For example, a mature, 175-pound buck taken towards the end of the muzzleloader season in late December may have weighed 220 pounds during the archery season in October.
Another item of note is that a deer loses approximately 22 percent of its weight when gutted. To determine a deer's live weight, multiply its dressed weight by 1.28. In relation, Correia's 235-pounder probably would have weighed just over 300 pounds in the round (un-gutted), a solid testament to the health of the deer in Southeastern Massachusetts.
Marc Folco is The Standard Times outdoor writer. E-mail him at openseason1988@aol.com
This story appeared on Page E8 of The Standard-Times on January 18, 2004.
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