If Two Dominant Bucks Exist in One Area, Will One Cause the Other to Leave His Range?

No clear-cut answer seems to be known to this question, although avid blackpowder hunters want to know. However, Dr. Larry Marchinton, a renowned deer researcher, introduces a new term for most of us: Superdominance. “I believe superdominance is present sometimes among deer,” Marchinton states. “A buck may be dominant anywhere he goes, if he’s head and shoulders above any other buck in any area. At the same time, some dominant bucks are not clearly superior over others. So, a situation may arise where two dominant bucks both find the same doe in heat. In this case, these bucks may fight to decide at that particular moment and then have the right to breed the doe.”

Dr. Jacobson hasn’t found that a dominant buck normally runs a challenger out of his area. “I think what biologists observe instead is that, following a confrontation with a dominant buck, a subordinate buck from then on no longer contests the status of dominance, but instead gives way to the dominant buck. Deer have a lingering hierarchy of dominance.  Just because one buck is subordinate to another and may be the number-two buck, he still may dominate over the other bucks in the pecking order. There’s not always a clear-cut idea that, ‘This is the dominant buck.’ A constant shifting of rank happens between individual bucks that are close-to-evenly matched. While these bucks may not contest the next individual up the pecking order, they constantly contest each other and challenge other bucks in the region.”

Shooting Too Quickly and Using a Rest:

Unsuccessful hunters shoot too quickly, and the worst shot a hunter can make is an off-hand shot. Find a rest to lean your CVA muzzleloader rifle on, so you can steady it for the shot. Even if the hunter has to back-up to locate a tree to prop against, his chances are better for taking a deer from a rest than they are free-handed. Actually, as soon as a sportsman sees a deer, the next thing he must look for is a place he can lean his rifle up-against to brace for the shot. Generally a hunter will have time to find a rest from which to shoot. Unsuccessful hunters think about shooting first.

Not Knowing Your Trigger:

The best hunter should understand exactly how much pressure he has to apply to the trigger for his muzzleloader rifle to fire. If the rifle requires a hard trigger pull before it fires, and the hunter knows that, then many times he will jerk the trigger to make the rifle fire quicker. And, usually that jerk will cause him to miss the deer. Many Muzzleloading hunters prefer to have a light but firm trigger. Then you’ll know exactly when that rifle will fire when you touch that trigger. The hunters who haven’t learned the amount of pressure they will need to apply to fire their rifles are the ones who rarely bag bucks. Knowing the amount of trigger pressure you need to take a deer is just as important as knowing where to place the crosshairs on the animal when the rifle fires.

Not Having a Positive Mental Attitude:

The Muzzleloading hunters who don’t think they will kill deer don’t. Some unsuccessful hunters should have stayed in the lodge and watched TV, instead of going out to hunt the deer, because they’ll say before they leave the lodge that, “I haven’t ever killed a deer and don’t really believe I will. But I’m going out here and look for one anyhow.” Most of the time these hunters do exactly as they have pre-programmed themselves to do – they move into the woods, knowing they’ve never observed a buck and don’t expect to see one this time, so they don’t spot a buck. And, they shouldn’t be disappointed, since they’ve met their own expectations for the hunt. The most-successful woodsmen anticipate seeing deer around every bush. Everywhere they look they assume that each white branch they see off the ground is a deer’s antler – unless proven otherwise. They expect to spot bucks and are convinced that they can bag the deer they see, because their rifles are sighted-in correctly. They take the time required for good, clean shots and have no doubt that if they see deer through their scopes, within a matter of seconds the deer will be on the ground. The hunter’s attitude is one of the most-critical ingredients for successful deer hunting.

According to one muzzleloader deer stalker, “When I’m stalking and moving through the woods, I locate much-more deer sign and learn more about the deer’s movement patterns on the property I’m hunting than if I spend that same amount of time in a tree stand. Also, I enjoy pitting my skills at close quarters with a white-tailed deer. Personally, I feel that stalk-hunting a deer is a far-greater challenge than taking a deer from a tree stand with my CVA rifle.”

Because the woods are generally most quiet immediately after a rain, many muzzleloading hunters prefer to stalk deer then. You have to move quietly through the leaves to get close to a buck. Clear cuts, briar thickets and other types of dense cover provide the backdrop for this tactic. Move along the edges of the cover as close to the thick places as you can get without actually being in the thickets. You want to be able to see out into a hardwood area, so you can spot a deer. But you also want to use that thicket as back cover to keep the deer from spotting you. When scouting, if you spook a deer, return to the site where you’ve seen the animal to determine what the deer has been feeding on and to try to learn why the deer has come to that area at that time of day. Deer are creatures of habit.

A longtime CVA hunter recommends that, “When you step into hardwoods, look the area over for about 3 to 5 minutes, searching for movement. Move 20 yards, stop, and do the same thing again.”

Foot position and balance are the keys to successful muzzleloader deer stalking. Although most bowhunters stalk on two feet, try stalking on one at a time. Every step is calculated, and when and how you transfer your weight from one foot to the other is critical to your stalk-hunting success. When you take the first step, lightly put the heel of your front foot down first. Gently and carefully rock your front foot forward with no pressure on the sole of your foot. All your weight remains on your back foot. Your front foot is just touching the ground like a limp rag. Wear rubber bottom boots to feel any sticks or twigs under your front foot. If you feel a stick under your foot, either move the stick slightly with your foot, or reposition your foot to be sure you don’t snap the twig.

Once your front foot is on the ground, you still have all your weight on your back foot. Then slowly transfer your weight from your back foot to your front foot to ensure steadiness and prevent noise. Lift your foot in the back slightly off the ground, carrying all the weight of your body on your foot in front. Slowly and carefully bring-up your back foot, keeping it close to the ground and moving it slightly in front of your front foot. If a deer spots you as you’re taking a step, freeze, and stand on one foot for as long as possible to keep from spooking the deer you’re stalking.

Question:

Hendricks: I always take my gun inside. I realize a number of people recommend leaving a gun in a rack outside the camp house. In extremely-cold weather, there may be some merit to this line of thinking. But personally I prefer to take my gun inside at camp. In old times, when scope technology wasn’t what it is today, if you were using a scope on your muzzleloader rifle and you took the rifle inside the warm camp house and then took the rifle outside to hunt, the scope would fog-up on the inside. However, with the modern scopes of today, scope manufacturers are filling those scopes with nitrogen, so they don’t fog-up on the inside like they once did in the past.

Question: Okay, I’ve hunted the first day, and the gun’s still loaded. Do you suggest that I take the cap off the end of the nipple, so the gun won’t fire, and then take the loaded gun inside the camp house?

Hendricks: No, not at all. You should always unload your blackpowder rifle before you take it inside the camp house. Unloading now, with the break-open rifles on the market, is easier than ever in the past. So, today all you have to do is to break-open your rifle, take-out the breech plug from the back of the barrel, and, use your ramrod or field rod, to push the load out of the back of the barrel. If you’re careful, you can reuse the pellets or the powder and the bullet, once you’ve pushed it out of the barrel. But always remember: YOU NEVER TAKE A LOADED GUN INSIDE YOUR CAMP HOUSE OR YOUR HOME, AND YOU NEVER LEAVE A LOADED GUN OUTSIDE THE CAMP HOUSE OR YOUR HOME. A loaded gun has no place in a camp house or a home. To push the load out of the back of the gun, you’re only talking about less than a minute to unload the gun before you reach camp and reload the gun, once you get back into the woods and are ready to hunt. Loading and unloading muzzleloader rifles is far-more simple and easy today than it ever has been. The loading and unloading process takes far-less time than it’s ever taken. As with every-other form of hunting, safety should be the primary concern of all of us who go into the woods to hunt.

Question:

Hendricks: The vast majority of our CVA rifles are sold to deer hunters.

Question: Why should deer hunters load with 100 grains of powder instead of a magnum charge of 150 grains?

Hendricks: Most hunters always have believed that the more powder they use, and the bigger bullets they shoot, the better their odds for bagging bucks.

Question: Why isn’t that true?

Hendricks: For an animal the size of a deer, even the bigger deer in the Midwest and Canada, you don’t need the high velocities that 150 grains of powder produces when you’re shooting a 270- or a 300-grain bullet. As a matter of fact, too-much velocity can over-penetrate the deer. With 100 grains of powder, recoil is very manageable for the average shooter, the bullet performance is what you expect, there’s much-less smoke to deal-with after the shot, and your gun will generate about the same bullet weight and velocities as a .45-70 cartridge. That 100 grains of powder easily will take deer out to 200 yards with your muzzleloader, depending on your shooting-skill level.

Question: Why did BPI start developing Bergara Barrels to fit the Thompson/Center Encore rifle frame?

Hendricks: BPI-has a very-modern, state-of-the-art barrel factory with the capacity to produce more barrels than we can use just for our CVA guns. So, we began exploring options on what we could do in the interchangeable barrel market that we already knew how to do well. Because the Thompson/Center Encore barrel was tapered and had lugs that attached to the pin through the receiver, we realized that making Bergara Barrels for the Thompson/Center Encore frame would be a simple process. Also, many of the hunters who shot Thompson/Center rifles weren’t satisfied with the delivery and the accuracy they got with their Thompson/Center barrels. These shooters switched to Bergara Barrels, because not only did we have better barrels, but the barrels were substantially less expensive than the Thompson/Center barrels. Due to the honing process we use, the Bergara Barrel is a very consistent one with better accuracy that’s easier to clean.

Question: How much-more accurate is the Bergara Barrel compared with the Thompson/Center barrel?

Hendricks: We guarantee that the Bergara Barrel in the same caliber and format as a Thompson/Center barrel will be more accurate, or we’ll refund your purchase price.

Question: How successful have Bergara Barrels been with hunters who use Thompson/Center barrels?

Hendricks: Sales have exceeded our expectations. It’s been a very-good project for us.

By hunting sheds, a sportsman may find a rack that will score very high on Boone and Crockett, and that buck never even may have been seen during hunting season. Once the hunter locates that trophy shed and decides to hunt that deer the next season, he must realize he will have to let numbers of small bucks walk past him – if he's going to try and take that trophy buck. But by knowing a trophy buck is in an area, a hunter can concentrate his hunting time the next season in the general region where he's found the trophy's shed antler. In the West, I find many sheds around watering holes and along fence lines. Often when deer are jumping fences, they'll knock their antlers off. Then a hunter can try to find travel trails between feeding and bedding areas along fences where he locates drops. Although each of these places are easy spots to discover sheds, if you really want to locate the shed antlers of trophy bucks, you must go into the thicker spots to look for them. One of the problems with locating big sheds in heavy cover is that rodents are more abundant in thick areas and will consume those antlers at a rapid rate after the deer have shed them.

Finding a Matched Pair of Sheds:

Although the dream of most shed hunters is to find a matched pair of trophy antlers, very rarely do deer shed both antlers at the same time and in the same place. But one year I actually located five sets of matched antlers.  I'm not sure why finding both antlers off the same deer is uncommon, but my best guess is that antler shedding and the casting of antlers is definitely related to nutrition. A deer on a good nutrition level holds his antlers longer than a deer that is nutritionally deprived of good food. One year our ranch provided good nutrition. But after hunting season, the lands I managed went into a drought. Since the deer were somewhat deprived nutritionally, the deer shed their antlers more quickly. At least this guess was the best I had as to why I found more sets of antlers together then.

Locating Dead Trophy Whitetails When Hunting Sheds:

I also discovered in years past some dead trophy deer while hunting sheds. One time, I picked-up both sides of a 14-point buck that scored 176-points non-typical Boone and Crockett. A shed hunter will find these dead deer will include not only deer that may have been wounded during hunting season but also some deer that have died of natural causes. Remember you're hunting sheds after the rut. During the rut in regions with big deer, the trophy bucks generally will be beaten-up badly during mating season. They may have to fight on a daily or a bi-weekly basis, and the bigger, dominant buck must fight more often to prove his dominance. These big old bucks are not invincible. They may develop an infection after being pierced by the antler of a rival. In this weakened condition, they can be attacked and killed by predators like coyotes. A buck can lose as much as 25 percent of his body weight during the rut, which is also the time of the year in many areas of the country when the snowfalls are the heaviest. After deer season in inclement weather, deer will concentrate heavily around food sources. In many regions of the country, farmers and landowners must feed deer so they can survive. In the brush country of south Texas after the rut, the land tends to get dry.

Also some deer, especially trophy deer, simply die of old age, because they have escaped hunting pressure through the years and eventually die of natural causes just like humans do. Too, deer are accident-prone. Sometimes the deer will run into trees and kill themselves or become hung-up on fences and die. Heat and drought both affect deer adversely, and whitetails are susceptible to various parasites and diseases. The main reason you find these dead deer when hunting sheds is because you are in the woods at the time the deer generally die-off. Looking for sheds and studying them will help you have more success when hunting with your CVA muzzleloader gun.

Determining the Condition of the Deer Herd by Studying Sheds:

The best time a muzzleloader hunter can lease land or to look for place to hunt is after the rut. If a muzzleloader hunter is considering leasing a particular piece of property and wants to know the condition of the deer on the land, he should be able to walk over the lease and find sheds. If he doesn't discover any sheds, then he must question how-many deer are on the lease. The same is true of public lands. If public lands are available where you plan to hunt this season, but you aren't sure what the condition of the deer herd is on those lands, then walk the land after the season, and search for sheds. Too, sheds will tell sportsmen how well they're doing with their deer-management programs. For instance, if your hunting club is attempting to produce numbers of bucks, and your members don't find very-many sheds, then realize something is wrong in your deer-management program.  Also sheds will tell you the size of bucks you have on the property and the general condition of those bucks.

On some of the ranches I’ve managed, we collect all the sheds we can discover every year. Then we measure every shed. Although the data doesn't give us any age criteria, it does give us a bio mass of antlers. We can tell by the sheer volume of antlers we pick-up, whether we have a number of bucks or a few bucks, and whether we have little or big bucks. I've personally been collecting and weighing sheds for years. I'm attempting to evaluate from the sheds whether we've had a good year, a great year or an average year for antler development on the properties we manage. Something else we're able to determine from sheds is that we can better predict for the hunter what size bucks he'll have to hunt the upcoming year. If we find numbers of small, scrappy antlers, then we can project that hunters may not bag very-many large trophies the coming year. But if we locate some quality racks, we'll know our hunters the following year can expect to harvest some trophy bucks. So, collecting sheds helps the muzzleloader hunter keep his expectations of the upcoming buck harvest within more-reasonable bounds. Bass fishermen have learned that bass usually are in only 10-percent of a lake's area. Deer follow much the same pattern in the woods. Shed hunters quickly will learn where their chances are best on any piece of property to find deer and take them with their CVA guns. 

The Significance of Locked Deer Antlers:

Shed hunters also may find one of the most-discouraging sights in all of nature – two bucks with antlers locked in combat, and both deer dead. When a muzzleloader hunter discovers two locked racks, the first thing he knows is that the sex ratio of the deer herd is probably approximately one buck for each doe, because bucks fight more and therefore lock horns more often when there are fewer does. Finding two bucks locked in combat was thought to be very uncommon in past years.  However, one time, the ranch I managed had 15 bucks radio-collared. Out of those 15 bucks on the 100,000-acre ranch, one of those radio-collared bucks locked-up with another deer. One year we found two sets or four bucks that locked antlers – one pair in December and the other in February. These bucks were a tremendous size. Two of these deer had racks that scored close to 170 points on Boone and Crockett. When you're out hunting sheds, you may discover bucks with locked antlers. 

Becoming a Year-Round Deer Hunter Can Help You Take Trophy Bucks:

The outdoorsman who wants to become a trophy hunter and consistently take big deer must learn to hunt all year long and carry his gun into the woods only during hunting season. Not-enough time is available during hunting season in most states for a trophy hunter to unravel the mysteries of the big bucks. Even if the sportsman does determine what the deer in his area are doing, the season may be over before he has a chance to intercept a buck in the woods. Although deer are not that smart, they have learned to avoid hunters. Most always on any given piece of land, a few bucks continually will escape hunters. These deer seem to have a sixth sense about how to avoid hunters. Unless a muzzleloader hunter is willing to hunt trophy bucks all year long, he not only never may find a trophy buck to hunt, but also he'll never develop a strategy for taking that deer. If you truly want to hunt a trophy, the odds of bagging that trophy buck are best for the hunter who makes the commitment to hunt deer all year long.  Shed hunting is an integral part of trophy buck hunting for CVA outdoorsmen who understand what sheds mean, where to look for the sheds, and what to do after they find them.

Editor’s Note:

 I was hunting in northeastern Maine with my 21-year-old son Josh, and we’d put-out trail cameras on baits to see which bears were hitting what baits at what times. Most of the bears our trail cameras photographed came to the bait after dark. We hoped to take these bears with our bows, but we couldn’t seem to find a bait the bears would come-to during daylight hours. However, across the lake from where we stayed, about a 15-minute boat ride from camp, a bear was coming-in to a bait site at about 5:00 pm every day. But this bait site was set-up for a rifle hunter, not a bowhunter. So, on the last day of the hunt, Josh decided to take his CVA Accura to that bait site to try to take the bear. The bear came-in at about 5:00 pm, and when the bear was 50-yards away, Josh smoked him. This was Josh’s first bear with a gun, but he’s taken several with a bow. The bear only went about 40 yards and then piled-up. The bear was across a cove, so we used a boat to load-up the bear and take him back to camp.

 Even if you’re a bowhunter, carry a CVA Accura with you on an extended hunt. It’s a shame to pay all the expenses for the hunt and know there’s an animal out there you may can take, but that won’t come to within bow range. If you’ve got a CVA Accura with you, then on the last day of the hunt, you still can fill your tag, have a successful hunt and go home with the trophy you went to take. When we’re taping a TV episode and have cameramen, travel time, expenses and an outfitter we’re working with, being successful is important. So, we’ve always got the CVA Accura with us, regardless if we’re bowhunting or not.

According to Chris Jaworowski, a hog specialist for the State of Alabama, “Most sows have at least two litters per year, with three being possible. Those litters average eight piglets. And, at 6 months of age, the young are capable of breeding. Top this with the fact that hogs have very few if any predators, and the result is an ample supply of wild pork.” From these statistics, you can see why an overpopulation of hogs easily can occur, even if an area starts with only two wild pigs. More wildlife specialists nationwide are turning to hunters to take more hogs each season, which is good news for blackpowder hunters. If you travel to different states to hunt wild pigs with your CVA muzzleloader rifle, you may be able to collect all the pork you want or need for you and everyone else you know. 

But what about the meat of the feral hog? Is it really good to eat? You betcha. As a matter of fact, feral hogs provide a much-leaner meat than domestic hogs do. They’re free of steroids and eat wild foods. But you have to identify before you hunt them which hogs are meat hogs, and which are trophy hogs. The best feral pigs for meat will be females weighing 150 pounds or less. Even males 150 pounds or less are still good eating hogs. However, when a hog starts to weigh about 200 pounds, the meat becomes somewhat strong. The young pigs are the most-delicious tasting and tender. 

A trophy boar will weigh 200 pounds or more. Chris Jaworowski explains, "The largest of the hogs taken in Alabama have bottomed-out our deer scales, and those scales weigh up to 500 pounds. Though it takes 6 to 7 years for a boar to reach that size, there are a few around." These size hogs are often the ones with big tusks – hogs that make outstanding trophies for muzzleloader hunters. However, when you’re hunting a monster hog like this, you’ll need to use a magnum load, even at close range, because the hogs are very thick and have a gristly armor-like plating over their vitals. 

Not only do feral swine pose a threat to farmers by destroying crops and landowners by rooting-up roads, green fields and generally tearing-up the terrain, hogs are a serious threat to wildlife populations. “Deer, turkey, squirrels and other animals who feed on acorns find their food by sight,” Jaworowski says. “The wild pig uses its nose to find food. Therefore, a large population of hogs on a particular property can wipe-out an acorn crop and severely damage the food supply for not only deer and turkey but also for other wildlife.”

Therefore, most wildlife agencies in most states are planning for more-liberal bag limits for feral swine, longer seasons and more opportunity for muzzleloader hunters to take more feral hogs throughout the year.

Many farmers who raised pigs up until the time the fence laws were enacted, allowed the pigs to roam free. They were herded-up during the fall and sold. However, when the fence laws were enacted in the 1930s across much of the country requiring farmers to put hogs, cattle and all domestic animals behind fences, the farmers and ranchers rounded-up as many hogs as possible. But they didn’t worry about the ones remaining in the woods. Because of the strong survival instincts of feral swine and the fact that they usually bedded and hid in thick cover and only moved at night, not only were the hogs able to survive, they thrived, especially in wetlands along creek and river drainages and in swamps. When sportsmen began to get excited about the opportunity to hunt wild pigs, sometimes they trapped and transported hogs into areas where feral swine were rarely, if ever, found, which explains the rapid growth of hog populations nationwide.

You’ve probably heard sportsmen talk about the Russian wild boar that you can hunt with Muzzleloader. In the early 1900s, some enclosures throughout the United States had sportsmen bring-in wild boars from Europe and released them into enclosures to hunt. Some of these wild boars did escape. However, their gene pool has been so depleted now that unless you see a hog with a tag in his ear that says “From Russia with love,” you haven’t taken a Russian boar. One reason that so-many hunters attribute Russian boar status to feral hogs is because of their colors and their teeth. However, understanding why many feral hogs are black or brindle-colored is easy. A white hog, a spotted hog or a hog with a color pattern of anything other than black or brown can be easily spotted by predators when they’re very young. Since foxes, bobcats and coyotes all prey on very-young piglets, the brown and black ones survive better. Wild boar hogs grow teeth in the wild, curved tusks that may grow as long as 7 inches and that are cut from the mouths of domestic pigs at birth. Wild hogs use these tusks, also known as canine teeth, for defense and to establish dominance for breeding.

Although wild pigs are fun to hunt, because they aren’t native to this country and don’t really have a place in our ecosystem, they are highly destructive. Dr. Steve Ditchkoff, associate professor of wildlife at Auburn University, headed-up the first national conference on wild pigs a couple of years ago, with 32 U.S. and Australian researchers attending. He reports that, “Nationwide, feral hogs are a growing problem and now in at least 40 states. In the Midwest, feral-hog problems are in their infancy. But researchers are predicting that before long, the Midwest, the Bread Basket of America, will have as severe a feral-hog problem as the southeastern U.S.” Ditchkoff explains that feral hogs compete with native wildlife for food and often monopolize acorn and soft-mast crops. Feral hogs also eat turtles, reptiles, and amphibians – including endangered toads and lizards. Feral hogs even have had a devastating impact on sea turtle nests. Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base contains some of the largest tracts of the 1% of Florida’s seepage slopes that remain. Feral swine damage has threatened this wetland habitat, costing $5.3 million in 2-years time. In some parts of Texas, landowners consider wild hogs as the second-worst predator, after the coyote, on newborn livestock. Ditchkoff says, “Feral hogs can destroy complete ecosystems. For instance, in Hawaii, where fresh water is a very-precious commodity, feral hogs can alter water flow and nutrient cycling to disrupt the quality of the water, costing Hawaii billions each year. I don’t believe we have a full grasp yet of how destructive the growing feral-hog population will be on nutrient cycling, water quality and direct predation on individual species. In Hawaii, hogs actually have caused the extinction of certain species, and this potential exists here on the mainland.”

As you can see, feral hogs pose a threat not only to landowners and hunters, but to our way of life. Therefore, CVA encourages all muzzleloader hunters to take every opportunity to hunt, harvest and eat feral hogs. In so doing, you’re not only feeding your family and having a great opportunity to hunt all year long, but you’re also contributing to good conservation practices and helping our fragile environment. Shoot feral hogs, and eat wild pork.