 A
BUCK PICKS HIS CORE AREA
Determining If The Core Area Has Moved and Finding
the Northern Core Area
Editor’s Note: If you can find the core of a
buck's home range, you'll enjoy much-better odds of
taking him, since he'll spend most of his time in daylight
hours there. But what does the core of a buck's home
range look like, what ingredients must that core area
have to hold a buck and how can you find or create a
core area to take more big bucks each season? To learn
the answers to these questions and others, we've interviewed
some of the nation's leading biologists and deer hunters.
Bucks will change their core areas -- depending on
the availability of food, water and cover. Woods reports
on what biologists in Iowa and Illinois have learned
who have done research on a deer's core area. "For
instance, six months out of the year, a buck may have
a small hardwood drainage as his core area," Woods
explains. "Then once soybeans start growing in
the fields, the deer may move his core area closer to
the field because he wants to spend more time closer
to his food source. Before the season, you often can
see huge bucks out in soybean fields that hold plenty
of food and  no
predators. Hunters will hang stands and prepare to take
the monsters they've spotted in those fields. But, when
the beans are gone, the bucks generally will leave too
and set up a new core area. Although a buck may go to
several different food sources during the year, when
he feels threatened, he'll move back into his core area
and only travel out of it for food at night. If you
live in a region where deer have a constant food source
all year, you'll find they often won't move very far
from that core. However, if you live in a section where
the food sources change regularly, the deer may move
their core area to get closer to the food and only feed
at night. One of the only times biologists see a core
area move dramatically is in herds with an older-age-class
structure and a lot of competition for dominance between
the bucks."
Woods explains that if a 4-year-old buck that goes
out to breed a doe gets challenged by a heavy-bodied
5-year-old buck with a head full of antlers, then that
4-year-old will find himself a new place to live, after
he's taken some beatings from this 5-year-old. The 4-year-old
will then move his core area to keep from encountering
that 5-year-old every time he discovers a doe in estrus.
As Woods mentions, "Bucks have a tremendous fidelity
to their home range. However, once again their core
area can change within that home range based on food
availability, predation or terrain changes in land patterns."
Finding the Northern Core Area:
 Chris
Kirby, the president of Quaker Boy Calls in Orchard
Park, New York, hunts in New York State, generally on
farms 150 to 200 acres in size. "I believe there
are four things that affect a buck's core area where
I hunt: human pressure, easy escape routes, heavy cover
and a site close to the doe's bedding area. A buck wants
to be in a place where he won't be seen by hunters during
the daylight hours but still has access to an estrous
doe that may wander by. One of the core areas I've found
that consistently holds nice bucks is a 30X40-foot thick
spot right on the edge of a mountain. The spot has been
logged and homes plenty of undergrowth on which the
deer can feed. This core area sits on a steep mountain
with steep drop-offs n three sides. The buck can see,
smell or hear anything in front of him. Too, a small,
thick spot lays about 50-yards below the buck's core
area where does bed. He can smell the does when they
come into this bedding area. This spot is remote, but
I don't believe a buck's core area has to be remote.
For example, sometimes I've seen several large bucks
right off the Highway 90 Expressway during daylight
hours, which means their core areas must be very close
to the expressway. As long as the deer stay right there,
no one will be able to take them. Too, there's no human
pressure on these deer. I believe the first thing a
buck looks for is a great place to live where he can
spend most of his time in the daylight hours without
being disturbed."
 On
a 150- to a 200-acre farm, Kirby says often he'll find
one dominant buck holding in a core area as well as
a subordinate buck and possibly several yearling bucks,
depending on the terrain and the land ownership. "But
I'll rarely see more than two, 2-1/2 year-old or older
bucks on a 150- to a 200-acre farm," Kirby reports.
"Most of the time only one, 2-1/2-year-old or older
buck will live on each farm."
TOMORROW: LOCATING THE CORE
AREA OF THE NORTHWESTERN AND SOUTHERN BUCKS
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