Bowhunter: "Ladies First"

The author hails from Lewiston, Minnesota. Watch future issues of this magazine for the author's features based on artist Mike Sieve's "Survival Series" of paintings.

THE AUTUMN OF 1993 hadn't started out well for Judy Kovar. That summer had been a tough one for the Midwest, as widespread flooding had inundated dozens of towns and countless low-lying farm fields. Among the land affected was an Illinois farm owned by Judy and her husband, Herm. "We'd lost just about everything that year, it seemed," Judy recalls. "Our farmhouse, our fields ... everything was underwater. I can tell you, the two of us were feeling pretty low when the hunting season rolled around."

But Judy Kovar isn't one to give in easily to adversity. Known as much for her positive outlook as for her hunting ability, Judy switched her attention to a 120-acre tract that had not been affected by the flooding.

"We call that farm 'the homeplace,' and I'd killed three or four bucks there in the past," Judy recalls. "Fortunately, it didn't take me very long to find a nice buck there. Unfortunately, hunting him turned out to be pretty frustrating."

Judy located the buck where he'd left the most sign, at a point where a series of ridges came together and joined a field. Judy picked a couple of different ambush spots, but as so often happens, the deer didn't cooperate. "One night I'd sit on one ridge, and I'd watch him on the next. The following evening, I'd sit that ridge, and he'd be on the next one, or the one I'd been on the night before. I told Herm, 'This is like an Indian playing Russian roulette.'"

While Judy was getting frustrated playing sight-tag with the buck, she wasn't about to give up. "A couple days after Thanksgiving I decided to try him again," Judy remembers. "There was a crunchy snow on the ground, a condition I call 'cornflakes and eggshells,' but I went out anyway, and took my decoy, thinking that maybe if that deer had something to see, I'd have a better chance. I put the decoy on a field edge and left just one side of his rack on, like he was an inferior buck. But I'd put the decoy by this permanent stand, and with the crunchy snow and all, I just didn't feel confident in the spot. So I eventually decided to get out of the stand, leave the decoy, and still-hunt toward what I thought was his bedding area.

"After sneaking -- or trying to sneak -- awhile, I found this huge scrape. It seemed like a good spot, so I knelt down and looked around. Then I blew three real soft grunts on my grunt call, and it wasn't 10 minutes until I saw the buck get out of his bed on the next ridge and head down into the hollow toward me."

Judy readied herself for a shot as the buck dipped into a ravine, but at some point on his way in, the trophy must have noticed Judy's decoy poised at the field edge. "The next time I saw the buck, he was heading for that decoy on a dead run," Judy says. "And he didn't stop when he got there. He hit the decoy and knocked it flat on its side, then headed back toward the hollow.

"The minute I saw him running at the decoy, I ran that way, too. With the crunchy snow, I made quite a racket, and when the buck turned back into the woods I saw him look my way. I'm sure he thought I was another deer, because he headed right at me, and all I could do was kneel down. Of course, I'd stopped in a grassy opening, with no cover at all."

Though the buck had fallen for one decoy, he wasn't fooled by the kneeling form of Judy in the grassy clearing. "I was waiting at full draw when he walked into bow range' Judy recalls. "But I won't take a head-on or quartering-to shot, so I just held on him. When he saw me, he immediately got suspicious. As he turned to leave I started praying 'Please, God, let him stop. Just let him stop.' And I don't know why, but all of a sudden he stopped and I released. He took off with the arrow in him, and when I found him later, he'd died within a few yards of the same bed I'd seen him get out of."

The stocky, nearly perfect eight-point later scored 140 2/8 P&Y.

BOWHUNTER READERS should be familiar with Judy Kovar's record on trophy whitetails. Judy has seven whitetails in the P&Y books -- more than any other woman. And she has proven time and again that she is one of the country's top female bowhunters, especially when it comes to big whitetails. That was one reason that wildlife artist Mike Sieve chose to depict a Kovar-killed buck in his popular "Survival Series" painting titled "Rule #4 -- Ladies First."

The other reason Mike chose Judy's deer to illustrate Rule #4 was that the buck broke the well-known survival rule so often followed by mature bucks: Allowing a doe (or does) to lead the way and warn him of danger. While most mature bucks are survival machines unto themselves, they're even tougher with wary old does in front of them. Just think back to a hunt when you were certain of an opportunity at a buck -- only to get busted by a nearby doe. The buck read the doe's body language in an instant, and you went from a sure thing to a botched hunt in a heartbeat. If this scenario has never happened to you, I'm betting you haven't pursued whitetails long.

Why, and how, do whitetails react so strongly to caution or fear in other deer? How do bucks learn to use their herdmates to warn them of danger? How can bowhunters prevent spooking other animals and get a chance at a mature buck? To some, these questions appear basic, but they cut to the heart of a bowhunter's understanding of whitetails, and how well we answer them each year may determine whether we have an up-close encounter with a buck, or simply dream about it. Beating a buck that's following Rule #4 -- Ladies First, may be one of bowhunting's most challenging tasks.

UNDERSTANDING how whitetails warn each other of danger is the first step, and to do that a hunter must accept one fact -- deer are social critters that not only seek the company of their own kind but are constantly communicating with each other. From the time a fawn can stand, it not only relies on its own senses for danger warnings but also trusts the signals of other deer around it. And how deer can communicate! Through a combination of vocalizations, body posturing, and scent marking, deer are forever "talking" to each other about something, and they certainly talk to warn each other of danger. I asked noted whitetail researcher Ben Koerth to describe ways by which deer communicate danger to each other.

"Probably the most obvious is body posture," Koerth said. "And some of the messages can be pretty subtle. For example, if a herd of deer is feeding in a field and one of them hears something, it just stops feeding and stares. Other deer, which didn't hear the sound but notice the staring deer, will also quit feeding and begin staring in the same direction. That's how attentive deer are to each other. One hears a sound, and suddenly the whole herd is alert."

Other postures are more dramatic, Koerth said. "One of the most obvious danger signals for a whitetail is to raise its tail. But before it does that, it may simply flare the hair on its back or near its tail. And, of course, foot-stamping is an obvious danger signal that may serve a dual purpose -- the deer is probably trying to draw a reaction from whatever alarmed it, as well as warning other deer of the possible danger. And, of course, the most dramatic danger signal is simply running off. That alarms every other deer around."

Vocalizations can also communicate a warning. Most every bowhunter who has been busted by a deer has endured a good round of snorting and blowing, as the deer (usually a big doe) stands a safe distance away and announces her displeasure at sharing her woods with such a smelly, inept predator. While snorting is the whitetail equivalent to an air-raid siren, other more subtle vocalizations may also spell d-a-n-g-e-r. Last summer my wife, Shari, and I visited a captive deer herd in northern Wisconsin, and I heard more deer babble in a couple of hours there than I have in 25 years in the woods, convincing me that deer talk to each other a whole lot more than I gave them credit for.

Iowa DNR whitetail biologist Dale Garner agrees. "If you get to handle deer or be up-close with them a lot, you realize they vocalize a lot more than we ever hear while we're hunting them."

Interestingly, deer may not have to even see or hear each other to communicate their fear. "Some research indicates that deer may leave a 'fear scent' from their metatarsal glands," Ben Koerth said. "For example, if a deer is spooked while walking on a trail and runs off, it may leave some of this scent on the trail. If another deer comes along later, it may smell this scent and become alarmed. It may not panic and leave, but it could get very alert and start searching for danger'

The effects of a classic "Ladies First" scenario are pretty cut and dried - the doe departs at warp speed and the buck in tow doesn't hang around waiting for clues. But what about less obvious situations? For example, inexperienced hunters commonly admit to spooking deer, but then they add, "But they were only does' I always smile when I hear that comment, because the ripple effect of spooking does goes far beyond the deer you know you spooked - it continues on into the surrounding area as the exiting animals snort, stomp, and crash to escape the danger. Every deer in hearing distance -- often bucks waiting to enter the very feeding area departed by the spooked does -- acknowledges the alarm and responds.

I HAD A NEAT, though frustrating, opportunity to view such an event one evening on a Wisconsin farm where I'd been seeing the sign of a mature buck near a wooded corner along a remote field. I normally don't sit field edges, but the L-shaped corner met a steep ravine, forming a perfect funnel for cruising bucks in the prerut. So I hung my stand in a tree where I could shoot to the field edge and still cover the funnel trails.

My second night on that stand, several does had fed into the field when I heard movement on a funnel trail. Peeking over my shoulder, I saw a trophy-class eight-point come to a stop on the trail and gaze intently at the does. Any yearling buck would have run straight to those does, but this guy scoped things Out before committing, and I just prayed he'd mosey my way before jumping the barbwire and heading for love.

I try not to stare hard at any animal I intend to shoot, so I purposely shifted my gaze to the field -- and didn't like what I saw. Every doe had suddenly gone on red alert, staring toward a neighboring property. I followed their gaze and noticed another hunter driving his pickup to his stand. I cussed softly under my breath, then looked back at the buck. Although he couldn't see the rattling pickup, he read the body language of those does like a dimestore novel, and as soon as the first one minced nervously toward the woods, the buck disappeared into thick cover. I never saw him again from that stand, and I relearned why spooking "just a doe" is no small matter.

SO HOW DO YOU keep a trophy buck from using other deer to pick you off? The answer may be simple, but the execution difficult. For starters, use the same caution around every deer that you would around a monster buck. Mature does are every bit as smart as most trophy bucks, and repeatedly bumping old matriarchs from your stand setups will soon turn your carefully chosen spot as cold as an icebox. This is especially true in that prime window of prerut, when big bucks cruise through doe family groups, looking for willing mates. If you can hunt these family groups without altering their patterns, you should get a chance at a wandering trophy.

Fundamental, low-impact bowhunting will ensure that you slip past the early defense warning of does: Carefully plan your entry and exit routes to each stand. Only hunt areas when the wind is right. Keep sound and movement to a minimum when any deer is in the area. Rotate locations so that you don't burn out an area by overhunting it.

These tactics are nothing new or earth shattering, but executing them day after day through a long hunting season is what separates successful trophy hunters from wannabes. As one good friend, who has killed several P&Y bucks in recent years, is fond of saying, "There are no secrets to killing big deer. You just need to put in your time and hunt smart?." At face value, that's an encouraging forecast. But pulling it off? It's not easy for the lazy or faint of heart.

Just remember that the wallhanger you're after has one mission on his mind for most of his life -- staying alive. He may put that on the back burner for a narrow blip of time while he tries to procreate, but he never totally forgets it. Just watch him there, in full rut, following a doe happily through the woods, seemingly drunk on testosterone. But a swirling breeze makes his ladylove stop suddenly and thrust her nose skyward, scenting for danger. The buck's demeanor goes from lovesick to leery, and acting on principle, he turns slowly and sneaks for cover. Survival Rule #4 -- Ladies First -- has ensured he'll live another day.