With the longest continuous season in the country, archery deer hunting is a bountiful opportunity for Arkansas hunters in fall and winter.
Archery deer season runs Sept. 25 - Feb. 28, 2022, allowing hunters to pursue deer in all phases of the pre-rut, rut and post-rut.
While November is synonymous with firearms deer hunting, pursuing whitetails with archery equipment has distinct advantages. Unlike firearms, discharging archery equipment is quiet, making it inconspicuous in areas where noise might disturb or unnerve neighbors. Archery hunting also occurs at much closer ranges, and usually from elevated positions, so it is perceptibly safer than hunting with firearms.
Also, some localities prohibit discharging firearms but allow use of archery equipment.
All of these elements enable hunters to pursue whitetails in places that protect them from harvest from firearms. These de facto refuge areas allow deer to live to ripe old ages without peril except from motor vehicles. Age, along with food and genetics, is a primary factor in antler development, and middle age bucks sport the class of antlers that hunters desire.
While these are generally urban locations, they can also be in more sparsely populated suburban and quasi-rural areas. Wherever they occur, these areas can provide high-quality hunting opportunities for skilled bowhunters.
Why Bowhunt Now?
November is the peak of deer breeding season, also known as the "rut." The dates vary across the South by about six weeks, but Dixie deer hunters generally associate the rut with -- appropriately -- Thanksgiving.
Ralph Meeker, the deer program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said that the amount of daylight, or photo period, triggers breeding activity in whitetails. In Arkansas, Meeker said, the rut occurs in a descending gradient from northwest to southeast. The average peak of the rut in Arkansas is Nov. 11, he added, which is why Arkansas always opens modern gun deer season on the second Saturday of November.
"You can definitely see a difference as you progress from west to east," Meeker said. "The Arkansas River Valley will be a little earlier and the northwest will be a little bit earlier. As you progress east, it gets into Thanksgiving to the second week of December along the Mississippi River."
Hunters know by heart the peak rut dates in the areas where they hunt. Those are red ink dates on your calendar, and you'll cancel your own funeral to be in the deer woods on those days. That's when mature bucks are less cautious and less elusive, and thus more likely to encounter hunters.
Gather Intel
More than with any other style of hunting, scouting is essential to successful bowhunting. Depending on your proficiency, your effective range with a centerfire rifle might be 300-500 yards. With a muzzleloading rifle, it might be 200 yards.
Even with the most modern compound bow and accessories, bowhunters prefer shots inside 30 yards. Getting that close to a deer requires intimate knowledge of its daily movements from bedding area to food sources.
During the pre-rut period, it is possible for a hunter to pattern a particular buck. During the rut, on the other hand, bucks mostly follow does. They are preoccupied with breeding, and they largely eschew feeding and other non-breeding activities. Therefore, savvy bowhunters actually pattern does during the rut.
Remote cameras reveal daily doe travel patterns. Mature does and their entourages of younger does are creatures of habit. They use the same trails during their daily circuits through feeding and bedding areas. It is assured that a buck will be near a doe as she approaches the peak of her estrus cycle.
Bucks mark their presence by pawing scrapes in the dirt and rubbing their antlers on trees. These are prime areas over which to hang a stand because a buck will eventually work a scrape or a rub in daylight.
Bowhunting 'Trident'
Killing mature bucks in the rut involves a three-prong strategy. Key on does, minimize your presence in the woods, and strategically pick your time to hunt hot stands based on prevailing wind.
Throughout the South, hunters rely heavily on cultivated food plots that they plant to benefit deer. The main advantage of food plots is that they attract does. Where does congregate, bucks will eventually appear. However, mature bucks seldom enter a food plot in daylight. They hover around the edges and remain concealed in the woods.
Scouting reveals how bucks approach these areas. Cameras minimize a hunter's physical presence, namely scent. With modern cameras that send images to a smart phone, a hunter need not enter the woods at all except to hunt.
Cameras will tell you if a dominant buck is in an area. They also reveal the trails a buck uses between bedding and feeding areas, and at what time he uses them.
A mature buck usually does not walk the same trail that the does use. The doe trail is a highway. The buck cuts his own trail close to the doe highway. Think of it as an frontage road adjacent to the freeway. Of course, a buck is also a creature of habit. He, like a doe, uses the same trail repeatedly.
Now that you've patterned a buck, don't take unnecessary chances. The wind must be perfect and the timing must be right. Study weather forecasts zealously and hunt only on days when the wind favors your stand. The wind should blow away from bedding areas and approach routes. Making a mistake will almost ensure that you will not see that buck for the rest of the season.
On your chosen day, you can boost your odds by challenging a buck's dominance. First, use a bleat call like that of a doe in heat. Wait about 5-10 minutes and follow the bleat with a grunt of a lesser buck. A dominant buck often won't tolerate it the presence of a subordinate interloper.
To maximize the element of surprise, hunt in the afternoon and evening. Deer often move in the early morning, and you risk bumping a buck walking to a stand before daylight. It's easier to slip in unnoticed in the afternoon, when deer are bedded down in cover.
If you are interested in arrowing a buck but also want to arrow a doe, it's better to do it before or after the rut, when bucks are less likely to be following does.
The most crucial aspect of bowhunting is practice. Shoot a lot of targets from the elevation you intend to hunt until precise shot placement is instinctive. An imprecise shot will negate all of the time and effort you spent scouting.