Twin Elements · Tips & Tactics

Getting Rut Ready: Our Pre-Rut Checklist For Fallow & Red Deer

By Ayden Doumtsis

The fallow and red deer rut is still a couple of months away. For a lot of us in the South Pacific, whether in New Zealand or Australia, the peak rut, which transpires in March and April, is the main event of the hunting year.

It is most probably the time when most hunters are in the bush, and for good reason. Some of the best, closest, most raw hunting experiences come from calling in croaking fallow bucks and roaring red stags!

This is the specific checklist that I run through each and every year, prior to my hunts, to make sure I am fully ready when April rolls around.

In This Report

1. Tip 1: Lock In Your Time Off
2. Tip 2: Secure Your Access
3. Tip 3: Get Fit
4. Tip 4: Prepare Your Weapon: Tune Your Bow Or Sight Your Rifle
5. Tip 5: Get Your Gear Ready
6. Tip 6: Run Trail Cameras As Additional Eyes
7. Tip 7: Have Backup Plans
8. Tip 8: Scout The Velvet Bucks
9. Tip 9: Hunt The Does
10. Tip 10: Find The Scrapes

For most hunters, when we think of March and April, we think of roaring red deer stags and croaking fallow bucks. The following checklist gets you ready for this incredible time of year!

Tip 1: Lock In Your Time Off

The most important consideration is communication. Communication with family, friends and certainly communication with work and employers. Communicate your hunting desires / plans early and make sure anyone who needs to know them is well informed and in the loop. As many of us know here in Australia, the red deer roar and the fallow deer rut fall in autumn, primarily late March and April as day length begins to decrease. Being an annual event, there’s no excuse not to be prepared months in advance. The rut is a period of heightened activity, it’s not as if it occurs randomly and sneaks up on you at random times through the calendar year. Do not wait until the first week of March to ask the boss for a week off in April. In some jobs that may be your busiest time of year. For many families, April activities are formulated based around the Easter long weekend. Another consideration to be mindful of at this time of the year.

When it comes to the rut, peak activity varies depending on the state and region you’re hunting. NSW will vary slightly to QLD for red deer. As will NSW and Victoria for fallow deer. Even in the same state, fallow bucks may rut differently between the Hunter Valley region and the New England which is only a few hundred kilometres down the road.

It varies up and down the East Coast, and higher deer densities generally mean a broader rut. If I had to pick my prime times, it would be as follows:

• Fallow Deer: 7th to 14th April. Wherever I have hunted, and from talking to people in Tassie, Victoria, New South Wales and south-east South Australia, that seems to be prime time. Be mindful of the different rut stages, i.e. pre-rut, peak rut and post-rut as each has their different strategies depending on what time you land on.
• Reds: 25th of March - 5th of April. Reds seem to go a bit earlier than the fallow deer where we hunt. In low density areas the rut may come and go before you even start hearing a roar. Whereas in higher density areas such as the Brisbane Valley in South East Queensland, stags may be rutting and roaring for weeks into April.

Realistically, the best time to hunt is the time you get off to hunt. If that lands in late March and you’re targeting fallow deer, focus on getting in on bucks while they are touching up their scrapes and fighting. A few weeks later, when the does arrive, you may try the odd doe call or sitting off a scrape. You can have really good success pre-rut and post-rut with different tactics.

March Is For Roaring Red Stags

Tip 2: Secure Your Access

If you have access already, congratulations. It’s certainly a huge part of the pathway to success. By now, you have locked your dates in well in advance. There is no point calling the property owner in mid March trying to book, and there is nothing worse than calling a farmer on April 1st, asking to bring a whole tribe and a couple of caravans out for a hunt next week. We try to have the lowest footprint and be as organised as we can. Coming into the rut, I have already spoken to all my access and locked in dates. James and I will always try and have a couple of options regarding properties. This allows us to be fluid in our hunting, such as if the wind’s terrible for one property, or the farmer needs to muster cattle, use a paddock etc. Having backup options is always great in the event you want to stay a day longer.

If you are booking public land or state forest in New South Wales, do not leave it to the last minute either. Prime dates are highly competitive and other camps will be booking them. First in, best dressed.

If You Don't Have Access Yet

Now is the time to go and find it. A lot of good places get calls every single day during the rut. Prioritise a weekend, stay a night in a motel and spend a day or two door knocking ahead of the rut. Some of our best properties have come from rocking up, introducing myself to a property owner and going from there. It is a big deal letting a stranger onto land that is their livelihood, so always be respectful, regardless of if they allow you to hunt or not.

Pre Rut Scouting

Tip 3: Get Fit

Fitness is important for hunting at any time, but particularly at this time of year. Deer are crepuscular, which means they are most active at dawn and dusk. That matters because it means stalks and opportunities can be limited to very small windows throughout the day. Being fit and rut ready, especially if you are navigating hills, lets you cover country when you need to and put yourself in the right spot more times, so that eventually a stalk or an ambush plays out in your favour. Fit doesn’t have to translate to abdominal muscles and huge biceps. Fit is a mental and physical attribute.

Fit means allowing yourself to go and go after every opportunity. Fit means marching up to a croaking fallow buck and being able to cover the ground without pausing for a breather.

Fit means waking up each morning at 4am without the hassle of monitoring cramps and sore legs.

Most of the red deer and fallow populations that I know of are in at least some mountainous terrain. That may not be the case for areas such as Western Australia and south east South Australia however the rule still applies. The ability to sprint up a mountain for a roaring stag or a croaking buck is often what makes the difference. I have had an exceptional stag roaring only three hundred metres above, where another hunter couldn’t get there in time, and we lost the opportunity. I have also had more times than I can count, a croaking fallow buck up on the mountain during the last half hour of light. At this point it’s a mad dash to cover country. Multiple times, I have had people tell me they cannot physically get there before dark.

Your fitness goals do not have to start big. We are currently (at the time of writing this) in daylight savings with warm weather upon us. So my advice would be to get off the couch and go for a half an hour walk. To level up and build your fitness:

• Add 5 to 10 kilos in your hunting pack and walk up and down some stairs or a hill.
• A simple high intensity workout circuit can increase cardio abilities. This might include some pushups, lunges, abdominal workouts, air squats, box jumps and short runs around the block. Twenty to thirty minutes a couple times per week will make huge inroads to your fitness goals.
• My personal choice is a StairMaster which I utilise at the local gym. For me, nothing beats a weighted backpack or vest on the StairMaster. This activity is the closest thing I have found to match the physical demands of hunting itself. The key is to start now, not at the end of March.

Tip 4: Prepare Your Weapon: Tune Your Bow Or Sight Your Rifle

This is the other breaking point where as guides and hunters we have seen people commonly let themselves, and us, down. You put in all the work to get someone into a prime position and they shoot way out, cannot hold their bow back long enough, or cannot shoot from a kneeling position.

We are responsible for the accuracy of our equipment and the welfare of the animals we hunt. There is no excuse for gear that is not shooting accurately before you set out on a hunt, and “not having enough time” is not a good enough excuse.

Bowhunters, always make sure your broadheads are razor sharp before any hunt.

• Hunting a lot does not translate to shooting a lot.
  You can go weeks without taking a shot. Even if you are hunting every day and your bow has been tuned, get plenty of shots in at camp during the down times.
• Keep shooting on the hunt.
  Back at camp, step out twenty, thirty, forty metres, put a few shots in the ten ring and touch up your broadheads.
  It takes about ten seconds and does wonders for your confidence.
  The confidence from ten ringing the target translates to the field.
  In the USA I shot every day in camp, even after dark with the car lights on, because things happen to your bow. Your peep can twist. You do not want to draw on a roaring red stag at twenty metres after busting your backside getting into position and find your peep is twisted.
• Shoot in precarious hunting scenarios and positions.
  This means get confident kneeling and holding in that half squat position that everyone hates.
• Shoot long.
  For me, nearly all the animals I shoot are within thirty metres.
  When I target shoot, I shoot out to 60 metres. If you are dialled in at fifty or sixty, with those stabiliser muscles primed, the twenty to thirty metre shots you will actually face become easier.
• Be ready for the awkward angles, but wait for the right one.
  During the rut, be prepared for quartering on and frontal shots, but wait for broadside or quartering away if you possibly can.
  For us, quartering on shots are deadly, but we have confidence in our gear and shoot setups designed to tackle the difficulties of shot placement and anatomy facing these scenarios.

Gear Tinkering

Tip 5: Get Your Gear Ready

Keep a running list on your phone and go through everything before you leave. Don’t let a small thing like not wearing your boots result in blisters and a huge detriment to your success. The odds are stacked against us already, prepare yourself with the correct gear.

We have teamed up with Venture Hunting and Outdoors on a rut package highlighting the gear we think matters for reds and fallow during the rut. These are some of the items I carry:

• Binocular Harness: We run the Recon Bino Harness by Eberlestock. This versatile, slim fitting option allows for us to do run and gun style of hunting. Taking with us, the binoculars, range finder, a head lamp, callers and our wind puffer. Essentially all the valuable bits of gear if we ever need to ditch our hunting packs.
• Rattle bags: Rattling in fallow bucks, especially pre-rut, is a really effective tactic, so I carry one at all times.
• Trail cameras: These are vital for us in collecting intel when we are unable to be in the bush. Whether it’s animal habits or knowing that a shooter buck is on the property.
• Wind puffers: In the mountains thermals and wind direction are so finicky that this is a critical piece of equipment. Knowing exactly which way the wind is tracking as you close in those final metres can be the difference between success and failure.
• Game bags. We run the Argali ultralight game bags. They allow us to pack quarters of broken down meat. Hang them if needed and let them breathe for optimal meat quality.
• Camo, including a decent rain jacket: Getting wet is among the biggest reasons I see people become uncomfortable and head back to camp. Staying in the field longer can make or break your success.

Why Wet Weather Gear Matters

After a downpour, bucks look to freshen up their scrapes, and the cooler conditions mean stags and bucks rut harder. Some of the best hunting can be after the rain stops, or even during it. If you can endure the weather and be there for that break in the rain, it could be the difference in a successful hunt.

Tip 6: Run Trail Cameras As Additional Eyes

Trail cameras are a huge asset. We cannot be in the field 24/7, however they can be. Along with twenty four hour surveillance, trail cameras save us a lot of boots on the ground. If they are used properly they can be a wealth of knowledge. I use them differently throughout the year and differently when looking at the two species. Red deer in particular love water, so a well placed camera over a dam could pick up hinds as they drink or a wallowing stag during bouts of hot weather. Fallow deer will change their habits depending on antler stage. Despite this, good game trails between bedding and feeding areas are great places to start.

As the rut gets closer and the bucks strip their antlers, they will begin to thrash trees and consolidate their scrapes. When this begins in late February, early March, a well placed camera could be the perfect intel collecting device.

Say you’ve gone to the effort of setting up a camera, now what do you read from the photos you acquire? The first step for me, is working out if there are any animals using the site. If there’s a decent buck, I immediately assess for day or night visitation. If there’s a buck in the area that’s great, however if he only visits at night, it may make hunting him difficult. One of my golden rules when it comes to trail cameras, don’t become complacent. People often get caught in the "oh, I'll go check the trail camera" mindset. Do not forget that you are there to hunt. The camera is just collecting intel. The biggest buck you have seen could pop up twenty minutes from the camera, and every visit educates animals through eyesight or scent.

I pretty much set cameras up and hunt my way to and from them. I never just walk in to quickly check one. It is always a calculated move: I am going to hunt this gully system and check that camera on the way. If the camera can be checked or swapped out, great. Otherwise leave it for another time. The more interactions animals have with you, the more educated they get, the more pressure they feel and the thicker the cover they then retreat to. As the rut goes on, more pressure also makes these animals less vocal.

Collecting Intel

Tip 7: Have Backup Plans

We touched on this briefly in Tip 2, but have backup plans and multiple properties. Hunting pressure can change things on one property. As can the effect of a dry summer or year with less rainfall resulting in a dry autumn. If you have always hunted a gully system for red deer, but this year the dam at the head of the gully is dry, then the activity too may dry up. Deer are live animals, capable of moving many kilometres if need be. Whether that’s hunting pressure that pushes them away or the attraction / pull of a green crop nearby. Be flexible in how you hunt and be prepared to change tactics each and every rut.

Try and hunt properties leading up to the rut. Not only does this help with fitness, knowing where animals may be working, but it can also rule out unlikely zones so that you can focus on the best spots during the rut.

Tip 8: Scout The Velvet Bucks

Find the velvet bucks and build a bit of an itinerary of what animals, age classes and numbers of bucks are in the wider area. Velvet bucks don’t translate to rutting bucks.

Most of the time, these animals aren’t the same ones that return to your rutting block. Yet, knowing what is in the general region can be handy.

We have scouted bucks in velvet and hunted them during the rut. We have also seen tens of velvet bucks on certain blocks and never seen them again during the rut. Treat velvet scouting as intel, not a promise.

Scouting velvet bucks is also great hunting in its own right. From Australia day onwards (January 26th) most bucks where I hunt have either started stripping their velvet or well on the way to being fully hard and about to do so.

April Is For Croaking Fallow Bucks

Tip 9: Hunt The Does

Knowing where the rut occurs each year is integral. The rut is predetermined and the bucks will travel to where the does are. By knowing a property and where the does live and congregate during the breeding season, the bucks will likely show up. A lot of people focus on the bucks, and rightly so, but the does are literally buck magnets and will keep and hold bucks in the area.

If you are not seeing does, move and keep looking. Do not scare the does and do not pressure them.

I break pre rut scouting into three categories: feeding, bedding and transition. Find the corridors the does or hinds travel, because that is where fallow bucks set up their scrape lines. They are mainly in the feeding area at first and last light, and in the bedding area where they return in the middle of the day. At the peak of the rut he might be croaking from there too. Pre rut is interesting because if you get up high enough with a solid vantage point, you can sometimes watch a group of does retreat to their beds. Then in the other corner of the paddock, a mature pre rut buck will sneakily retreat to another corner, just by his lonesome. A week later, when the same does begin showing signs of coming into season and that buck emerges with them. More often than not, during the weeks leading into the rut the bigger, more mature animals will be crepuscular and living within close proximity of the girls. Lastly, ask yourself what changes from year to year. Feed quality and pressure is a big one. Red deer hinds vary in habits more than fallow does. This goes not only for hunting pressure, but also general farmer movements and certainly livestock pressure. If cattle have chewed a paddock down, the deer are less likely to be there even if they were last year. If you check paddocks without cattle, you will often find good deer numbers (and pig numbers too). You do need to ask yourself however, “is there more deer sign here, or am I just seeing less cattle sign?” Sometimes this can confuse how much sign I am seeing, because cattle, sheep and other animals will disguise the sign that deer and other feral animals you wish to hunt may leave. A locked up, rested paddock or bush block can be the key to hunting success. Even if you have never seen a deer in this quiet corner, it can be worth checking. This only increases in likeliness, if the paddock is rested and elsewhere is suffering due to over stocking during a poor season with limited feed.

Tip 10: Find The Scrapes

Knowing where the main rutting scrapes are (or the leks in some cases) can be pivotal. They are often located on ridge lines and along consistent travel routes. These scrapes are territorial sites where a buck will tend does and fight off rival bucks. A scrape is singular and a lek is multiple scrapes forming a larger rutting stand.

A scrape is usually a shallow divot, usually about a foot by a foot, often under an overhanging tree or branch which allows for scent marking with the pre orbital gland. You want to search for the larger, more well defined scrapes. They may reach sizes of a metre by a metre, and sometimes three by three metres. That is high traffic, probably worked by many bucks and held by a mature one. It is worth putting a camera on, and potentially rattling or sitting off it, which can pay dividends when things are quiet. A ridge line may have hundreds of smaller scrapes, but only one or two prioritised rutting scrapes. Satellites and younger bucks will travel through, freshening up and visiting these scrapes. Does will move to and reside around a dominant buck's scrape and lie within his protection. Knowing the exact location of a scrape is vital to planning your hunts during the rut. These sites change year in year out but they are often along the same ridge lines. You may not know where the predominant scrape is currently, but knowing where it has been, can be just as useful. If you have hunted a place for twenty years, you can almost guarantee where the rutting activity will be focused. Once you have a generalised area or ridge line, begin thinking about the prevailing wind directions and which approaches that may afford. Understanding and planning for thermals can be instrumental when the time comes for stalking in the early morning and late afternoons. Work out when the thermals tend to switch. Having hot spots such as scrapes, rub trees and trails marked on your mapping software can help illustrate prominent areas with lots of sign. It can also allow for tracks to be placed, so you know the quietest approach on a well used game trail to sneak in on these sites.

Come the rut, if you hear a croak before first light and you know where the scrape is, there is a fair chance the buck is tending does on it. Inching to the scrape slowly while the thermals suck downhill can be a play. Knowledge is power, and knowing where these scrapes are ahead of time is especially advantageous.

A Sequence At The Scrape

Scrapes make for sensational spots to place trail cameras.
With early March being a great time to capture bucks scent marking and preparing their territories.
Captured here are two great examples of fallow bucks.
Note how the second buck to visit has clearly been fighting. Evidenced by the fact that he only has one antler.

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