Why Bucks “Vanish” When They Are Tending Does, and How to Find Them

I’ve been hunting deer for 40 years, and I’ve never seen it. Only a few of the veteran deer hunters I know have seen it, and even those encounters were fleeting glimpses. Many wildlife biologists who are deer hunters have never seen it outside of a deer research facility. Yet millions of whitetail fawns are born every spring as evidence that deer sex actually happens. Why, despite all the hours of stand time in the woods at peak rut, do we so rarely see it?

Even the hours-long courtship we call “tending” that leads up to deer sex is rarely witnessed. If we understood tending better, maybe we’d see it more often or even be able to find deer that are doing it. So, I talked to some people I know who have witnessed it far more than most: wildlife photographers. 

Tes Randle Jolly of Alabama and Matt Hansen of Michigan have spent their careers embedded in the rut, earning a living by not only finding deer but capturing them on film in the most amazing moments of whitetail existence. In her decades-long career, Tes told me she has witnessed tending a couple dozen times at least, and Matt more than a dozen times. Tes and Matt are also deer hunters when they’re not on photography missions. Here’s what I learned from them.

What is Tending?

We witness the buildup of scrapes and rubs as the rut approaches. We easily see the chasing phase when bucks of all ages are aggressively pursuing does that are not ready to be pursued. But then does enter “estrus” or heat, a period we know to last about 24 hours, though on the long end up to and sometimes beyond 48 hours. They let bucks get closer, and they will stand to breed two to three times or more with hours separating each very brief copulation. 

“Tending is when a buck is able to sense that a doe is in the process of coming into heat, and he is going to focus his time and attention on her,” said Dr. Bronson Strickland of the Mississippi State University Deer Lab. “This might be 48 hours or more. But by that buck tracking and staying with that doe during that time, that’s tending. It’s just like in the NDA logo: the doe raises her head, and the buck is right behind her.”

Get a Thicket, Y’all

Tending is easy to define in scientific terms. It’s difficult to witness in the wild. Even Bronson, a deer scientist, has witnessed tending in the wild only once that he can recall in his decades of deer hunting. 

“I’ve stayed with what I call breeding pairs a couple of dozen times or more over the last 20 years,” said Tes Jolly. “Getting in on the first phase of her estrus doesn’t happen often, especially when the weather and the terrain is in your favor. That’s like the holy grail of photography.”

Because tending can last 24 to 48 hours, with hours in between each copulation, only a couple of times has Tes witnessed the same doe breed a second time. Either she loses the pair in thick cover, another buck busts up the scene, the sun sets, or the buck and doe separate because Tes didn’t find them until near the end of tending. 

Both photographers said the buck and doe select privacy and screening cover for the process. Both deer may have an interest in preventing interference by other deer. The buck wants to avoid the eyes of competitors, and the doe may want to avoid younger or less desirable bucks. There may also be survival value in remaining hidden during a time when both deer are more focused on courtship than danger. “The bucks will actually lead them off the beaten path, because they don’t want to deal with other deer interfering,” said Matt Hansen. “The does will try to go into the thickest brush possible when it’s time for actual breeding.”

Both Tes and Matt described the buck as herding the doe, like a sheep dog herds sheep, to keep her separated from other deer. “The buck is adamant about pushing other does and fawns away from the area at that time,” said Matt. “He doesn’t want them to interact. He doesn’t want her to slip away. She might try to do a 180 and go back toward the rest of her group, but he’ll do a semicircle cutting her off.”

The exclusion of other deer includes any fawns the doe is raising. Tes said she uses this as an indicator of the rut peak. “In food plots that aren’t already pressured too hard, you’ll see a lot fawns come in that don’t have adult does with them, and that tells me those does are getting ready or are being bred. So seeing a lot of fawns without does gives you a clue.”

Once the buck and doe are secluded, the watching and waiting begins.

“She’ll get up and feed for a while and lie back down and ruminate,” said Tes. “He’ll get up and make sure everything is okay, and then he’ll lie back down. He’s going to stay where he’s got a good view of her. It might be 10 minutes or they might bed for an hour or more before one of them stands up, relieves themselves, browses a little, and then lies right back down. It varies. Every situation and every pair is different.”

“He gets up a lot more than the doe does, because he’s working security duty,” said Matt. “He’ll aggressively run off any other bucks that come into the area. And I think the adrenaline from chasing off another buck sort of sets him off, because when he gets back, he’ll want to breed. He’ll bluff-charge the doe. He’ll nudge her with his antlers.”

“If he’s getting impatient and he’s wanting to breed, he’ll stomp or rush at her to make her get up,” said Tes. “And then he’ll scent-check her. And she’s checking him out, too. I’ve seen does sniff a buck’s antlers, his forehead gland, his nose. There’s a lot of sniffing going on. She’s also squatting frequently to urinate and leave him scent messages. If I were to interpret it, she’s not just emptying a full bladder, that’s her way of leading him along through her estrus. She’s dropping signals: ‘This is what I smell like now.’ That’s when I get ready for a lip curl from the buck.

“She gets real comfortable with him right there at the end,” said Tes. “She lets him come up and scent check her more often. Some bucks are slow about it, and some are aggressive. I’ve seen some extremely aggressive breeding where you think the doe might get injured, and I’ve seen others that were tender. Some bucks are real Romeos, others are Attila the Hun.

“When she allows him up close, and she allows all of that scent-checking, it’s usually not long after that,” said Tes. “She’ll tease him. She’ll let him scent check a little and then run. That’s part of the dance. Then she’ll flag that tail to give him access. He’ll lick her tarsals and legs all the way down.”

Breeding is actually a very brief moment in the hours-long tending courtship, and as soon as it’s over, the buck and doe go back to watching and waiting. “She’ll go back to feeding, and he might feed too,” said Tes. “Then they’ll lie down again, and she’ll ruminate a while. When she’s ready again, she’ll let him get close again. They can breed multiple times, but when she’s done, he apparently knows from the scent, because he’ll scent-check her and just walk away. When that scent drops off, they just go their separate ways.”

Vocalizations During Tending

I’ve always heard that a snort-wheeze is an aggressive challenge from one buck to another. However, Tes told me she has also witnessed several bucks use a snort-wheeze while tending a doe even when there are apparently no other bucks in the immediate area.

“Oh yeah, they use the snort-wheeze with just the doe,” she said. “It’s a warning: ‘You need to get up or I’m going to get you up.’ When I’ve seen them snort-wheeze, it’s when he’s getting impatient. It might be a doe that isn’t really quite in the window yet, and she’s trying to stay away from him. But he’s perturbed, and he wants to make something happen.”

Around the time I interviewed Tes, I saw a TikTok video posted by “West Illinois Hunter” showing a large buck standing across a downed log from a doe in what appeared to be a tending situation. The buck snort-wheezed as he stepped aggressively toward the doe. In a comment, I asked if any other bucks were in the area. West Illinois Hunter said the buck and doe were alone at that moment, best he could tell.

Other than frequent grunts by the buck, Tes also said she hears the buck make “clicking” sounds occasionally. “I probably didn’t hear that clicking sound before I had hearing aids, but I hear it now,” she said. “Usually it’s when other deer are coming up. It must be like ‘I’m here,’ like a proximity alert.”

How Does Multiple Paternity Happen?

We know from DNA research at Texas A&M-Kingsville of a phenomenon called “multiple paternity.” As many as 25% of all “twin” sets of fawns have two different buck fathers and are not true twins. Auburn University even documented a set of triplet fawns with three different fathers. I asked how this might happen based on what we know about tending.

“So much can happen in that 24 to 36 hours,” said Tes. “When you get to where there are fewer does in estrus, there’s a lot of competition for those does. A couple of times I’ve seen a doe be taken away from a buck that had just bred her. I’ve seen other bucks come in and pick that doe up while the original buck is running somebody else off.

“One time a buck was injured, and another buck with a smaller rack came in and pushed that buck off. I didn’t see breeding in that case, but it’s perfectly reasonable to think that second buck bred her during the remainder of that window. Truth is, it’s quite a feat for a buck to maintain possession of a doe.”

Why We Don’t See Them

Hunters talk about a “lockdown” phase of the rut in which they aren’t seeing bucks move. Meanwhile, bucks wearing GPS tracking collars show no such “lockdown” and instead maintain their highest movement rates of any season right through and beyond the peak of breeding. How do we reconcile these two perspectives?

Bronson Strickland points to four explanations. First, more than half of tending and breeding happens when we can’t even hunt, because night is longer than day in fall. For example, in southern latitudes on November 15, daylight lasts about 10 hours compared to 14 for darkness. In northern latitudes, daylight lasts 9½ hours compared to 14½ of darkness. A doe’s estrus lasts at least 24 hours and often longer, and they don’t clock out at sunset.

Second, the natural tendency of bucks and does engaged in the final courtship phase is to seek thick cover and privacy away from other deer. “Third, where do most hunters hunt most of the time?” asked Bronson. “They hunt on food plots.”

Fourth, deer may have already reacted to hunting pressure by the time of the rut and may be avoiding food plots and other pressured deer stands anyway.

How to Find Them

“Locked down” is not a great way to describe tending. These deer are still active, moving, feeding, defending, dodging and herding. They make noise. They are visible if you are in the right place. Nobody knows that better than wildlife photographers who have photographed tending. So, I asked Tes and Matt for hunting advice. 

You’ve already got some clues from what you’ve read so far. Can you think of secluded areas of cover where you hunt that are close to good forage but away from open view and other deer? “It’s a pretty small area once he gets her where he wants her,” said Matt. “It isn’t necessarily thick every time, but it’s quiet. It might be in open woods but between a couple of big, downed trees. It’s also going to be where the majority of deer do not hang out.”

“When I go looking for bucks to photograph during the rut and can’t find any, where do I go? I start scanning weed fields,” said Tes. “Get your good binoculars out and start looking. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen just his antler tips in all of that sea of weeds.”

Tes described early successional cover such as old fields, clearcuts, “planted pines” in the South, and other young forest cover as likely spots. “Spend some time scanning, and be patient, because they may be bedded out there anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours before they stand up,” she said. “Go watch a pine plantation that’s got good understory cover. Somebody will stand up all of a sudden.”

In addition to looking, Tes emphasized listening. Not only for vocalizations but for the sound of a buck thrashing brush. “Often a buck will get up and thrash a tree to work off some of that tension while he’s waiting on the doe,” she said. “I think that’s also a signal to other bucks in the area not to mess with him.”

Whether you try to locate and stalk a tending buck or anticipate a future tending location and hang a stand there, hunting tending bucks means getting out of your comfort zone. I think we can interpret “locked down” as “not within sight of my favorite comfortable stand.”

“Stop hunting a food plot all the time,” said Tes. “Get out into the habitat and look. We’ve all gotten so used to viewing deer on green carpets of cultivated forage. It’s good for everybody to get back in the cover sometimes and really hunt.

“Spend time. Listen. Use good optics. And have a little more patience,” she said. “You may get to see something most hunters never see.”