The crazy weather has whitetail does and youngsters feeding during the daylight hours, but no real signs that a rut is ready to take place yet.

The bucks are not interested in leaving cover just yet and the does are not showing any real signs of being receptive to the big boys either.

With the warmer weather moving back into our area you can be sure that the action will be slow until the end of the month or later. The rubs on trees have been going on for weeks as most if not all the bucks should have rubbed off their velvet on their antlers.

The real test of the rut will be when the scrapes start appearing in numbers and they also have the fresh tended look about them.

Generally this will include the smells of urine, leaves brushed off the dirt areas, chewed branches that hang over or near the scrape and the tracks of deer hooves in the fresh dirt as well.

These scrape lines are more important to keep track of than the rub lines. The rub lines tell you that a buck has been in the area while the scrapes tell you that he still is in the area.

Believe it or not there is some truth in the size of the rub and the size of the rack of the deer.

However those big rubs on trees will do you no good as the season progresses.

When we were young hunters the sight of a large tree rub or many of them together had as inspired for the deer hunt.

Later in the years of experience it’s just some extra rush for the hunting crew.

Those famous words often heard in deer camp are “I’d like to see the buck that did that to this tree!” Needless to say you may or may not run into that buck traveling a trail; you are more likely going to see him during the Fall Rut Activity.

Once the rut begins in earnest many wily bucks throw caution to the wind as they seek out the eligible female deer that are now receptive to them.

A buck in the rut mentality walked out in front of my car with his nose to the ground like a trailing beagle dog.

He could care less about a running automobile literally feet away from him or anything else but that scent trail.

You can see why the rut is the most active time to hunt archery bucks and in some states muzzleloader black powder hunts.

We have one such hunt being planned for George Washington National Forest in Virginia.

It will be an awesome opportunity to bag a buck or a bruin as the black powder season for both coincides.

A group of us plan on taking a few days for the early season and if we do poorly we will get a chance in the late season as well.

My nephew was archery hunting last year and a bear kept trying to come up into his stand.

It was quite the standoff until a few more of his buddies showed up and drove the bear back into the brush.

I hope that happens to me this year as my .50 caliber T/C Omega will be primed!

I started to put in some vacation requests to match all of my planned activities and I realized that between obligations and traveling I was going to run out of calendar for everything that I have planned.

I better make the most out of any opportunities that come my way. My buddies the Professor and Beaver boy have been quite busy with their hunting itinerary.

They are starting out in Nevada for mule deer, Colorado for elk and deer, Montana for elk and deer, Pennsylvania for deer, West Virginia for deer and finally Anticosti Island for deer.

They are generally pretty successful hunters; I hope they find plenty of freezer space for their venison.

I will likely stay in a three state area of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia.

I will likely donate the venison to friends and food banks if I do too well.

I almost hate saying that as you know that it’s like placing a hunting curse on yourself LOL!

This year we will have some college ladies joining the hunts; Sidney has proven herself over the past few years as she has won the camp pool for the best buck, while Megan on the other hand has to still show her cousins and uncles that she can do the job.

She is already an accomplished hiker and orienteering fanatic.

Adding hunting to her agenda could be the natural order of things to come for her.

Regardless of the outcome I am sure hunting season will soon be heating up for all of us and as I have always said, “Any day of hunting is better than a day at work!”

Until we meet again look for those scrape lines and watch the areas that the deer congregate to feed on nature’s bounty.

The formula described by the Professor is simple: Food +does=bucks+success.

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.