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Scott Renfer won’t be spending his vacation on a beach or at a resort.
This November, the Hunlock Creek resident will take two weeks off from work and spend them sitting in a treestand in a the woods.
For an avid archery hunter like Renfer, there’s no better place to spend a vacation.
With archery season set to open on Saturday, Oct. 3, hunters like Renfer are busy getting equipment in order, practicing with their bows and doing some last-minute scouting. While Renfer is excited for the state of the season, he’s really looking forward to the end, specifically the first two weeks of November when the rut begins.
“I take my vacation time for that,” he said. “The rut is when the action heats up and it’s exciting to see how the bucks act when they’re chasing doe. Just the chance to see it keeps you going all day, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
A typical day of archery hunting for Renfer begins at 3:30 a.m. when he wakes up and gets ready to hit the woods. Renfer is in his stand about 40 minutes before daylight, and that’s where he’ll stay until dark.
But Renfer doesn’t just use one stand during the course of the season. As deer behavior changes in the fall, so do his hunting tactics.
“I hunt different spots early in the season and I have locations that I designate just for the rut that I stay away from until November,” Renfer said. “I just don’t want to be in there disturbing things.”
Last year the Pennsylvania Game Commission sold 319,850 resident archery licenses, and sales have increased yearly since 2008. Archery hunters harvested 46,020 bucks last season, and 53 percent were taken with crossbows, according to the PGC.
While harvesting a buck is a common goal among archery hunters, it’s not the only reason for being in the woods this fall.
Ashley resident Wayne Grilz has been archery hunting for 20 years. He is passionate about the season because of the encounters with wildlife that can occur, and the opportunity to observe deer behavior during the rut.
“One morning I was in my stand a half hour before daylight, and I heard grunting and then crashing in the woods coming toward me. Right under my stand a doe appeared and a buck came right up chasing her. It was too dark to think about a shot but it was still a thrill to witness,” Grilz said.
“Archery season is unique because you have the fall weather, the rut going on and the challenge of trying to get close enough to a deer for a shot.”
Grilz hasn’t archery hunted much during the last two years because his children were young. This year, he said, he’ll have more time and he’s been planning for weeks.
“You can put in a lot of work scouting, checking trail cameras and trying to pattern deer before the season starts,” Grilz said. “But when you get in your stand on a cool fall morning, it’s all worth it.”
Renfer also uses trail cameras as part of his scouting routine. The cameras give him a good idea of the size of the bucks in a particular area, but they don’t replace the need to actually get in the woods and learn the terrain.
For Renfer, knowing the land he hunts helps him better understand deer movement from bedding to feeding areas – knowledge that could pay off early in the season.
Still, no matter how much preseason scouting he does, Renfer is always ready to change his plans during the course of the season.
“Three weeks into the season I might notice patterns changing, so I’ll adjust by moving my stands. It’s an educated guess,” Renfer said. “But when it works and you harvest a buck with a bow, it’s an extremely gratifying experience.”