Oak Duke: A last bit of December rut action in New York

From my precarious perch in a ridge-top oak tree, I watched four big bucks work out their breeding ritual. The center of their rapt attention…a tiny doe, in the corner of a field. The diminutive size of the doe amplified the buck’s size, as back then I was under the mistaken idea that mature bucks only bred mature does.
Back in those years, now 40 years ago, I was hunting with a right-handed 70-pound draw Howard Hill longbow, and the tending, breeding group I observed occurred during the short, mid-December extended archery season here in New York state back then.