If you see a pair of sizable bucks battling it out like this, it’s best to keep your distance. Or you can be like this guy and get as close to the fighting wild animals as possible.
It’s very normal to see bucks lower their heads and clash antlers during their rut (also called their mating season). That’s when males use their size, weight, and their head-mounted weapons to spar with other big boys in order to establish dominance. Only the biggest and baddest bucks get first dibs on interested doe, and as you’ll see in this video below, they’ll fight like hell to earn that right.
Scarily enough, sometimes it really does end up being a fight to the death.
Antlers are obviously an effective and often-used weapon for deer – and other antlered animals. The only issue? Sometimes the bone extending out of a deer’s head gets tangled up with another buck’s antlers, and that can spell to be big trouble. There are plenty of examples out there of two bucks getting so caught up in a fight that their antlers lock together, and either one or both of them pass away.
In this case, these bucks near Lake Travis in Texas seemed to be willing to risk it all to win the scuffle, but they were only ever locked up momentarily. With both bucks being similar in size, it was an incredibly even face-off. One was only able to get the upper hand (or upper hoof, I suppose) over the other if it had the high ground. Or if it was trying to avoid one of the many “toys” that Lynn Smith – the guy who took this video – had set out in his yard.
And getting back to the rut, it’s actually a bit difficult to narrow down a specific rutting season for whitetail deer. The window for their mating season (and thus interactions like this one below) typically stretches from August through February. However, there are “peak rut” seasons, and those end up being somewhat regional specific.
Just going with my gut here, but wherever this video was taken… I’ve got a feeling its peak rut, or very close to it:
I would have loved to hear the natural sound of the two bigs clinking and clanking their antlers together over “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit, but I understand why “Lynn Smith” the “Deer Whisperer” went with that song selection.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention just how close the two bucks got to that parked truck. That protective cover probably doesn’t bode well against a couple of high-speed, swinging antlers, if I had to guess. Luckily, the deer finally got unlocked from one another and took off after getting mere inches away from hitting Smith’s truck.
Social media users couldn’t believe how violent and aggressive the two bucks were being, and left comments like these below the post:
“All you can do is stay clear and let them do their thing.”
“Neither one is backing down.”
“Looks like the hormones are kicking in!”
“Tis the season.”
“Nothing tougher than a white tail.”
“Those boys are fighting mad. Rut is on.”
That it is.
Apparently, they have a pretty healthy population around the house…
