My dad had precious little time to hunt and fish by the time I — the fifth of his and Mom's five children — came along. But he did manage a few trips with cane pole in hand and me tagging along closely behind. As for hunting, I turned to an older neighbor on our block, and he taught me much of what I know about duck and quail, but he did not hunt deer.

Like many youngsters, I wanted to soak up all the information I could about all kinds of hunting and fishing. I heard classmates during my junior high and high school years talk of rubs, scrapes, grunts, eight pointers and more. Those one-sided conversations had me longing to go deer hunting.

Nearly two decades later, I've hunted for whitetail in various parts of Arkansas with some degree of success. Looking back on those early days spent stalking through bottomland hardwoods and watching the edges of pine thickets, I realize that I've changed. I've learned the lingo of the white-tailed deer hunter; I've come to understand the difference between a scrape and a rub, a grunt and a bleat, bedding areas and feeding areas.

This epiphany provided another, further realization. A lot of deer hunters — whether young or just inexperienced — begin hunting for whitetails without knowing just exactly what some of these terms mean.

So, with the assistance of Richard Hines, wildlife biologist at the White River National Wildlife Refuge, I've assembled this guide to whitetail terminology. Hines has worked with deer and hunted deer for nearly four decades. Here is how he defines some of the important terminology related to whitetail deer and deer hunting.

Scents, Signs and Sounds

Manufacturer's of deer attractants claim that their scent products mimic certain scents emitted from the various glands of deer. For instance pre-orbital glands, located under the deer's eye, are important because bucks leave their scent from these glands on licking limbs above scrapes and on trees that they rub.

Scrapes provide physical evidence of the presence of deer in an area. Scrapes are made when a buck goes to a licking limb (the branch that a buck finds and chews on before making his scrape), pulls it down, rubs it with his pre-orbital glands and then paws an area of the ground below that limb and urinates in it. Does will also come along and urinate in scrapes to show receptivity to breeding. A line of scrapes marks a buck's territory — a territory not well defended, but he uses the scrapes as a show of dominance in that particular area. Sometimes more than one buck may use the same scrape.

Those pre-orbital gland scents can also be found on rubs, which are first made during the pre-rut. Bucks rub trees to help get the velvet off of their antlers. This activity, in turn, rubs bark off the trees. Through the rut, they will go back and rub those places, but not as often once the pre-rut is over.

While pre-orbital gland scents are more of a bucks-only situation, all deer communicate by scent. Interdigital glands are located between the toes of deer. These glands leave a scent on the ground and are especially important as scent markers in a scrape.

Tarsal (or metatarsal) glands are probably the most fragrant and most important for leaving scent behind. That's because both bucks and does urinate across these glands on the inside of their hind legs and into a scrape.

Anywhere deer leave scent, hunters can also expect to find physical evidence with their eyes — namely tracks, droppings and sheds. It's a misconception that you can always tell the difference between buck and doe tracks because the feet of all deer are identical in structure. You can occasionally see where the toes spread out and dew claws show in a track. Sometimes, you can also tell it's a larger deer, but that doesn't always mean it's a buck.

Droppings (also called scat or feces) can tell you what food sources the deer are utilizing. Droppings can also show the level of deer activity in a given area. Basically, the more droppings there are, the more deer are using the area. Also, the shinier the droppings look, the fresher they are.

Each year a buck grows a new set of antlers, which he sheds after the rut. Sheds are the fallen-off antlers. In the Arkansas area, this starts happening around January and can last until late February.

White-tailed deer are also very vocal, with sounds called bleats, grunts and snorts being among known vocalizations. A bleat is typically the call used by a fawn to communicate with its mother doe, but it will also get the attention of other deer. A snort is often considered a warning call, meaning "There is something in our territory that does not belong here!" The grunt is the call of a male deer (buck) used to keep in contact with one another and/or with does in the woodland areas they often inhabit.

While all those sounds are vocal ones, bucks also make another sound, but with their antlers. Hunters mimic this sound with what they call rattling. This is supposed to be a simulation of two bucks fighting for dominance and occurs when antlers clash into one another. Both the rattle and the grunt can get any deer's attention because those sounds note a struggle for "social dominance" in progress.

A Deer's Home

Over many years of biologists and others studying the behavior of whitetails, various terms have been coined to explain where deer live. These terms include the likes of bedding areas and feeding areas.

A Bedding area is a place within a deer's home range that's utilized for resting. Based on time of year, bedding areas may be relatively close to a food source because, like us humans, deer don't want extra work getting from the bedroom to the kitchen. Also, bedding areas in the summer often differ from those of winter.

Feeding areas also vary by season, but deer do not make an immediate shift from one type of browse (food) to another. They can not shift their diet quickly, either, because they are "ruminant" animals (an animal with four stomachs) and the bacteria in their stomachs have to change for them to digest a new or different food.

When deer travel from one of these areas to the other, they will often be found moving along a travel corridor. This is a trail or intersection of trails that creates the potential for a higher incidence of encounters between hunter and deer.

In an area where the lay of the land affects a deer's travels, the term funnel is applied to good habitat that necks down to a confined area. Deer must use this funnel, like a narrow strip of tall grass along a fence row that runs between two wooded areas, to move between bedding and feeding areas with the benefit of camouflage.

While these locations apply to the deer's day-to-day life, there are also some locales that relate more to the deer's activities during an entire year or entire life span.

A home range is the area that fulfills all the needs of a deer (shelter, water and food) throughout the year. The deer will be in different parts of this area depending on the season, weather, availability of food, etc.

On a smaller scale, the core area is the section within the home range where a deer will spend three out of four of the seasons. While it's good to find this place, a hunter must be cautious. Scaring deer could cause them to move to another location, making for further scouting.

Phases of the Rut

There is a period of time each fall and/or winter when does become receptive to breeding. That central period is called the rut, but there are other times of significance during the cooler seasons. They are the pre-rut, the post-rut and the secondary rut.

The pre-rut occurs when the testosterone in bucks starts increasing in late August or early September. This coincides with blood to their antlers being shut off, which makes the antlers harden. By the end of pre-rut, a buck's antlers have been shined up.

The rut defines the peak of breeding activity. While some people ask for the "magic day" to schedule their vacation, there is no exact date that carries over from year to year. Instead, the rut starts in late fall and continues through winter. That timetable can be influenced by weather and many other things. While bucks are ready to breed at any time after pre-rut, does must cycle into estrus. Does come in heat and can be bred successfully during a 24-hour period. If they are not bred, they cycle back in 28 or 29 days later.

Following the rut is the post-rut. This is when bucks have lost a lot of weight throughout the rut, and they will shut down. If a receptive doe comes by, they will try to breed, but they are not actively out looking. Unlike the peak of the rut, bucks will not move over large areas. In fact, they may lose 20% to 30% of their body weight during the rut and may even die during the post-rut phase. They sometimes literally have run themselves into the ground.

Finally, we have reached the secondary rut, which is when does that are not bred come into estrus a second time (or possibly a third or fourth time in areas where the doe-to-buck ratio is high, like 15 or 20 to 1). That's one factor that can lead to a secondary rut. Also, in a healthy deer herd, a fawn born in July may go in heat for the first time at six or seven months old. That would be around December or January. Only about 10% to 15% of these young does will carry fawns to full term. Often, late-born fawns are the ones from the previous year's fawns.

What's for Supper?

White-tailed deer eat a variety of plant life and a variety of parts from those plants, ranging from the acorns of an oak tree to the leaves of a wild grape vine. One of the deer's favorite food sources, though, is the mast crop — food dropped by hardwoods each autumn.

Whitetails prefer white oak acorns over red oak acorns as whites have a better flavor and are more nutritious than acorns from red oaks. White oaks include white, overcup and other varieties. Meanwhile, red oaks include nuttall, Southern red and others. Red oak acorns are bitter compared to the white oak ones because they are higher in tannic acid.

Tannic acid may seem bad for deer, but the acid also preserves the acorns on the ground longer than those fallen from white oaks. That means deer can shift to the red oak acorns after exhausting the supply from the white oaks.

Mast is the first choice and second choice of deer in the fall. It provides carbohydrates and is a high-protein food source.

Grasses, forbs and other types of natural vegetation are among the primary food sources for deer during the summer. These types of browse include fresh, growing ends of small trees, shrubs and vines. Native plants may include greenbriar, grape vines, crossvine and trumpet creeper, as well as sprouts from elm, green ash and other woody plants.

One grass deer really like is wheat. While honeysuckle is an exotic and can take over an area, wheat is a preferred food source where available. Whitetails also eat sedges and forbs, which are broadleaf plants.

Soybeans are the number one choice among agricultural crops in early fall. Plus, deer will eat the young plants and the green foliage all summer long, as well as the beans themselves. Milo, corn, winter wheat, rye and oats are also popular farming food sources.

While the aforementioned food sources occur naturally or as part of normal agricultural practices, there are two ways for hunters (or others interested in feeding deer) to add browse for the deer.

Food plots can work well with some of the agricultural crops already mentioned such as wheat or oats. But, food plots can also include other plantings like clover. The preferred planting in a food plot varies from site to site. Soil tests should be done first to determine the best choice for your food plot.

Most of the time, it takes more space than allowed for plots to provide a food source that will make an impact on the deer herd. For instance, about 5% to 10% of the land area in question is needed to improve body weights. Meanwhile, one large oak tree will produce roughly the same amount of protein as an average food plot. Food plots can improve hunting, though, by allowing hunters ample time to study and evaluate the herd before choosing which animals to harvest.

The second way to add browse is through supplemental feed. Supplemental feed means things like corn or rice bran in feeders. These food sources will only attract deer, not expand the land's carrying capacity (the maximum amount of deer the land will support).

Parts of the Whitetail

There are many parts of a white-tailed deer that are considered good table fare. While hunters after "monster bucks" may say the antlers are the most desired part of a deer, those who want deer for dinner will often turn to the tenderloins as the obvious choice for what is commonly considered the best part of a deer.

Also referred to as "backstraps," tenderloins are the strips of meat adjacent to the backbone. When cut from the deer, tenderloins resemble long tubes. These tubes can be cut into thin saucers and fried or grilled, possibly after soaking in Italian dressing.

Deer hams come from a deer's back legs. These large chunks of meat from the hip region can be used for roast. Cutting them just right to fit in a crockpot will help with preparation.

While antlers obviously aren't edible, they're still prized by hunters. Antlers, as a general rule, are grown by a buck each year. Also as a general rule, the "rack" of a buck will progressively get larger and heavier with more points until the buck reaches around five, six or seven years of age and goes into decline.

It's a misconception that you can tell a buck's age by the number of points he has. But, you can tell the nutritional status of a deer when compared to that deer's age by extracting and studying the deer's jawbone.