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Deer Movement Question

Ski said:
That's so bizarre to me. Any thoughts on why that might be?

I get most of my older buck sightings and shot opportunities during archery season. It seems once they begin getting shot at when ML season opens, they get even more reclusive than they normally are. Only twice in the past 5yrs or so have I seen an older buck while gun hunting. Every neighbor is a gun hunter though, so pressure goes from zero to full throttle over night.
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Same here I see good 130 in plus bucks out of bow range during first 2 weeks of bow season. then they vanish I try to move stands but winds up being a cat and mouse game.
 
Duck dogn said:
Same here I see good 130 in plus bucks out of bow range during first 2 weeks of bow season. then they vanish I try to move stands but winds up being a cat and mouse game.
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Yeah that's about right. Lots going on in that time. They've just shed velvet so now they can move through thick stuff. Their testosterone is climbing and they're getting agitated with one another. Vegetation that was green and lush through summer is beginning to get woody and dull. Acorns are beginning to drop, as are persimmons. Berries have just dried up. The bucks are beginning to shift off to their first fall ranges where they'll start the rut. And maybe most important of all, there's a sudden rush of human scent and presence in the woods.

Deer season might just be the toughest part of the year to hunt a buck.
 
ZachMarkus said:
I recently shared deer camp in KY with a couple from Starkville. They showed me a lot of pics of deer they had killed and had on camera. Some GREAT deer in that area apparently.
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Never seen dirt like this... when fire ants make mounds, the dirt is jet black they till up.

Lots of ag all around, the problem is their particular lease is grossly mismanaged. Cattle ground 50 years ago, allowed to go fallow. Lots of stands of 14in cedars. Other blocks of mature hardwoods. Only a small percentage of clear-cut hardwoods in 7 yo planted pines. About 15ac of the 1000 ac in plots....

The landowner doesn't care about timber value or wildlife values.. he owns a beer distributorship and makes millions off of it. The thousands of acres of land he owns in the area are just a second thought... so this particular property can crank out dozens of 130s, with the occasional 140, and rare 150s plus.

Turn me loose on this place with carte blanche land management, and 140s would be the norm for shooters. It's got the soil, age structure and genetics, but just doesn't have the nutrition at the level it takes to produce giants.

My buddy would rather come with me to my middle TN farms and hunt, as he usually sees bigger deer in TN than this property just west of Starkville.

But it's nice for both of us.. we hunt the 1st rut in TN together mid Nov; hunt 1st rut together mid Dec, then I come back to TN for 2nd rut week before Christmas, then we hunt in south MS new years for 1st rut locally. Makes a world of difference hunting bucks actively seeking does than wasting time hunting outside the rut. Just travel to where the rut is ongoing at the time!
 
megalomaniac said:
But it's nice for both of us.. we hunt the 1st rut in TN together mid Nov; hunt 1st rut together mid Dec, then I come back to TN for 2nd rut week before Christmas, then we hunt in south MS new years for 1st rut locally. Makes a world of difference hunting bucks actively seeking does than wasting time hunting outside the rut. Just travel to where the rut is ongoing at the time!
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That's always been sort of a dream of mine: having properties in multiple locations with very different rut timings, and then I could spend the hunting season "chasing the rut" over several months. With my current situation (one property), the rut is short and intense, and when it's over, it's over! December hunting sucks! Basically, I have two to three weeks of good hunting and that's it.
 
megalomaniac said:
But it's nice for both of us.. we hunt the 1st rut in TN together mid Nov; hunt 1st rut together mid Dec, then I come back to TN for 2nd rut week before Christmas, then we hunt in south MS new years for 1st rut locally. Makes a world of difference hunting bucks actively seeking does than wasting time hunting outside the rut. Just travel to where the rut is ongoing at the time!
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I do something similar. My lease in TN gets cranked up around Thanksgiving. My cousin has a place in Columbus, MS that gets going around Christmas day. I hunt TN until Christmas, then hunt his place until gun season closes.
 
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Ski said:
That's so bizarre to me. Any thoughts on why that might be?
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On my place, very, VERY difficult hunting. Extremely steep ridge-and-hollow terrain (some hillsides so steep they can only be climbed on hands and knees) and enough patches of thick cover that visual ranges are extremely limited. As I've written about many times, our average MZ/rifle kill-shot distance is 35 yards, and the majority inside 20 yards. The reason for those short shot distances is because that is often the maximum visual distance from our stands. When you can only see 30-40 yards around your stand, you're only hunting a very tiny area. Basically, less than an acre from each stand. Getting very nocturnal and wary mature bucks to walk through one of those little less-than-one-acre pockets in daylight, while you are there, and defeat his nose and eyes, is not something that happens very often.
 
BSK said:
On my place, very, VERY difficult hunting. Extremely steep ridge-and-hollow terrain (some hillsides so steep they can only be climbed on hands and knees) and enough patches of thick cover that visual ranges are extremely limited. As I've written about many times, our average MZ/rifle kill-shot distance is 35 yards, and the majority inside 20 yards. The reason for those short shot distances is because that is often the maximum visual distance from our stands. When you can only see 30-40 yards around your stand, you're only hunting a very tiny area. Basically, less than an acre from each stand. Getting very nocturnal and wary mature bucks to walk through one of those little less-than-one-acre pockets in daylight, while you are there, and defeat his nose and eyes, is not something that happens very often.
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Sounds like bow hunting to me!
 
Spurhunter said:
Is it probable that the 2nd rut is near or is it more likely the deer are up and moving today for other reasons? I know it's an educated guess, but I'm curious what you think.
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As to the 2nd rut, I would look at when you observed maximum rut-type behavior (in person or on camera) at the 1st rut and add 28 days (4 weeks). That should be about right for the 2nd rut.
 
Spurhunter said:
is it more likely the deer are up and moving today for other reasons?
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Right before daylight the wind shifted from west to south to east and picked up in speed. Any deer that were bedded or feeding in a location they felt safe, had to move to another spot because they no longer had the wind in their favor. Any bucks that may have been staying downwind of does also had to move to correct their position.

The next time I think there will be a dramatic bump in movement will be Wednesday the 21st. I noticed this wind shift pattern last season and have been paying special attention to it this year, and I'm now 100% convinced wind direction changes spurs movement.
 
BSK said:
As to the 2nd rut, I would look at when you observed maximum rut-type behavior (in person or on camera) at the 1st rut and add 28 days (4 weeks). That should be about right for the 2nd rut.
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Strangely enough, my cameras and in person sits don't show any evidence of a 2nd rut in our area, basically ever.

I've seen a few night time pics in mid december of good bucks, but never anything beyond that.
 
Ski said:
Right before daylight the wind shifted from west to south to east and picked up in speed. Any deer that were bedded or feeding in a location they felt safe, had to move to another spot because they no longer had the wind in their favor. Any bucks that may have been staying downwind of does also had to move to correct their position.

The next time I think there will be a dramatic bump in movement will be Wednesday the 21st. I noticed this wind shift pattern last season and have been paying special attention to it this year, and I'm now 100% convinced wind direction changes spurs movement.
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Great info! Thanks for sharing!
 
Spurhunter said:
Like somebody flipped a switch, I've had 5 different bucks on camera this morning since 7:08. All young bucks but it's a huge improvement.
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I just got 18 cell cam pics over a scrape. 3 different bucks hitting it and then 2 of them fighting right in front of it! I gotta get out there! Although tomorrow aint looking to good from a weather standpoint.
 
DeerCamp said:
Strangely enough, my cameras and in person sits don't show any evidence of a 2nd rut in our area, basically ever.

I've seen a few night time pics in mid december of good bucks, but never anything beyond that.
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That's really interesting DeerCamp, and a good thing. Not only will an extended breeding period spread out fawning dates, which increases how many fawns coyotes can take, extended breeding is also much harder on bucks, increasing post-rut mortality.
 

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