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Little to no buck sign
- Thread starter Dumbluck
- Start date
Finally found around 12 scrapes today and one big rub! Up until now I've not seen anything in williamsoncounty where I hunt..we have some white oaks and a ton of red oak acorns this year. Seems to me everything is I'd sat 2 weeks later than normal. This bad drought could be one reason for that.
Harold Money jr
Well-Known Member
I found these opened this morning. They are the first I've seen. The urine spots smelled rank just as they should. Like I said first I've seen, there was several rubs where he hit this morning or last night. The other places I checked over the 3 hours of walking produced just a couple early season rubs. Roane county btw.
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timberghost35
Well-Known Member
Here in Tipton seeing about the same. Found 2 small scraps a couple wknds ago and one small clump of trees a Buck rubbed on, but that's been it. Had a group of 1.5/2.5 old bucks still together last wknd. Bucks seem to be non existent on my place so far this year or Atleast in front of the cameras.
Did have one nice 3.5 year old come through the river bottoms on camera a couple days ago hitting on some acorns around 8am. We have a huge crop in the bottoms this year on my place.
Did have one nice 3.5 year old come through the river bottoms on camera a couple days ago hitting on some acorns around 8am. We have a huge crop in the bottoms this year on my place.
UT-longbeard
Well-Known Member
BSK
Well-Known Member
Congratulations UT-longbeard, you are the statistical outlier! I sure wish I had that problem. Honestly, this is the least rubbing and scraping I've ever seen at this time of year for my location.
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I just found quite a few pretty good rubs yesterday with a bunch of smaller rubs around a pretty big oak flat. But only one small scrape but none of the big perennial scrapes looked touched yet. Wishing I would have taken off work the second week of MZ instead of the first. But if The biologist are correct and it happens around the time every year I should still be in the chips, but we will see.
On our place in Henderson County we've seen zero scrapes and zero fresh rubs. I've never seen anything like it. We have plenty bucks on camera. Just no sign.
Exactly. They're not doing rutty stuff, even though tomorrow is November. I haven't seen a summer-fall shift yet, nor am I seeing cruisers. This place is usually buzzing with bucks from mid October through first week of November. It's a ghost town this year.
Even weirder is I'm beginning to see midday does by themselves. That's typical for this time of season but it's always accompanied by bucks. This year it isn't.
BSK
Well-Known Member
This will be a fascinating year to watch. Of all of the years I have solid data for (about the last 20), only one year displayed data strongly suggesting a peak breeding period outside the "norm." And that year (2007) was year with many factors outside the norm, including severe drought, extreme heat and very limited food sources (total acorn failure). That year, data strongly indicated a breeding pattern approximately 2-3 weeks later than the normal window. The question is, is this year's condition "extreme enough" to shift breeding dates, which appears to be a fairly rare occurrence, but an occurrence that does happen from time to time.
That will be very interesting. I will definitely post back here if I start to see the normal scrapes opening up etc. Right now, everything is still pretty dead. And update on some info I shared here before. the only scrape im getting consistent action at is licking branch only. even though I opened it up myself 2 weeks ago or so, ive realized they have not been actually scraping the dirt. its covered in leaves. all other scrapes are not even seeing much licking branch action let alone actual scraping.
To muddy the waters a bit more, I was playing around with the hunters toolbox, and 6/6 WMAs I checked had higher antlered deer harvests (YTD) compared to last year. Granted, increases are not 'significant' but I thought it was odd that antlered harvests are up and the sign has decreased. I know logic says 'less bucks, less sign' but surely we haven't harvested THAT many bucks. I would have thought 'more sign, more harvests' as it would tip us off more to locations and travel corridors
Checked a couple cams this morning and had a single doe midday yesterday wandering around, then all night long she was with a 5pt yearling. The rut I'm afraid is happening on schedule.
Same here.
I've developed a system that works well for me but I need scraping to implement it. I feel blind without any activity. It actually makes me want to hunt more so I can observe the deer. Typically I like to sit back a little and let my cameras gather data over scrapes but I can't do that with no scrapes.
I have put out a bunch of cameras in areas bucks typically start community scrapes and I got 4 different bucks on camera last night checking those areas but no scraping.
Food as far as mast is very low this year and with the hot temperatures the deer may just be lethargic.
