Mature bucks gone..?

[Bgoodman30]

Anyone elses good mature bucks completely fall off the landscape? I usually pick them back up in January after the shooting stopped. This year they seem to be missing from my after season survey.

 

[TNTreeman]

They've been missing for me all year. Fewest sightings of mature bucks in 7 yrs. I didn't see a buck I was excited about from a tractor,camera, or from the stand . Still running cameras on food sources but no mature bucks at all.

 

[JN]

I have had a couple show back up. I do not have food plots on these properties and will run a feeder or feeding blocks with high protein content after season. Due to lack of food in the area at this time of year I can draw a good amount of deer in to see what made it through the season. I will usually run the feeders till spring when more natural food source become available.

I did have one buck show back up that I had not had any pictures of since August and he was almost a mile from where I had a picture of him then.

 

[Ski]

I saw one and couple days ago that had no horns. Took me a second to recognize it was a mature buck, or even a buck at all.

 

[BuckWild]

Had a mature 8 pt in my front yard three days ago. Big dark deer, maybe 130 inch.

He trotted off when my dog showed up on the scene...

 

[BSK]

We usually hold the older bucks through peak breeding (mid-November) and then they vanish due to our hunting pressure. However, this year was unique. Many of them vanished in early November but then returned in late November. Have several theories why, but don't know if those are correct or not.

 

[themanpcl]

Anyone elses good mature bucks completely fall off the landscape? I usually pick them back up in January after the shooting stopped. This year they seem to be missing from my after season survey.

I wish I was able to participate and not just live vicariously through this thread...lol...Lost my lease and have a dozen cams looking longingly at me from a box...lol

 

[Bgoodman30]

I wish I was able to participate and not just live vicariously through this thread...lol...Lost my lease and have a dozen cams looking longingly at me from a box...lol

Sorry to hear that brotha..

 

[Bgoodman30]

We usually hold the older bucks through peak breeding (mid-November) and then they vanish due to our hunting pressure. However, this year was unique. Many of them vanished in early November but then returned in late November. Have several theories why, but don't know if those are correct or not.

Ours always vanish soon as the first doe comes in and don't reappear to mid December and usually January right after season goes out...

 

[tree_ghost]

It's been one of the strangest years I can remember for mature buck movement and buck sign in general. I have a handful of historical scrapes that in years past would pick up every big deer in the area, this year they were void of any activity at all. Big rubs were minimal in number. My best daytime movement for mature bucks was Oct15-18 according to my cameras!??! Yesterday I glassed a bachelor group feeding in a briar thicket up in some nasty terrain and 2 of the 3 were already dropped on one side….