Mid/late season deer movement changes

[Tenntrapper]

Where we hunt here on the farm is way up on a ridge behind the house...it's a hay field. There is a pasture between here and there...have to cross 2 fences to get there.
This year the pasture is pretty grown up..didn't get to bush hog all of it.

Early in the season we were getting a lot of pics of some good bucks...up on top of the hill. Then they just stopped showing up. Still getting pics of young/small bucks.

I had to go through the pasture yesterday with tractor. Was thinking...this might be a good place to hunt, but wasn't looking for sign.

Then last night, was up at neighbor's. He said that Christmas Eve he went out to check fences. He said he jumped a huge buck right behind our house...in the grown up pasture. Also said that there were a bunch of cedars that had been torn up... rubbed. Said he seen the same buck about a week ago in the same field.

I'm thinking we are hunting the wrong field. The mature bucks have moved down into the thick stuff...100 yards behind our house...

Might need to make some changes.

 

[EastTNHunter]

Have your daughter mover her trail cameras down there

 

[Tenntrapper]

Have your daughter mover her trail cameras down there

She got more for Christmas...
Guessing we will be putting up cameras sometime today...

We had already talked about it before this revelation, but she didn't want pics of the cows every few seconds...

Guess she will just have to deal with it .

 

[Ocoee Ridge Runner]

Mature bucks figure hunters out pretty quick. You have to constantly adjust your game plan to stay in the game of killing them.

 

[Ski]

Overgrown thick field that doesn't get hunted? Sounds exactly like where big bucks live.

 

[Lost Lake]

Years ago I parked at the landowners massive shop and walked for fifteen minutes to get to my hunting spots on his rather large farm.

The biggest buck I ever saw on his place was bedded regularly right behind that shop, with all kinds of loud equipment repair going on quite often.

That tiny block of woods that nestled up to that shop looked like a teenagers bedroom from the damage he did to it. Beds, rubs, and droppings made it look like a goat barnlot.

 

[DoubleRidge]

This year the pasture is pretty grown up..didn't get to bush hog all of it.

He said he jumped a huge buck right behind our house...in the grown up pasture.

Love old field growth...allowing portions of a field to grow up can add some great diversity to a property...bush hog strips through old growth and create travel paths (edge) and generate new early successional growth for deer to browse on...great low cost habitat project. Rotate where you bush hog to manage woody encroachment.

 

[megalomaniac]

Normally that would make sense... post rut, the mature bucks look for secluded areas with just enough food to survive on... but primarily want to be away from other deer.

On my places this past weekend, we watched 4 mature bucks out in the wide open crop fields feeding in daylight while multiple other deer were around them. They ignored the other deer, just trying to cram enough calories down as fast as possible to keep from starving to death. Never seen this behavior in late December. See it all the time mid January, but not this time of the year.

They are looking dangerously run down. 4.5 y/o bucks have the body of an underweight 3.5 yo. Yearling bucks are fat as toads.

 

[redblood]

Yes. This deer was massively thick buck thats been here the whole season. He is 4.5 min. This oic was just taken- i bet he has lost 50 pounds. Still has a big neck, but thats about it

 

[Snake]

Bucks really like a grown up field. It's easy to just stand and see for a long distance I guess is the reason. Most hunters don't try to be quite walking in a field were you least expect a buck to be.