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Odd rut timing western Middle TN?

I hunt in southeastern Hickman County. We had no acorns and our food plots failed. Prerut activity in late October early November was virtually nonexistent. We saw scrapes pop up everywhere November 10th - 12th. I got one mature buck on camera chasing Nov 13th and another tending a doe on Nov 16th. I ended up harvesting that one on Nov 20th. It was a 5 1/2 yr old 10 pt. I saw a few bucks, not many, cruising from the 2nd week of muzzleloader through Thanksgiving. We didn't start seeing rubs until first week in December. One of my buddies killed a 2 1/2 yr old chasing on Dec 11th. It has been a very weird season.
 
DeerMan66 said:
I hunt in southeastern Hickman County. We had no acorns and our food plots failed. Prerut activity in late October early November was virtually nonexistent. We saw scrapes pop up everywhere November 10th - 12th. I got one mature buck on camera chasing Nov 13th and another tending a doe on Nov 16th. I ended up harvesting that one on Nov 20th. It was a 5 1/2 yr old 10 pt. I saw a few bucks, not many, cruising from the 2nd week of muzzleloader through Thanksgiving. We didn't start seeing rubs until first week in December. One of my buddies killed a 2 1/2 yr old chasing on Dec 11th. It has been a very weird season.
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Interesting stuff.
 
BSK said:
I tell you what. As soon as I figure this acorn-rutting thing out, you'll be the first to know! I swear, every time I think I have the process pinpointed, Nature throws in a new wrinkle and I have to question everything I thought I knew.
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Kind of like when you finally think you've got women figured out🤔
 
I live in northeast TN and have taken off the first week of December for at least 10 years. This year was the worst weather in all of those years. Deer were not moving much at all the entire time. Massive amounts of rain and warm weather. I did some math on when fawns started arriving on camera. I also added 20 days to the 200 gestation period. Giving it a little time for the fawns to get up and start moving around. And at least half of the doe's I have on camera were breed between December 14th and December 28th. Give or take a few days.
 
The most activity on camera we had was on Nov 27/28. Everything seems to be very late. One of the things I look at is dead deer on the side of the interstate. Didn't see one in my area until Dec 1st. (Shelby Co. in SW TN)
 
Winchester said:
BSK, we have had a bumper mast crop for 4 years in a row now here in my part of east TN. Only time in my adult life I have ever saw it 4 years in a row.
That said the last 2 yrs, 20 &21 our peak chasing dates had actually moved up by a few days vs our traditional dates from the last decade. I had credited our great Acorn crops since 2019 and plenty of food through the winter months as causing this! Then, This yr (22) saw our peak chasing days go back to the traditional dates like we had prior to 2020??
What gives?
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Reading through this, I could see where it was leading, then the curve ball came with 2022 being back to normal timing versus even earlier. I guess the mystery of bucks is why we keep tuning up every year and coming back for more
 
deerhunter10 said:
I will also run my cameras heavy in the fawn periods to see when it really hit. I would bet a ton it's 3 to 4 weeks behind. Also very curious about antler growth this coming year.
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I'm curious about this as well. It's really peaked my interest about what the hell went on this year. I typically put several cameras out scouting for turkeys in march and take them up in May. This coming year, I'll probably put quite a few more out than usual and keep them out until around July to see if I can put any of the pieces together. Then gather cameras to clean and put out in august over salt licks
 
I saw exactly what BSK and others are describing in NE Maury. Activity picked up Thanksgiving weekend and I had to leave town for 10 days. I guess a fair question is how/if this all affects timing of the 2nd rut... or will there even be one?
 
I know this is crazy, but I had bucks making scrapes, rubs started popping up, and running some does 2nd week in October, and honestly I think peak breeding hit at my farm 10-31 - 11-7. That's when all the mature bucks I have on my property were moving, scrapes everywhere, running does and since that week, the only deer I have seen are just a few 4 pointers, some does, small 8. That's IT! IDK WHAT HAPPENED. It's like it all hit wide open at once and then everything vanished. Idk what to do far as hunting the farm.
 
Ski said:
Easy peasy. All you gotta do is say, "yes dear you are right and I am wrong", in the most sincere idiot puppy eyes you can give. Works like a charm
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But with my scientific mind, I want to know why I'm supposedly wrong. Not a helpful desire at all!
 
gobblesandgrunts said:
I know this is crazy, but I had bucks making scrapes, rubs started popping up, and running some does 2nd week in October, and honestly I think peak breeding hit at my farm 10-31 - 11-7. That's when all the mature bucks I have on my property were moving, scrapes everywhere, running does and since that week, the only deer I have seen are just a few 4 pointers, some does, small 8. That's IT! IDK WHAT HAPPENED. It's like it all hit wide open at once and then everything vanished. Idk what to do far as hunting the farm.
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Did you have a big acorn crop?
 
gobblesandgrunts said:
I know this is crazy, but I had bucks making scrapes, rubs started popping up, and running some does 2nd week in October, and honestly I think peak breeding hit at my farm 10-31 - 11-7. That's when all the mature bucks I have on my property were moving, scrapes everywhere, running does and since that week, the only deer I have seen are just a few 4 pointers, some does, small 8. That's IT! IDK WHAT HAPPENED. It's like it all hit wide open at once and then everything vanished. Idk what to do far as hunting the farm.
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That actually sounds pretty normal. After a hard rut both bucks and does will go to a feeding pattern to recoup their energy. Bucks will lay around and barely move except for food. They've got to rebuild their fat stores before winter. Otherwise they'd rut themselves to death. Rutting is hard on a deer.
 
philsanchez76 said:
Wow very interesting and thx for taking the time to put that together. My observations (I record each hunt in a journal) and my trail cam footage would agree with what you're seeing. In Rutherford, I saw fairly normal what you refer to as "pester-chasing" the last week of oct and first week of November. The only weird part was there were no scrapes/rubs to be seen anywhere. I didn't think much of it, just that hey it's about to be on so time to take some time off work and get out there. Then the next 2 weeks of Nov. were DEAD. Well now I had to get back to work and family stuff for thanksgiving. That's when all the real chasing seemed to begin was after thanksgiving (as captured on trail cam). And I had already burned all my time off. Was very frustrating.
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I had a very similar experience in Rutherford. On Public I usually see small bucks pestering in late Oct. that didn't happen this year. I don't hunt my land until ML but once I got there I did see small bucks pestering. I generally take 2 days around the second weekend in ML and then the 3 days before Thanksgiving. I was only at work the 16th-18th. I did get some daytime pics of 2.5 year old bucks on the 16th (of course) but other than that Scrapes were nonexistent, never got a picture of a buck older than 2.5 years old, and rubs were not as prevalent. I did see a 2.5 yr old 8 pt on thanksgiving morning. Ideally I would like to take off the 11th-the weekend after TG, but that would be tough with work.

I have owned this 32 acres for 10 years. Its not that big, I run multiple cell cams and it is tough for a deer to get through without being caught on camera eventually. Every year I get multiple pictures of older bucks (mostly at night) and eventually I will get some daytime pics. When I'm hunting I see pestering early on and then actual chasing from Nov. 11- 25th or so. it varies by a day or two each way. Of course we generally get a second pop and I see chasing in Dec. too.

This year I've seen 1 or 2 good chases, no pics of big bucks and so far the area is devoid of deer. I think the dogs running around have something to do with that too. It's been frustrating on many fronts this year.
 
Bone Collector said:
I think the dogs running around have something to do with that too. It's been frustrating on many fronts this year.
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That's a bad situation. If you think deer react to human pressure, just think about how they react to dogs running up on them in their beds and chasing them for miles. IMO, nothing can ruin a property faster or worse than loose deer chasing dogs.
 
BSK said:
As I've written about several times, I do believe the severe drought and resulting lack of acorns and other food sources in western Middle TN delayed rut timing this year. Poor animal health is known to delay estrus in female deer, and I think that's what we saw. Below is a graph of buck-doe chases caught on video trail-camera the last three years. Unfortunately, I don't have more years of data because I've only run video trail cameras for the last three years. In fact, I was actually gathering data for another study (buck behavior at scrapes) and just happened upon the data below. In the graph, a couple of distinct peaks of chasing can be seen. The first is late October when cameras over food plots caught a lot of bucks pester-chasing unreceptive does. The second peak is the normal peak of breeding for my property, centered right around Nov. 14-18. And a few chases were observed this year at that time. However, this year (2022), the vast majority of chasing was considerably late, centered around Nov. 28 to Dec. 2. I believe this late peak of chasing was driven by the poor health of the local deer.

Anyone else in region observe/record anything like this?
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SW Humphreys & W Hickman. No acorns & pitiful food plots = very limited deer sightings. Assume deer moved to ag.
Recent rains have greened up plots = doe sightings = scraping explosion.Odd year for sure. Curious as to harvest #s & dates.
 

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