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Rut update 23’

Wife had a big buck cross the road in front of her last night knox county, I had a big 1 cross in front of me today at 1pm in Townsend, there is some movement.
 
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First does came in 11/10 and it was very active that day. Weekend was surprisingly slow. Lots of chases on camera since. Slowed down last 2 days. Not a lot during daylight either.
 
megalomaniac said:
Full estrus in middle TN. Watched 5 older bucks tending does past few days.

Another thing that is really strange this year... the 1.5y/o's are just running themselves ragged. Can't tell how many I've seen wandering around panting with mouth agape and tongue hanging out. Normally, our 1.5yo's run the heck out of the does in October, then settle down and don't participate in the rut activities, just feed and watch the older bucks having all the fun... This year, they are burning themselves out, which they may never recover from.

The only thing that is different on my places is we have a 90% fawn recruitment rate, whereas for the past decade we only had a 10-20% fawn recruitment rate. I don't know why that would change the behaviour of the 1.5 y/o's, but buck age structure hasn't changed.
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Were you able to bump that recruitment rate up deliberately with some kind of intervention, or was it just good fortune? Stack up a lot of coyotes?
 
notgreg said:
Were you able to bump that recruitment rate up deliberately with some kind of intervention, or was it just good fortune? Stack up a lot of coyotes?
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Near 100% complete coyote eradication. Have killed 23 so far this year on the farm. When a new one shows up on camera, we go out there and kill him within a week. Literally a complete turn around in fawn recruitment.

In years past, we would shoot every one we see from the deer stand. Normally I would kill 7 to 10 deer hunting. This year, noone has even seen one from the stand so far.

New ones keep moving in, but they just don't stand a chance with the new calls and 24bit soundfiles.
 
megalomaniac said:
Full estrus in middle TN. Watched 5 older bucks tending does past few days.

Another thing that is really strange this year... the 1.5y/o's are just running themselves ragged. Can't tell how many I've seen wandering around panting with mouth agape and tongue hanging out. Normally, our 1.5yo's run the heck out of the does in October, then settle down and don't participate in the rut activities, just feed and watch the older bucks having all the fun... This year, they are burning themselves out, which they may never recover from.

The only thing that is different on my places is we have a 90% fawn recruitment rate, whereas for the past decade we only had a 10-20% fawn recruitment rate. I don't know why that would change the behaviour of the 1.5 y/o's, but buck age structure hasn't changed.
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Sorry for the dumb question but what do you mean by "recruitment" rate?
 
UTGrad said:
Sorry for the dumb question but what do you mean by "recruitment" rate?
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How many fawns average per adult doe. 20% recruitment means there are 2 fawns for every 10 does.

Low recruitment rates are either due to poor herd health or over predation of newborn fawns by coyotes..

Technically we are actually above 100% recruitment this year due to the extreme number of twins and triplet fawns we have.

Upside... more bucks being born and surviving until fall. Downside is we are going to have to aggressively kill does to keep population level since the coyotes are no longer doing that.
 
megalomaniac said:
Near 100% complete coyote eradication. Have killed 23 so far this year on the farm. When a new one shows up on camera, we go out there and kill him within a week. Literally a complete turn around in fawn recruitment.

In years past, we would shoot every one we see from the deer stand. Normally I would kill 7 to 10 deer hunting. This year, noone has even seen one from the stand so far.

New ones keep moving in, but they just don't stand a chance with the new calls and 24bit soundfiles.
Click to expand...
Daytime hunting or nighttime? I relocated a camera over the weekend and am getting a pic every night of at least 1 coyote, possibly more. I haven't seen one hunting in years though.
 
09FX4 said:
Daytime hunting or nighttime? I relocated a camera over the weekend and am getting a pic every night of at least 1 coyote, possibly more. I haven't seen one hunting in years though.
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Daytime. If you set up close, they come charging in within 2 minutes of coyote vocalization sequences. Actually a LOT of fun, but I have missed several coming in full throttle.
 
megalomaniac said:
Near 100% complete coyote eradication. Have killed 23 so far this year on the farm. When a new one shows up on camera, we go out there and kill him within a week. Literally a complete turn around in fawn recruitment.

In years past, we would shoot every one we see from the deer stand. Normally I would kill 7 to 10 deer hunting. This year, noone has even seen one from the stand so far.

New ones keep moving in, but they just don't stand a chance with the new calls and 24bit soundfiles.
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That's simply amazing results.

I get as many coyote on camera as I do deer, but all at night. We NEVER see coyotes from the stand. They are highly nocturnal in my area. But I sure get a lot of videos of them chasing deer in the food plots at night.
 
UTGrad said:
Sorry for the dumb question but what do you mean by "recruitment" rate?
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The Fawn Recruitment Rate is a measure of fawn survival to adulthood. In most healthy herds, does will be carrying the same number of fetuses in early spring. However, how many of those fawns survive to be "recruited" into the adult population is highly variable. As Mega pointed out, predation is a major player in fawn survival. But many factors effect fawn survival. Illnesses, birth defects, mother's milk production, mother's experience level, mother abandonment, human activities (such as mowing hay at the wrong time) can all play a role in fawn survival.

Studies of does in late spring (usually March) show most doe populations will be carrying - on average - around 1.8 fetuses per doe (in essence, most does have twin fetuses in March). So at birth, there is usually a 180% fawn recruitment rate (18 fawns for every 10 adult does). However, still births and all factors mentioned previously combined, usually drop that number down to around 120% recruitment within a few weeks. After that, predation is the major player in fawn recruitment, and across the Southeast, rising coyote populations are producing fawn recruitment numbers more in the range of 25-40%. This is MUCH lower than it used to be, when 80-120% fawn recruitment used to be the norm.

Although numbers like this seem unimportant, they are critically important for setting harvest guidelines. If removal of adult deer from all forms of mortality combined (hunting, disease, car collisions, accidental deaths, old age, etc.) exceeds the recruitment of new deer into the adult population (fawn recruitment), the total deer population declines.
 
East Roane county, I haven't seen one deer since Nov. 5 when I took a picture of a group in a field down the road from me. It's like they just vanished and usually they're everywhere.
 
tntrkkllr said:
SW Tennessee the mature bucks have found them a mature doe and are now sticking with them until in estrus. ALSO scrapes finally opening and lots of rubs showing up. Glad to finally see it start heating up down here despite the warm weather!! What are you seeing??
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I haven't had a Buck over a year old on camera in over a week.
 
Northern middle....last Monday saw mature buck tending a doe (out of range) she was feeding, he was watching her, she'd take a step, he'd take a step. Tuesday saw young bucks cruising alone while does were feeding. Wednesday observed a mature buck chasing hard. So far this morning 4pt pestering does...he was vocal grunting. Mornings have been better for sightings. Late afternoons have been ok. Midday, while I have seen some does feeding, its been slow with the warmer temps.
 

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