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West TN rut

Hunted last weekend in Giles County around Minor Hill. Saw quite a few young 8s nose to the ground searching but no chasing. Cameras over the last few days have been hopping with daytime pics of bucks but all just searching it appears. Still have several doe families still coming into fields eating as all is normal which I would have expected them to have broken up by now.

If anyone hunts around that area I would love to hear your thoughts on what you are seeing and what to expect---this is my first year owning my on dirt and have no experience with Tennessee in general. Hoping this weekend is gonna be good with the cooler temps and I will be riding shotgun with two of my kids hoping to get them on a good one.
 
BSK said:
What was your acorn crop like CBU93? I ask, because I've noticed that in poor acorn years, rubbing behavior is extremely muted.
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We have had a very poor acorn crop at our place in W TN and the lack of rutting behavior has been muted. With just shy of 20 cell cameras placed in areas that have produced years of mature buck harvests/camera photos (along swamp edges, bottle necks between fields, etc), I have yet to capture the number of mature bucks walking like they have in years past. I can think of 2 mature bucks on all the cameras since crops were harvested. I am scratching my head but keep going back to the lack of acorns on our place. Even in a bottomland hardwood landscape, the acorns have been non existent, along with mature buck sightings (cameras and hunter confirmations) being almost non existent as well.

My questions are…
#1 - Is the "muted" rut just a hunter/camera visible deal?
#2 - Does a poor acorn year affect the physiology of bucks/does or just the visible rut behavior we as hunters see?
 
We have a good acorn crop here and we were still at least a week behind what had become the norm over the last decade for our best breeding dates! I think the unusually warm temps may have had something to do with it, which I know weather doesnt have a huge factor in actual breeding just observation normally. Also seems to have been a trickle rut over the last 3+ weeks.
 
Winchester said:
We have a good acorn crop here and we were still at least a week behind what had become the norm over the last decade for our best breeding dates! I think the unusually warm temps may have had something to do with it, which I know weather doesnt have a huge factor in actual breeding just observation normally. Also seems to have been a trickle rut over the last 3+ weeks.
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My son and I saw four younger bucks chasing the same doe Saturday afternoon. Other than that, been slow
 
I took every day off work that I could the last 2 weeks of nov to sit in the woods. I think I worked 3 days. The 18th-25th it was a mad house of bucks pushing, chasing, and sitting with does. By the 26th almost all of the smaller bucks I saw running does were more in feeding mode it seemed like, and the only bucks I saw with does or chasing were 3+ year olds. I went back out this weekend, and does were grouping back up, spikes and fork horns were grouping up, and I started seeing pictures in plots of mature bucks that I've not seen this year yet.

In my area it's pretty quickly shifting towards food patterns. Some of the older boys seem to be holding out and ready to fight for some fawns coming in, or some does that got missed. I live a few minutes from the deer processor though. I drove by on the way to the store opening weekend, and there must have been 150 deer lined up out there. So behavior changes of gun opener can play a role as well in my observations, but I'm shifting to a food pattern even though I'm still seeing some activity on my cameras on scrapes.
 
I have only hunted in Henry & Weakley counties this year. I have tried to pay attention. In mid to late Oct, there seemed to be a few days when the scrapes went partly cold & does were acting skittish. I wonder if that is what older deer hunters used to call the False Rut? Then things settled down & didn't pick back up until mid Nov when the chasing seemed to peak. For the past week, I've seen almost no activity. Hoping to see a bump starting next weekend.
 
gatodoc said:
I think the initial rut is over in my area near Rossville. May catch secondary last week of the season.
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I'm still experiencing some rutting activity near Rossville and it's getting hot and heavy in Moscow area now. This is a pic from tonight below, have had several hot does in the area in last couple days. This is a 4.5+ year old buck
 

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BSK said:
Just amazes me to think you all in far SW TN are just now seeing the rut. Crazy I tell you!
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First 10 days of December are "must hunt" days in SW TN. One favorable thing for daytime activity is we usually experience normal to below normal temps by this time of year, unlike early to mid November for us.
 
Andy S. said:
First 10 days of December are "must hunt" days in SW TN. One favorable thing for daytime activity is we usually experience normal to below normal temps by this time of year, unlike early to mid November for us.
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spot on! i've always tried to spend as much time as possible in the woods during the last week of november through the first week to 10 days of december. still scratching my head at our place...unusually low numbers of mature buck activity during the day or at night via cell cams, i keep going back to the lack of acorns. in years past we've always seen mature bucks cruising/chasing but this year has been off
 

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