weird deer activity this year

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cameron
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weird deer activity this year

Unread postby cameron » Tue Dec 01, 2015 9:45 am

I don't know about everywhere else but here in North West Arkansas we've had a weird rut this year. About the last week and a half or 2 weeks of October alot of "pre-rut" activity started happening. Lots of rubs, scrapes and a little fighting like normal. Then about the first week of November some cruising. I didn't see any chasing but some cruising. So like normal I'm I'm thinking the "peak" will be coming at about the 2nd week of November which is normal for around here. From then on, I've seen a ton of does still in groups and just this past saturday, I saw 10 does and yearlings with 3 bucks. 2 of them were over 3.5 and the other was 2.5. The bucks weren't aggressive at all by any means and the does didn't mind them either. They all stayed together in a group and walked out of sight. Do y'all think the does came in early this year or why do you think we're seeing this activity?

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Ksbowhunter
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby Ksbowhunter » Wed Dec 09, 2015 2:35 am

You know it is weird when you see fawns still sucking on mom the 2nd week of November. The weather was really warm(70's in November) and we never did get a great cold front that came through. Think most activity was at night. First year I was not able to rattle a buck in. They didn't respond at all to rattling and I have heard others talk of the same problem.
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g2outdoors
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby g2outdoors » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:10 am

Same issue in Upstate NY. Warm. Warm. Warm.

I saw chasing from young bucks at night while driving around, but very few cruising during the daylight.
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Stanley
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby Stanley » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:13 am

Yup odd year.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
Bucky
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby Bucky » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:32 am

Best activity for me was late Oct.... weird November

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Stanley
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby Stanley » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:39 am

I usually see some good bucks late November. It was very sparse this year.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
MN Slick
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby MN Slick » Wed Dec 09, 2015 5:59 am

Weird in North Missouri too. Mark Drury predicted a trickle rut. He nailed it....at least where I hunt.
cameron
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby cameron » Wed Dec 09, 2015 6:08 am

MN Slick wrote:Weird in North Missouri too. Mark Drury predicted a trickle rut. He nailed it....at least where I hunt.


Haha that's exactly what I said.

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JoeRE
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby JoeRE » Wed Dec 09, 2015 6:40 am

Yes sir....what I saw too and pretty much what I expected. I know the rutting moon is sneered at by most of the scientific community but man I see a correlation of movement every year - whenever the rutting moon is, that phase of the rut has a lot more activity. I am not saying breeding is changing, but daylight activity sure is.

This year it was the pre-rut. Weather is important too but the moon is too. Next year it will flip. You will see a lot more rutting activity mid-November and late October will have poor activity. Rutting moon is Nov. 14th 2016. Mark my words.
tim
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby tim » Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:47 am

my best trail cam action was mid October deer chasing does mouth open. then trickled the rest of the season. I only hung 1 cam on a mock scrape in a heavily used area and it went dead by the last week of October. that is unheard of in my area, that would usually happen by mid November or 1st week not October. seen the least amount of bucks ever but statistically wise seen a higher percentage of older bucks on stand.not sure where the smaller bucks were, I only seen the 1.5 year olds my entire vacation!!!!! I usually see that many a day lots of days
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby tim » Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:48 am

that should have said 3 1.5 year olds my entire vacation(36 days)
darenative
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby darenative » Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:53 am

Odd year for sure. Those that predicted a trickle rut sure nailed it.
BowHusker
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby BowHusker » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:11 pm

I've seen bucks chasing does hard all last week and this week in the mornings. I think the trickle rut may be accurate this year.

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Dewey
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby Dewey » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:45 pm

The rut was really ramping up good here late October then extremely warm weather killed daytime rut action the first week of November which is normally primetime for me. I think the "trickle" rut was what we saw during daylight but a bulk of the chasing was happening after dark due to warm temps. Vehicle deer kills during that time actually increased around here compared to last year so that pretty much tells me nothing really changed except daylight movement.

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g2outdoors
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Re: weird deer activity this year

Unread postby g2outdoors » Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:19 am

It's good to see that many folks were affected. I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong.


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