Repetitive buck movement

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mainebowhunter
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Re: Repetitive buck movement

Unread postby mainebowhunter » Sat Sep 09, 2017 5:40 am

Whitetailaddict wrote:
mainebowhunter wrote:It has been a year since I posted on this thread. On one piece of ground it has been my second full season hunting it. Bucks are acting completely different than last year. Bucks are showing in day where they never showed. Bucks that aGe classed up a year.

One buck in particular is showing less this year and I put way less pressure on the place in July and August. Never got pics of him where I did in certain spots last year.

Saturday season opens. I will be hunting spots I have never hunted. One buck in particular is a daylight mover. Random times...not a ton that repeats. But daylight movement is all I need to see to hunt him.

It will be interesting to recap the season. Cell cams to date have not really showed much different data than checking them every 2 to 3 weeks. But bucks are just starting to shed velvet. Curious to see if I get the same shifts with 0 impact.


This is really interesting to me. Both that the patterns are different and that cell cams vs regular cams have not seemed to alter patterns. We are always told checking the cameras is too much pressure and may cause deer to relocate but your findings may suggest otherwise although it is a small sampling. Maybe a good study for some biologists to perform.


Yeah. Thats really some of my experiments all season. Very low impact. I will say this. The #1 buck I am hunting showed up on one of my trail cams today hard boned at 10:30am. Season opens tomorrow. Bucks have been on their feet in this area just this week -- some mid morning, some noon. Some at last light. NONE early in the morning. I am not much of a moon person but seeing a lot of deer movement mid morning and noon this week. This might mean an 8am til dark sit tomorrow.

The last time this buck showed up was the day before I checked the cams. He has not been back since. The last picture of him he appeared to have scent trailed me right to my camera.

The one thing I am really looking for is movement hard boned. Velvet bucks definitely seem to tolerate more human intrusion than when they are hardboned. The velvet shift is real. But sometimes I wonder if the velvet shift is more of a human intrusion shift.


JoeRE
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Re: Repetitive buck movement

Unread postby JoeRE » Sat Sep 09, 2017 8:00 am

mainebowhunter wrote:
Whitetailaddict wrote:
mainebowhunter wrote:It has been a year since I posted on this thread. On one piece of ground it has been my second full season hunting it. Bucks are acting completely different than last year. Bucks are showing in day where they never showed. Bucks that aGe classed up a year.

One buck in particular is showing less this year and I put way less pressure on the place in July and August. Never got pics of him where I did in certain spots last year.

Saturday season opens. I will be hunting spots I have never hunted. One buck in particular is a daylight mover. Random times...not a ton that repeats. But daylight movement is all I need to see to hunt him.

It will be interesting to recap the season. Cell cams to date have not really showed much different data than checking them every 2 to 3 weeks. But bucks are just starting to shed velvet. Curious to see if I get the same shifts with 0 impact.


This is really interesting to me. Both that the patterns are different and that cell cams vs regular cams have not seemed to alter patterns. We are always told checking the cameras is too much pressure and may cause deer to relocate but your findings may suggest otherwise although it is a small sampling. Maybe a good study for some biologists to perform.


Yeah. Thats really some of my experiments all season. Very low impact. I will say this. The #1 buck I am hunting showed up on one of my trail cams today hard boned at 10:30am. Season opens tomorrow. Bucks have been on their feet in this area just this week -- some mid morning, some noon. Some at last light. NONE early in the morning. I am not much of a moon person but seeing a lot of deer movement mid morning and noon this week. This might mean an 8am til dark sit tomorrow.

The last time this buck showed up was the day before I checked the cams. He has not been back since. The last picture of him he appeared to have scent trailed me right to my camera.

The one thing I am really looking for is movement hard boned. Velvet bucks definitely seem to tolerate more human intrusion than when they are hardboned. The velvet shift is real. But sometimes I wonder if the velvet shift is more of a human intrusion shift.


Yea Maine I see velvet shift too...but our small game seasons opens the first weekend of September and I have wondered the exact same thing. Labor day weekend is also the preferred time for many deer hunters to go out and hang their stands even though opener is not till Oct 1. Is it human intrusion shift...or most likely, both. I do think bucks behave very erratically for a few days around loosing velvet. Just strange movements. And I have to agree velvet bucks act dumber than hard horned bucks! Just like once they shed antlers in the winter they suddenly become a lot more visible like they know they can slack off finally.

I'm in the camp that full moons increase late morning and mid day activity. Early mornings are dead. Still not sure why but that's what I see each month on the nose.

In general I find early season movement not very consistent year to year. Its all about food and that is different most every year. The full rut cycle, starting around here in early to mid-October, is much more patternable.

Plus in your case I am wondering if low deer densities make annual patterns a lot tougher to find. Have heard plenty of times that is the case. This is the first full year I am running several cams in the wisconsin northwoods and am curious what I will learn from them. Densities are probably around 20-25 DPSM so not super low I guess. Data from this summer was pretty interesting, more consistent activity than I expected so far. Very clear wind-specific movement. If there are patterns come fall, I will find them :lol:
mainebowhunter
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Re: Repetitive buck movement

Unread postby mainebowhunter » Sat Sep 09, 2017 9:20 am

JoeRE wrote:
mainebowhunter wrote:
Whitetailaddict wrote:
mainebowhunter wrote:It has been a year since I posted on this thread. On one piece of ground it has been my second full season hunting it. Bucks are acting completely different than last year. Bucks are showing in day where they never showed. Bucks that aGe classed up a year.

One buck in particular is showing less this year and I put way less pressure on the place in July and August. Never got pics of him where I did in certain spots last year.

Saturday season opens. I will be hunting spots I have never hunted. One buck in particular is a daylight mover. Random times...not a ton that repeats. But daylight movement is all I need to see to hunt him.

It will be interesting to recap the season. Cell cams to date have not really showed much different data than checking them every 2 to 3 weeks. But bucks are just starting to shed velvet. Curious to see if I get the same shifts with 0 impact.


This is really interesting to me. Both that the patterns are different and that cell cams vs regular cams have not seemed to alter patterns. We are always told checking the cameras is too much pressure and may cause deer to relocate but your findings may suggest otherwise although it is a small sampling. Maybe a good study for some biologists to perform.


Yeah. Thats really some of my experiments all season. Very low impact. I will say this. The #1 buck I am hunting showed up on one of my trail cams today hard boned at 10:30am. Season opens tomorrow. Bucks have been on their feet in this area just this week -- some mid morning, some noon. Some at last light. NONE early in the morning. I am not much of a moon person but seeing a lot of deer movement mid morning and noon this week. This might mean an 8am til dark sit tomorrow.

The last time this buck showed up was the day before I checked the cams. He has not been back since. The last picture of him he appeared to have scent trailed me right to my camera.

The one thing I am really looking for is movement hard boned. Velvet bucks definitely seem to tolerate more human intrusion than when they are hardboned. The velvet shift is real. But sometimes I wonder if the velvet shift is more of a human intrusion shift.


Yea Maine I see velvet shift too...but our small game seasons opens the first weekend of September and I have wondered the exact same thing. Labor day weekend is also the preferred time for many deer hunters to go out and hang their stands even though opener is not till Oct 1. Is it human intrusion shift...or most likely, both. I do think bucks behave very erratically for a few days around loosing velvet. Just strange movements. And I have to agree velvet bucks act dumber than hard horned bucks! Just like once they shed antlers in the winter they suddenly become a lot more visible like they know they can slack off finally.

I'm in the camp that full moons increase late morning and mid day activity. Early mornings are dead. Still not sure why but that's what I see each month on the nose.

In general I find early season movement not very consistent year to year. Its all about food and that is different most every year. The full rut cycle, starting around here in early to mid-October, is much more patternable.

Plus in your case I am wondering if low deer densities make annual patterns a lot tougher to find. Have heard plenty of times that is the case. This is the first full year I am running several cams in the wisconsin northwoods and am curious what I will learn from them. Densities are probably around 20-25 DPSM so not super low I guess. Data from this summer was pretty interesting, more consistent activity than I expected so far. Very clear wind-specific movement. If there are patterns come fall, I will find them :lol:


I have been watching them very closely. Luckily, hunting pressure is low. No bird season. But I am blown away by the movement I am seeing so far this season. 100% opposite of last season. NOW there are fewer acorns in the woods and heavy apples. So that very much will influence the way the deer feed and bed. We have more water this year. So the swampy bedding, I am guessing has water. Bucks will bed closer. The variables are just endless though with mast crops. I spent much of last season scouting this area with very little hunting. Food is the biggest influence here, not security cover.

The hunting densities in urban is probably 7-10 DPSM -- meaning, if your off with your cam placements...you can go 3-4 weeks WITHOUT a pic of a deer. So I run a lot of edge cams. Some are checked regular. Some I leave to see if I can put heads or tails together how deer are using this place. Doe bedding areas are starting to come together and make sense. Its why I see very few does in this area.

Tomorrow I will be sneaking into the stand around 8am, hanging my stand and camping out all day. Quite interesting...on year #2 I am starting to see where all the historical rubs came from. These bucks are traveling this area quite a bit during daylight right now. This week with the moon seen a spike in midday movement. Access is great. Wind is perfect. Temps are cool. Humidity is low. Visibility is limited.
mainebowhunter
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Re: Repetitive buck movement

Unread postby mainebowhunter » Sat Sep 09, 2017 11:31 am

Just to add to this. My buddy just called. He had one of his older bucks on cam at 10:15 this morning also. I am not much of a moon guy...but something has affected the movement. Moon was pretty full and getting smaller.
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Re: Repetitive buck movement

Unread postby BBH1980 » Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:33 am

Another great thread with tons of knowledge! For me.... After 25 years of hunting the highly pressured hill and farm country of PA, it was only after finding Dan's DVDs and this site that everything came together.. meaning what I saw whitetails doing all those years finally made sense and I was about to connect the dots so to speak. I am new to this site and tactics but I can say this with 100% certainty... Nothing substitutes hard work and boots on the ground, also... maps, trail cams, observations, and anything else you can think of are simply tools we can use. Much like a carpenter, each tool has it's place and the more tools you have the more productive you can be. That's the difference for me.. after Dan's videos I now have the basics and guidelines of how to use these tools. The rest of it is figuring out how to apply them based on the situation I am up against.
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Re: Repetitive buck movement

Unread postby Lockdown » Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:59 pm

Sure is interesting to read through these old threads. Especially to see how my personal viewpoint has changed. ;) I still agree with most of what I said, but definitely not all of it.

I don’t observe a lot in season due to lack of time (did a lot pre-season last year, and had my biggest pass ever the day after opener) but I really enjoy it when I do. I almost always learn something.


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