Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

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BigHills BuckHunter
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Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby BigHills BuckHunter » Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:08 pm

Hey guys

I was wondering about how large is a bucks territory or range this time of year? Im sure it depends on deer to deer. The reason I ask is because I was scouting/filming bucks in the evening a few nights ago and got a nice mature buck on camera that Im really pumped for Im guessing 5 years old. Later on I went shining at about midnight to 1 AM and I swear I saw the same buck but he was 3/4 a mile away from where I saw him in the evening. I know where his bed is and he comes off the point into the alfalfa before entering the corn but where I saw him at night was in one of the very few soybean fields we have in the area. Do they travel the extra mile to get a preferred food source and if so why doesnt he bed closer to the beans?


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Ack
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Re: Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby Ack » Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:51 pm

3/4 of a mile is nothing for a buck to travel once the sun goes down at this time of the year, especially if he has found a preferred food source. He probably has a good bedding area established and prefers to bed there for security reasons. All he has to do is wait until dark and move off to the bean field.....probably only takes him about 15 minutes at the most to cover that kind of distance. Once the beans start turning yellow he may revert back to using the alfalfa field....that's something you will have to keep an eye on.
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Re: Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby dan » Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:14 pm

Ack wrote:3/4 of a mile is nothing for a buck to travel once the sun goes down at this time of the year, especially if he has found a preferred food source. He probably has a good bedding area established and prefers to bed there for security reasons. All he has to do is wait until dark and move off to the bean field.....probably only takes him about 15 minutes at the most to cover that kind of distance. Once the beans start turning yellow he may revert back to using the alfalfa field....that's something you will have to keep an eye on.

X2... Well said Ack.
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Re: Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby Bucky » Sat Aug 06, 2011 1:13 am

Core area will be small... feeding areas could be a mile + in any direction
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Re: Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby slipp » Sat Aug 06, 2011 6:24 am

I have seen them travel this far to get to the nearest lush alfalfa fields and the greenest beans around. Typically like Bucky said, they will have a small home range and feed up to over a mile away. Where I hunt, we have relatively small woodlots so cover can be limited and food sources constantly changing.
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Re: Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby BassBoysLLP » Sat Aug 06, 2011 2:23 pm

Bucky wrote:Core area will be small... feeding areas could be a mile + in any direction


X2. I see the bachelor groups with less than 1/4 mile core area, but when night falls there is no question how far they will roam. It all depends where the preferred food is relative to the preferred bedding.
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Re: Size of Mature bucks range this time of year

Unread postby WEEGEE » Sat Aug 06, 2011 2:52 pm

three weeks ago i had 20 bucks in one grass waterway.
but every night it would be less. now i very seldom see any ,even in the beans now. they're in the corn ,until the acorns start dropping.
but all of them are still within 2-3 miles as of now.

but in the next 6 weeks they'll be roaming around and start breaking up the bachelor groups.
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