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Observations

gundog870

gundog870

Premium Platinum Member
This post is just for things you are noticing.

Yesterday I hunted dark to dark. I was in a great funnel, At seven a group of three does came through.. no bucks following. than I saw an shooter 8 cruising at 8. Saw a six cruising, and had a doe come through again with nothing folowing. At 11:00 I rattled in a 3 1/2 yr old. Really ugly rack so he got the pass. Than I didnt see a thing untill dark. A forky came through.

from NH to waterloo this morn I saw 4 bucks and 2 of them were locked on a doe.

So I am still seeing a lot of does with out bucks on them. Do you think they have been bred already? or not ready yet. I have seen a lof of big deer this last week, but the I have only seen one big boy actually chasing.
 
I haven't seen any chasing either. I saw one big boy with a doe last night but he just made sure he was in the area of her. He didn't respond to calls or anything just wanted to be with in 40-50 yards of her. I watched three different groups of does last night and six different bucks didn't pay attention to them.
 
I have seen the same. I saw a nice buck with a doe in the ditch the other day, When they ran, the big boy ran a head of her. If she was "ready" he would of still been right behind her.
 
I would have to agree with what has been said so far. I'm also not seeing the big boys as of yet like I usually do during the rut. The ones I do see are showing little interest in the does. I do think that hunting early and late is the way to go with warmer temps this weekend.
 
I just returned back to work today after 2 full weeks of sitting on stand.I believe we are having a long drawn out rut with no real heavy movements.Most movement still occured early and late with minimal movement mid day.I hunted 5 different farms and many different stands.Just when I thought the switch had been flipped on,It turned ice cold.Every day was different.
 
I love this site...at least we get to pool our ignorance, and our frustration. I am experiencing the exact same thing...it is like the rut is on...kind of, sort of, and then nothing. I live on a river bottom, so I get to "scout" from my living room every day, and I have yet to see any consistent "cruising". But one day last week, it was like the whole woods was in love, then the next week dead as a hammer with just little morning and evening movement.
 
Same here - Had a couple slow days, then couldn't beat them off with a stick yesterday morn - averaged a different buck every 15 minutes between 7AM and 9AM, had three fights within 25 yeards of the stand, and one all out chase. Today, not a single deer. I too live in a wooded area and have seen only mild interest from the bucks.
 
I sat almost all day today with some travel time..I saw 10 does total with not a single buck....I have no idea what the deal is. one of my stands is usually good for a couple dandys through out the year....This year i have seen a bunch of scrubs. it certainly frusterates a guy specialy since i have slept 4.5 hours since wednesday nigt.
 
Same story down here, seein quite a few bucks cruisin, but nothing after 8 a.m. or 15 min before dark. Lots of does still with fawns. Hot and heavy one day, ice cold the next. Pretty frustrating.....
 
Boy I thought I was the only one seeing this. I was beginning to think I stink, or something. On Wednesday I had deer up the ying yang, with a couple of decent 130-140 class 10 pointers and some smaller bucks. And, an absolute monster 10. I got a shot at him, but hit him low in the chest. Found a couple pools of blood, then nothing. The next day, same spot, only had a 140ish 10 ptr come in and a couple of does come and lie down for about an hour. A total of about 15 1/2 hours in the 2 days in the stand. Then this morning, nothing but small bucks, all over the place..
 
It started kicking in for me my last day of my vacation /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif . Saw a ton of deer and started seeing the big boys. Hopefully now I can make the most of my weekends. Mark my words I believe we're going to have heavy rutting activity during 1st shotgun, which would be glorious. Definitely next weekend and Thanksgiving weekend will be the days to be in the woods.
 
Hunted every day last week from sun up to sun down. Had mostly dink bucks crusin thru every hour every day except friday which was my slowest seeing one shooter at about 7:30 am heading away from me and then at 4:00 pm two dinks sparing and then headed south of my stand.About 4:20 seen a shooter on a sprint also headed south and about 5:00 he comes back thru playing cat and mouse with a doe.She jumps a fence behind me and the buck stand at the fence watching but I have no shot.He comes up the fence towards me to a opening and offers a shot.By now it is about 5:25 and is pretty dark but can still see my pins but tuff seeing thru my peep.I take a shot and he spins around and take a couple of steps and snorts and stomps then walks off.I figured I missed but let him get out of the area before getting down.I waited till the next morning and went to look for my arrow about 8:00 am and found that I had shot under him.He was atleast a 150" split brows and several kickers between 10 and 14 points first time I had seen this buck.Driving in saturday morn I seen a monster with several smaller bucks and 10 does about a half mile down the road.Hope he make it my way in the next couple weekends.It was also a long week with not finding out about the loss of Scott Ferris.He was a classmate and was on my mind thru the week.
 
Sat morning at 6:45, saw a big 10 with some trash trotting across the field, he saw my deke, made a scrape, and went into the woods. Saw a big eight sat at 1:30 just walking with two does. Saw 7 does/fawns in a group feeding later that night with no bucks to be seen. Wierd
Little bucks seem to be chasing everything though.
 
I have hunted 11 day's and evening's and have not seen a single shooter buck.The smaller 120ish buck's are out in force though,I've never seen such a weird year ever! <u>When are the bigger buck's going to get in the game?</u>
 
I agree. I hunted about every day last week from sun up to sun down and all I had were little scrub bucks crusing by. I think we are in lock down mode in Central Iowa. I don't know how else to explain the lack of big buck movement.
 
Same obersvations as most everyone else. Hunted this past weekend and had an encounter with the same buck three different times and he could have cared less about the does. Had six does in front of me Friday night and he walked in around them eating right along with them and ten minuted later turned and walked off by himself. /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crazy.gif
Last night he showed up about 4:30 by himself. Gave him a few soft grunts he looked up my way. stood there looking around for a while and walked off. He wasn't the least bit interested at all. Insert "Shrugging Gremlin" here. /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif
 
I posted on here a few days ago, but ran into the same thing again yesterday. I hunted in the morning, and it was almost boring, and then last night went to another stand, and it was like being at a high school dance, young ones cruising, females running, some fawns still with does, and not even nervous (not sure what that had to do with the high school dance, the analogy breaks down there...) ...all very strange for this time of year around me.
 
This weekend all i saw was a few instances of chasing by little bucks. otherwise i saw just does. that is except for one buck. 150-160"; i think an 8!!!!! /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shocked.gif he too was chasing a doe. i cant wait untill the rut breaks away from its peak and the bigger ones begin searching for does once again!!!!
 
Report from last weekend in Eastern Iowa was big buck layin in the middle of fields with does.

pretty much screams LOCKDOWN.
 
Real patchy for the last 2 weeks. On again off again. I've seen bucks bedded with single does and a lot of running around/grunting one night and very little of anything but does everywhere the next. One thing though is that almost all the scrapes I walked by today were freshly tended. I just haven't seen the drawn out, usual craziness of full rut this year for more than a day or two in a row although I have to believe it's prime time. Not sure what the deal is.
 
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