Rut behavior

[FISHINGURU]

made it out to one of my new stand sites this morning...did some rattling and grunting with no responses....i seen a decent little basket 8 pointer on the side of the road as i pulled in and 2 solo does by themselves through out the hunt....i seen some fresh scrapes and rubs around my stand and on the way back to the vehicle.

seemed pretty mellow out there for me...i wasn't feeling it rut wise...felt pretty warm out there...them cold temps along with shorter days is the trigger.

seen a bunch of turkeys struttin around.

i stayed in stand until about 11am....i'll sit long days when the action picks up!

[rcook72]

All was quiet in my spot when I got in early. Tried a little rattling and grunting here and there from 2 until 5. Most nights the deer start moving in around then so I just shut up and let them do their thing. Was dissapointed that I didn't see anything from 5-6 and was considering slowly packing up my camera and gear as I was getting pretty cold. Didn't have a hood so I had my face tucked in the front of my collar. While I was looking down between my feet I see a huge rack.... I am all tucked in and can't decide what to do first Turn on the camera, grab my bow, grunt. Well he starts trotting off mouth wide open tongue hanging out. His left side is a beautiful tall 5x and his right side was a taller longer jacked up 3x with some broken off stuff. I reach for the camera get it on. Grunt at him and stop him at 27yds. Now he is looking right at my direction and I can't get to the bow. I decide to go for it really slow. While I am turned around I am praying to myself please be there when I turn around, please be there when I turn around. He was but got back another 15 yds. Now I am grunting every time he tries to keep going up the trail. Finally he gets to his scrape 80 yds down the road and freshens it up. He tried to leave 4 times each time I rattled and let out a few grunts. He started getting PO'd and really tearing up his scrape. 8 minutes of video while he was woking his scrape and a little 4pt moved in and hung out around the food plot trying to figure out what was going on the 4 minutes. The rattling and grunting stopped the big dude but only one time did he try and make his way back to see what was going on he was still on a mission it seemed like. Next time I will be prepaired. Had to wait 20 min for the little dude to get out of there so I could get home. Great night.

[Leaddog]

Had the first buck this year walk in last night. Only saw a few does and fawns on prior evenings. The flat light last night ending shooting early. By the clock I had 15 minutes but couldn't even see the optic pins so let him walk. Knew eventually a good buck would show, next time I see him he just might come by on the closer trail. Awesome letting that arrow go at a 10 yard target from my ground position tucked next to a cedar tree!

Good luck, the games on!

[DonBo]

My wife just emailed me, a big buck dead on the side of the freeway. (694 in Oakdale) Had to be big for her to notice it. That's one drawback to the big boys being on their feet more. Lot's of collisions in the next couple weeks.

[sticknstring]

Get over there and get the rack. I missed a 145" 2 weeks ago on the way to work. A deputy wound up cutting it off. I'm always on the look too. Bummer.

[HunterLee]

They are checking scrapes and pushing does here. This here is one that just showed up when the scrapes did.

[DonBo]

That's a heck of a deer, good luck puting him on the ground!

[Archerysniper]

Don't worry Don Otter lake and poplar have thier metro hunts this weekend they will take care of all those big boys getting hit. Good luck to everyone out this weekend and hopefully we will be seeing some photos of real brutes coming in

[rcook72]

This is the one I posted about yesterday that came out under my feet and I choked on because I wasn't ready and wanted to get it all on video. Took the picture with my cell phone off the video so its a little blurry.looking at the picture makes me wonder why I just didn't get a video of me holding his head up.... Oh well there is a 12pt on the trail cam pics also. Thats probably who busted him up.

a little fuzzy.

[Archerysniper]

Nice buck and he has you picked off in the tree as well.

[sticknstring]

Self-filming isn't easy. You almost need to decide before the hunt whether you want good video or to be able to shoot the deer because nine times out of 10, you're not going to get both. On a buck like that, I would've been shooting an arrow NOT video!

[Bear55]

I have to agree, forget the video and shoot the buck! You won't need a video as the memory will be burned into your brain forever.

[B-man715]

Got rained out yesterday at work (and today too). While running some errands I saw a nice mainframe 10 cross the road from the woods to a corn field at 2 pm!! The big boys are starting to move

I'm hitting the stand dark to dark tomarrow and Sunday. The day light activity should be picking up fast!!

[Meat-Run]

I have two seperete bucks that showed up well into mid morning on the 27th and 28th and they're never seen before bucks so there definetly moving around.

mr

[rcook72]

Nice buck and he has you picked off in the tree as well.

It looks like it in the picture but that was at about 80 yds and he walked around for another 5 minutes without a clue. That is just a frame of a video that I paused to get a good picture of him.

[walleyehunter80]

ha yeah I would have shot him

[BradB]

A small 8 pointer was sighted from my office today chasing two does. This is around 694 and 35E so perhaps the rut is starting to take shape in the metro.

[rcook72]

Little brother said he rattled in a 8pt at 11am today

[buckx37x]

things are very close now finally we have scrapes and many more rubs showing up changed a lot in last two days, coming back from rooster hunting at noon came close to hitting a fork with the old truck. will be out in the am with bow hope the wind dies down dont really want to get blown out of my tree,should be interesting week ahead,good luck all.

[BradB]

I'll be out there too. The wind sounds rough, but I think now is the time to spend as much time on stand as possible.

[BradB]

I didn't shoot any, but I saw a bunch of deer today, including a beautiful 10 that was just out of my range.

Around 5:30 PM I had a grunting spike run through chasing a doe. A minute later a big bodied 8 with a wide rack came running down the same trail with his nose to the ground. I couldn't get him to stop and didn't want to take a bad shot.

Game on in the Metro boys!

[DonBo]

I saw a bunch of deer tonight in the metro too. Two big does still had their fawns. One nice 8 pt (?) just feeding like it was September.

[harvey lee]

I talked with a friend today that is hunting over in the famed Bufflao county big buck land.

He said he saw numerous bucks cruising the woods during the day. Nothing big but plenty of little guys running about.

He also said the majority of the does had fawns in tow yet.

Its getting close.

[LOTWSvirgin]

I got another question for you pros Do buck use the same licking branches and stuff like that??

[Kyle]

Its hard to say where in the rut we are right now. I saw a monster today with a doe about 1 mile from my house, but there isnt a trace of a buck in the woods behind my house. I think the deer are ruttting pretty hard right now, I just think because of all of the odd weather they might be a little more nocturnal. Plus the corn is still up so they could very possibly just be running around in the corn. Rifle opener will reveal it, with more people on stand to report.