Any serious rut activity?

[BLACKJACK]

Anybody been seeing any serious rut activity? Was out Wed morning and saw three small bucks hanging out together, so it can't be getting too serious here in central MN. Did scout out a spot that had two ground scrapes within 30 yards of each other, its on my list to hunt next week.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Blackjack-My hunting cabin is up around the Grantsburg area of WI.. so, not too far north... I just got it last fall so I am still learning the area... I was out walking in the woods quite a bit this weekend... LOTS of rubs.. and quite a few scrapes popping up... I was plesantly surprised how many rubs I found.

[EXTREME]

Have seen very little signs of rutting activity in my area. There are rubs and some scrapes, but not a ton. I expect that next weekend they should start showing up.

[Iceman77]

I hunt in a small 10 acre woodlot next to a busy highway and surrounded by fields. I have been watching a scrape line that intersects a bedding area and a couple of fields and have been seeing many does with fawns. This last weekend I hunted mornings and evenings and did a little calling and rattling as I have been seeing a couple of the does start to push away fawns. At this point in time I use a little doe in estrus scent on all the pre-existing scrapes and create some new scrapes where I use some buck in rut urine along with the doe in estrus. I also started some light to moderately aggressive rattling and that brought in 3 smaller bucks and 1 doe. This is near the Hutchinson area and I am seeing classic signs of the end of the pre-rut period. The larger bucks in the area are still not aggressive but they will shortly from what I am seeing.

[Ole1855]

I was up at my hunting shack this weekend doing a little bow hunting and shed building. If car killed buck's on the side of the road is any indication of the rut starting, I would say, it's underway. We saw several dead buck's in the ditch as well as helping a young lady that had just clobbered a really big 8 pointer right in front of us. Also I was talking to my neighbor by the shack and he told me the big 10 pointer I've been trying to get into bow range was taken out by a pickup truck last week.

Ole

[Mark Christianson]

This weekend a friend and I found some tremendous rut activity signs. Trees just tore up, and scrapes that were huge.

The biggest rubs were on trees that I could not put my hands around, and touch fingertips. And I dont have small hands.

Trouble is that its in a closed hunting area. Crud.

But this area was just amazing with all the rubs and scrapes around.

We are thinking of putting a trail camera out just to see what is making such a mess on the bigger trees. But I really dont want to lose my trail cameras to a thief either.

[bigbucks]

I've only seen one rub so far, but I've seen 10-12 scrapes between three places & I've not done much walking. My cousin said he saw a big fresh scrape out at our main gun hunting location, where I haven't bow hunted for a couple of weeks.