2020 Rut Thoughts?

Uncle Rico

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Just thought I'd create a topic to hear what others' thoughts have been on the rut this year?

For us (we are in the North Central part of the state, Zone 1), we have felt like it's been an odd month. The first 5 days of the month were excellent for older bucks being on their feet during the first and last hour of daylight, which is not unusual. But for whatever reason ever since a day or two prior to rifle opener it has seemed like deer movement in general has marginal at best, and honestly just plain poor in some ways.

For context, we run a bunch of cell cameras, and I have been really struck by the lack of wandering bucks showing up or just passing through this year, regardless of whether they are old or young. Personal days afield have confirmed what we have seen on the cell cameras. Full disclosure, i haven't even checked the non-cell cameras since before Halloween so I suppose they could have different info, but I doubt it.

In visiting with some neighbors, as well as others from around the northern part of the state, it seems like most have had similar observations. I'm just wondering if my impressions are simply a small sample size and not representative of the consensus, or if others have seen similar things?

Thanks
UR
 


ShootnBlanks

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We knew it was going to be an odd rut year when we saw a decent buck chasing 2 doe hard during youth rifle season. Earliest I have ever witnessed that. During regular gun season we watched alot of small bucks chasing, the few decent ones seemed to be locked down or else not interested.
 

lunkerslayer

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I seen a lot of young year deer population with multiple twins mixed in , I to didn't see much of the older generation either sex were visible during the time which i hunted mostly in the afternoon because the times I did hunt the morning I didn't see nearly as many deer. I did see deer numbers though when leaving my tree stand when coming out at night grazing in the fields,


I did talk to another hunter, he said everyone who hunts these same areas open to public private land that I have my tree stands on hunt over feed piles. Its seems to be the only way people can successfully get a deer with as little works as possible especially since only 1100 tags are given out 2d,

The days of hunting in large groups with lots of land open to hunters is a thing of the past now its tree stands and bait piles
 

espringers

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we saw bucks chasing does the first week. any nice deer seemed to be on lock down by day 6. only sniffers we saw after that were smaller bucks. we had 3 nice deer on camera. only 1 made a daylight appearance after opener. but, they rarely made them prior to that. cattail sloughs have sort of dried out. so, they are providing some stupid good cover right now making it even more difficult than most years.
 

Motohunter

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I had a completely different experience. I hunted 2k1 for my buck tag and 3f2 for my extra doe tag and the movement was awesome on both occasions. I filled my buck tag opening day and the doe tag on the 18th and both days saw does and bucks on there feet for most of the day. I saw more deer this year then any of the previous few years for sure.

- - - Updated - - -

image0.jpg
On a side note my wife watched this guy chasing a doe in North Bismarck yesterday afternoon.
 


Trapper62

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Also hunted Unit 1, and the first couple days bucks were moving, after the first weekend they have all but disappeared from sight and from the cameras. I have a cell camera on my best place and even it has not sent very many pix and none of the bigger bucks seem to be around. BUT Unit one produced some nice bucks this season!
 

hogslayer

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I hunt our land in central 3A3 and I've been in my blind every weekend since the first weekend of October and I have been confused as hell at what I've been seeing the past few weeks. We have a lot of deer in our area and every time I've sat I've never seen less than 3 deer. There was very little pre rut activity in late October. By opening weekend you did see some bucks mixed with does but no rutting activity. Second weekend I seen some smaller bucks chasing a little but the big ones were not. The monster was finally showing himself in daylight though. I was very surprised that the bucks were still grouped up second weekend and were not fighting or acting territorial whatsoever. One night I had 6 bucks of many age classes all just hanging out together and not paying any attention to the does. By the third week I had some rutting action on my cameras mid week. Last weekend one of the older dominant bucks pushed out all of the others and had about a half dozen does all to himself but he paid little attention to them and they did not seem to even be in estrus. That big guy had his nose to the ground everywhere he went but would walk right past does and not pay attention to them. All the other bucks must have had does locked down somewhere as they were all MIA and there wasn't much movement. I'm starting to think that we just have an overpopulation of does in the area as many of the does are very small and they had very late fawns this year. It's frustrating when you have a dozen does and fawns in front of the blind eating and the big buck is a hundred yards away and doesn't even pay attention to them when it is supposed to be peak rut. The only benefit is that those small late does might get hot in a week or two and we might have a second rut. I'm hoping this weekend goes better. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that has noticed oddities this year. Looks like 2020 is affecting everything!
 

Shockwave

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I thought it was a weird year as well. Saw some rut activity and some big bucks chasing. I also saw a lot of does by themselves and a lot of Bucks by themselves. As most stated, it seemed like the first weekend was the best as far as deer movement. Mornings and evenings we usually saw deer. We caught a few out during the day but it was rare. I will be coyote hunting on the 5th and I'm sure the rut will be hopping while chasing dogs around. Guess I can always bring the bow with.
 

duckman1302

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I noticed the same lack of pre-rut/rut activity in 3E1 but I just attributed it to lower deer numbers this year. After reading this, maybe there's more to the story.
 

Uncle Rico

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Thanks for the feedback so far....I'm OK with action being slower as that's just part of the game. It just seems like I have no better clue what's going on now than I did 10-14 days ago when I started wondering what was going on......that's the odd part to me.
 


5575

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Covid messed up my yearly Canadian deer hunt so i said hell with it. I drew an any buck tag in the western part of the state so I decided to keep my vacation days and hunt as much as possible despite the ehd outbreak.
I sat 14 1/2 days from dark till dark so I witnessed allot of cool stuff, there was hardly a dull moment actually rut activity all hours of the day.
Only had one mature whitetail on camera, couple pics on the night of oct 28th that was it. I decided it would be him or nothing, cool old buck that was a massive 4x4 the year before with big bladed brows.
This year he put on about 20 inches, brows were bigger than ever, was wide and heavy with trash.
Its funny when you watch a single large chunk of ground with several draws running into it from a high vantage point what you all see. How bucks both whiteys and muleys roam from one draw to the next nose to the ground.
And larger bucks doing whatever that hot doe is going to do, even if it means standing in the wide open for way to long!
I'd say the rut activity was about average. But the age class of the whitetails was terrible. For some reason ehd seems to do its worse damage on the mature deer.
And leaving fawns and muleys alone.
Never did pull the trigger but I did take hundreds of pictures and videos of all the shenanigans and that was allot of fun!
Still got my bow tag so maybe the big guy will show up sometime in the next couple weeks, if not he wins for sure!
Sure do hope the G&F cut the tags a bunch because right now our area is in serious trouble. 2/3 less whitetails around than last year easy.
Sucks.

20201124_153525.jpg

Couple videos I took.






 
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Buckmaster81

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Hopefully the lack of mid November activity transitions into an active late rut for Muzzleloader season!
 

Rut2much

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The rut was pretty crazy for a few different days throughout the season, witnessed a 6x6 sniff around back n forth like he was on cocaine. This was after he was just lying out in the middle of the canola stalks with his head on its side like he was dead, worn right out..
 


KDM

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Watched two HEAVYWEIGHTS battle it out over a doe last evening just off the end of my driveway, so I'd say the rut is still ongoing at this point. Two BIG 10 pointers and I mean BIG boys. These bucks were 5 and half years old or better and boy did the dirt fly. They were twice the size of the doe and looked like half grown steers out there. One was so dark in color that he looked black while the other was more tan. It's not very often you see two mature bucks so evenly matched that they end up head to head, but it was a marvelous thing to watch. The sheer POWER those bucks put against each other was awesome. Gave me chills a couple times to see the rippling muscles of their necks and shoulders as they tried to toss each other to the ground. The battle lasted longer than the daylight so I never got to see a victor. I did get about 10 minutes of natures best MMA action though. What a show!!!! Good Luck to those still looking for deer. There's a few good ones still running around out there.
 

5575

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Now that would have been awesome to film Kurt! I'm still looking for something 5.5+, hopefully with my bow!
Cool to have that show right at the place!:;:thumbsup
 

PrairieGhost

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I shot a mature buck with a bow the last day of gun season. The rut is tough on those guys. As I skinned him it revealed holes in his hind quarters, front quarters, neck, and back. He must have been in muktiple fights with about evenly matched bucks. It was all green around each hole. It also stunk terribly. I cut gdnerously around each hole and vacuum packed all but a piece of backstrap. I wrapped that on bacon and dropped it on the grill drooling in anticipation. Finally it was done and I sat down to enjoy. As retired educators grandpa and I describle it would gag a maggot. I tried some neck, and the same. Then I got a vacuum packed piece of backstrap from the freezer to thaw. Hmmmm why is that bag puffing up. Open and smell - oh thats decay gasses. Im screwed for venison I guess.
 

KDM

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Now that would have been awesome to film Kurt! I'm still looking for something 5.5+, hopefully with my bow!
Cool to have that show right at the place!:;:thumbsup

Knowing what caliber of buck you require, I have NO DOUBT you would have taken either one of these guys. They were WIDE from antler to ass. Both were impressive critters. Didn't even think of filming. It was the kind of thing you just sit there slack jawed and watch. Nature at it's finest!!!
 


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