It’s hard to believe that I’m already writing this Rut Report farewell. Once again, the time we prepare for all year is finished. Of course, some of us still have late-season hunting on the docket, but the action from now through the end of the season will likely be very laid-back. With that in mind, it’s a good time to review and make some notes about this past rut.

This year, things seemed to be all over the board more than normal, and that’s true of the entire season. In South Dakota during mid-October, Ben Bearshield of Winchester Deadly Passion said that he saw no natural scrapes popping up. Meanwhile, my friend Gary Hintz noted substantial scraping activity in Illinois, with new bucks beginning to appear on his cameras monitoring scrapes.

Most unusual this year is that the first period of lockdown hit early in Wisconsin and in other parts of the Midwest. From what I’ve seen in the past, lockdown strikes about Nov. 10 to 11 and lasts a week to 10 days. This year, I watched a mature buck chase a doe Oct. 23 and then disappear until Nov. 2. Other buck activity shut down completely for me during that window, too. That big buck disappeared again from Nov. 3 until Nov. 9. Other hunters, including a whitetail expert I’ve followed and respected for decades, also reported heavy lockdown toward the end of October and certainly the first week of November.

I did a ton of rattling and grunting in likely spots during October’s final days and into November, and I didn’t get a hit. Other hunters reported calling to bucks during that window and having their calling ignored, but some hunters had excellent results with calling. It’s a reminder that a buck (especially a mature one) has to be in the right frame of mind to be susceptible.

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Although the rut happens rain or shine, cold snaps seemed to directly affect hunters’ observations this year, negatively and positively. I typically saw more daylight activity anytime a temp drop was coming, but Joel Burham of Whitetail Fit noticed a lack of deer movement during November when the temps plummeted during his Iowa hunt.

Some hunters I spoke with never observed “the chase,” which is unfortunate, because it’s one of the most exciting rut behaviors to witness. An outfitter who operates in Iowa and Missouri said it was the slowest and worst first week of November he can recall. It was fairly warm that week, so it’s possible that most chasing unfolded in the dark, but that’s speculative.

Per usual, some of the season’s largest bucks seemed to hit my social newsfeeds after Nov. 18, which is the time when most of the breeding has been completed, and bucks are out roving for remaining unbred hot does. Josh Gawrysiak of Wisconsin was in Kansas around that time and said things were absolutely rocking, but when I checked in with him two days before Wisconsin’s gun opener, he said he believed the primary rut was done, as his cameras became void of big-buck captures. Other hunters saw some rutting activity during the Wisconsin gun season, but it seemed to be fairly localized.

As I tie a bow on this, I want to note that one of the most important things as a deer hunter is to avoid believing in absolutes. Just when you think something is a certain way, deer will give you a good schooling. It’s wise to be open-minded, flexible and able to pivot.

That’s all for now. We’ll see you back here next October. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year’s, and good luck to all of you trying to fill those late-season tags.