Rutting action has kicked up another notch in most areas, but most movements are still largely concentrated to the first and last hours of daylight.
Around my home in central Wisconsin, food sources are active with deer starting about an hour and a half before dark. I haven’t seen any bucks older than 1 1/2 years old, and those youngsters aren’t pushing any of the mature does around. My cameras are picking up some nighttime scraping activity. Hunters in other parts of Wisconsin are reporting chasing and increased buck activity, and the Wisconsin Rut Report Facebook page has shown a boost in harvest this week. Minnesota and Wisconsin bucks should be moving all day within one week.
Out in Nebraska’s legendary Sandhills, Scott Kuhn of Deer Meadows Outfitters explains that bucks are reaching boiling points. “The mature whitetail bucks are now covering some ground looking for that first hot doe,” Kuhn says. “Necks are swelling and posturing is going on. With the temps falling overnight, the rut is right around the corner. It’s almost that magical time of year.”
Ohio’s Bryan Dawes of Brushy Fork Outfitters reports that warm temps recently fell to a cold front, with new daytime highs in the 50s to low 60s. “Deer activity spiked incredibly following the cold front,” he says. “Some clients saw 20 to 40 or more deer per sit in some areas. The buck activity is really starting to pick up—lots of 2 1/2- and 3 1/2-year-old deer are on their feet chasing does. A couple of guys even noticed some full-on chasing with potentially receptive does in a couple of stand locations.
“I’m not a huge fan of baiting with corn at my operation, and we have targeted food plots and a bumper mast crop of acorns for the evening hunts,” he continues. “That has been extremely productive. The sign is getting pretty heavy, and scrapes are opened up each morning as we access the woods. In my opinion, after 16 years of doing this commercially, things seem to be progressing a week or so earlier than normal. With cold temps ahead in the forecast for next week, I think it’s going to be pretty awesome hunting.”
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Ben Matykiewicz, North Dakota’s big game management biologist, says that the action is heating up. “The bucks are scraping, rubbing, and sparring,” he says. “Unfortunately, according to my trail cameras and those that a friend has out, the mature bucks are still pretty nocturnal. I’ve hunted a few evenings recently, and the earliest I’ve seen a nice buck come out was a few minutes before the end of legal shooting light. I’ve heard similar reports from other hunters. Folks are seeing scraping and sparring on their trail cameras, but it’s primarily in the dark. Within a week, I expect to see a little more activity.”
Daylight activity with mature bucks also seems to be slow in northern Missouri, according to resident Kate Sanford. She and her husband, Shawn, saw some fresh scrapes while hunting on Friday, Oct. 25. “Those scrapes were new,” she says. “The bucks now seem to be breaking up from their bachelor groups and traveling alone. I only saw a few does while hunting, and Shawn saw a small six-pointer.”
Meanwhile, Randy Birdsong recently arrowed the buck of his lifetime down in Kansas. The 190-class deer was captured on a trail camera (on private land) entering a bedding area late in the morning along a creek bottom. “It was an area that he had not been in all year,” Birdsong says. “We moved in early that afternoon and hung a stand. He ended up moving within shooting range with only a few minutes of camera light left.” Birdsong’s hunt proves that getting in tight to a bedding area can be the key to a daylight encounter until the bucks really begin running in the midday hours.
Birdsong’s buck has also fueled my jets for my Kansas hunt, which I’ll be in the first quarter of when this report posts. Two unbelievably hot days in the high 80s will give way to more seasonable daytime temps in the 60s, and I expect Oct. 30 through the first week of November to be dynamite for Kansas hunters. I’ll be hunting near bedding areas and rattling, and if I don’t have any luck, I’ll break loose and hunt actively on foot.
Try rattling near bedding areas, and as Nov. 1 nears, sit in terrain funnels that connect doe bedding areas. Put in some midday hours, because any day you could catch a midday cruiser looking for does.