Some thoughts on the rut

[Bowguy67]

I’ve had some thoughts for quite a while. It may be because we’re not as balanced herd wise as some places but this may be food for thought for some folks.
As the rut approaches we often get amped up for what’s to come thinking about bucks chasing does all over.
Myself, I’m not completely enamored with the prospect. I prefer the walking phase of the pre rut.
For anyone who may not understand this is when bucks cruise areas looking for does. (Pre rut) Their heads are down smelling the ground, and their most susceptible it seems to calls and the right scents. You can tell when this begins in my area as bucks are dead all over the roads from cars hitting them.
I have a theory bout this. So back to the buck to doe ratio being off. Bucks really don’t care about does. It’s only does in heat that interest them. They smell ready before they actually are and it’s this pre rut that make does in heat/does coming into heat and buck ratios much better making competition higher. This can be used to our advantage.
Another note and I don’t know if anyone else has witnessed this in their areas. Back here in NJ, NY where I hunt bucks tend to rub much more intensely in years of heavy mast drop. This year most to almost all white oak groups are barren. The blacks oaks are decent but overall there’s much less mast to go around. This is in non farm areas primarily. Some farm areas too. My thoughts were it’s food related but even where other food is available (such as farms) this seems consistent. Any ideas??

[pavan]

I have not seen a rub, a scrape yet this year, although I have passed on two smaller bucks. Since, I am a ground only hunter, I should just shoot something that would be good to eat, no doe tags here.  Wind, weather and hunter over crowding has made hunting very difficult for us this year, this maybe is not a year to be picky.

[Overspined]

In MI there are scrapes and rubs everywhere every year. Lower numbers of mature deer. Lots of em though. When I hunt IN or IL, far fewer rubs and scrapes, still a lot of deer, but far more big deer. Idk if there’s a reason for this, but that’s what I observe. Tons of food deer never starve where I hunt.

[SlowBowKing]

Ever since I first started bowhunting, I’ve preferred the pre-rut. The last week of October and first week of November is prime time here in Kentucky, in my opinion.

[Silent footed]

I can comment on the rub/mast crop correlation:

Do you always hunt underneath a beech/oak canopy? This explains your observation.

On years with low mast crop, the deer are spending their time staging and feeding in other areas (most likely a lower elevation below the late-frost line for eastern mountain hunters). There are the same number of rubs as usual, they are just showing up somewhere else, or are more scattered if it's a particularly hard year for feeding.


However, nothing collects rubs like staging areas and travel corridors near a prime source. So on years of high mast production, you are going to find some intense rubs nearby because this concentrates deer activity. Those staging areas and travel corridors are going to be shredded to pieces.

You're absolutely right about the buck to doe ratio being effectively altered during pre-rut/late pre-rut though. Wow. Never really thought about that.