Deer activity-What you seeing?-Rut sign?
Minnesota
I have hunted the past few weekends and have seen the buck sign increase. Bucks have been traveling more during daytime hours, (trail cams and witnessed) and is getting me pumped to get back out there. Scrapes and Rubs were popping up in places, but still light. I am hunting the 28th-1st, have always had good success around Halloween. What have you all seen out there?
Have been seeing a lot of sparring and fighting on my cameras. BTW, you need to shoot that buck. Very nice. I'm taking the first week in Nov off to hunt, before the orange army descends upon the woods.
Me too MNRazorhead. Hope things are hopping the next couple weeks.
Yeah he is a dandy, been pretty elusive, hoping with next week being close to the start of the rut he will be on his feet a lot.
This guy made a couple scrapes in Harris
Lots of smaller bucks running during daylight with a few bigger bucks starting to show up as well Chisago County area.
hardly any posts on here....what's going on guys? I also follow the Wisconsin regional as I hunt there as well, and the site has a live hunt update, which is cool you can see what's happening in the field if you're stuck at work like me. Would love to hear what you are seeing for rut activity...especially in the South/ SE part of the state. Rubs, scrapes, chasing??? Let's talk!
scrapes and rubs showing up all over with some bigger bucks showing up in daylight hours
SE part of state lots of daytime movement they are cruising hard,hearing grunting and they are coming in to rattling. The does are avoiding the bucks or trying to lock down soon!!
No guts - didn't have the same action where I was Whitewater area. Did find scrapes and a few rubs here and there. Grunted, rattled and nothing. Bumped 2 does on the walk in. Warm 55F, figured they weren't going to move. Good luck all
Scrapes are being hit and have been for a while in SW Minnesota but no day buck pics necks are swelling This pic caption should be does this pic make my neck look big
This is my biggest buck on cam this year
I have gotten three set of fight pics
Thursday Friday and Saturday, were great only seen one buck yesterday, this morning is slow so far.
Saw a yearling buck this morning. Saw a nice shooter on the hoof chasing a yearling doe on Friday. Wouldn't stop to give me a shot!
My friend's cousin's neighbor's brother's buddy heard that someone actually saw a deer in Northeastern MN!
The woods are really quiet with very little sign.
Dan, with all the wolves around here it's surprising there are any deer left. Hear them almost every night between your house and mine. Friend of mine saw a mountain lion by his house a few days ago. Will make for an interesting walk to the deer stand in the dark on Saturday!! Had a great trip with JHA this year by the way. Rory
Shot this guy chasing a doe on Monday night out in SD. Had a larger buck at about 40 yards 20 minutes before.
Out of 6 rifle hunters, I saw a doe Saturday morning and another guy saw 1 doe each Saturday and Sunday.
The wolves were howling, I think they are starving.
CPA, I have a friend who hunts up by Ely and the last couple years were just like that. He hasn't gone up yet, but I don't think it is going to be any better.
It's funny, you go back 50-60 years and north/northeast was where the deer concentration was highest. Now it is the lowest. We didn't even have a deer season in SW MN until the late 60's.
Nice buck, Andy!
We hunt in/near the BWCA and have one other hunting party within a mile of us. They got 2 decent bucks (9 & 10 pts) this year after getting nothing the last 2. I had a camera up this last year and it looks better than the last 2 with deer (including an albino doe), moose, bear and wolves. The variety and lack of other hunters is the main reason we enjoy hunting up there so much.
We skipped the first weekend (after 2 weeks in MT) but plan to hunt most of the next 9-10 days up there. Will report how it looks.
Pic of albino (well, at least her head).
The does/yearlings are diffidently increase from last yr around the Red Lake area, one more mild winter it should be good next yr. We brought out a nice 7pter on the gun hunt, but if we had anterless tags we would have been done the first day. Last yr we had wolves around us,which got the bucks moving, need to bring back the wolf tag or we will be seeing a low herd just like the moose.
2.5 days up near Canada and the total so far is 3 ungulates. Unfortunately, they were all moose. Conditions were crunchy which makes my type of hunting (mostly still hunting) tricky. Heading back up for the last 4 days of the season. Grouse were plentiful.
There were plenty of fresh deer tracks so I think they have come back well from the 2 bad winters.
One deer can make a lot of tracks;)
Well, it rained for 3 days up there, then got to 10F each night. It sounds like I was walking on a big bowl of rice crispies. A stand hunter would have a better time of it.
Summary: No deer seen in 6 days (lots of tracks made by a deer with 4 different size hooves). Wolf tracks on a couple of the days but we never heard a peep out of them. Some of the tracks were within 200 yards of our tent so we should have been able to hear them. Maybe they have the same issues when the ground is crunchy? Ended up seeing 5 moose and finding fresh tracks from 2 other groups. Lots of ruffed and spruce grouse, got to watch a pine marten work his way by me and a camera shy Great Gray Owl.
Went up for the first 2 days of muzzleloader season and found out where the deer are hanging out. There were 4 new clearcuts in my general area and that has pulled the does/fawns into new areas. The areas should be deer hangouts for 4-5 years until the cuts grow up and the food gets too sparse.
I know that I should learn this once and for all, but it is very important in the big woods to scout every year. Because of time constraints, I have only been up there during the season the last 4-5 years and my good areas have grown and the deer move to new food. It is quite dramatic (the deer movement), but fortunately, it is all public land so I can hike a little more and get back into the deer.
Moose have been plentiful this year. Not sure if this is just my luck or if the 2 rotten winters previous will favor the moose over the deer?
Grouse have also been everywhere and will still be there because I only had the rifle/muzzleloader for most of my sightings.
