So I’m hunting Whitetail deer in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I see a lot of elk up there, in fact I have been close to several bugling bulls throughout October. But this morning was different. A total elk rutfest! There were five or six bulls and a large group of cows and they were going nuts. I heard several hundred bugles, and one fight even. The cows were going nuts as well, they were talking like it was the middle of September. honestly I could hear them as soon as I got out of my ride in the dark, but when I got to the Treestand it just didn’t quit. I could see a few of them through the burn in a long another ridge and wanted to hike over and take pictures and maybe get some film but unfortunately the wind was not right for it. After an hour of this the herded slowly moved in was getting to a position where I had better wind and I climbed down and made a move. While I was doing that the herd somewhat split up, and I got to see a lot of the cows but I did not get to see any of the big bugling bulls. Sadly I did not get any pictures of video to substantiate any of this. They were still up and bugling in the sunshine, and this was all on public land that’s just two days ago had a 30 day rifle bull season end. Creaky
Anyhow the moral of this, besides the fact it is arguably the coolest morning of white tail deer hunting I’ve ever had in my life LOL, is asking if any of you have ever seen this kind of activity in November? I spend a LOT of time with elk and I’ve never seen anything like this. The deer should be rutting not the elk lol.