My tracking calls having just completely shut off here lately......I think to some degree baiting is playing a role to make what is normally a slow time even slower.....Bow season and gun season started with a flurry which I figure is all the bucks that are coming to feed getting whacked.....Once you've thinned out the dumb and unexpecting then it'll probably be rut before the other bucks show themselves

The past couple nights weve been getting pics of a pile of bucks. Only been getting regular pics of three we would shoot. Last couple nights added three more and the first three are still there. No telling what a couple more weeks will bring. The only problem is they are almost all at night. Might see a few deer right before legal light is gone. We need some cold weather bad. Not supposed to be cold for the next two weeks atleast. That kinda sucks. Maybe itll turn off cold here soon.

Left u a pm Bwhuntr

And to what JWalker is saying above about weather - it hot as crap - hate going in 60-70 degree weather

Last 2 years we had several hard freezes - don’t think we been to 31-32 yet where I at - heck - last year we even had 3-4 days straight of below 35 at diff times - that will get em moving

Do you have enough thick nasty bedding cover to keep them around?

They don't appreciate nothing.

Nope i hate em more every year...I thought after 30 years of hunting em I'd slack up but it just hasn't happened yet

Thanks guys, My kids got me some more cameras for Christmas and we put them near some really thick cover a few hundred yards from where the feeder is and we got 2 of them. I moved the camera off of the feeder and back into the woods and got another one of them that was coming to the area but was staying clear of the feeder. Seems they are staying in the thick bottoms till late at night., but this cool weather has helped a ton. We have seen a few smaller bucks starting to nose around with the rut just getting started where we are at so only time will tell. Thanks again fellas for the comments , helps me think about different things to do and try.

Our place in Mississippi is just like yours - 125 acres and we typically feed deer year round. We have several clover food plots and have feeders in the plot and two others out in the woods. We used to get lots of buck traffic, but the past couple years we get 95% does and a few small bucks. I moved two of my cameras away from the feeder about 50 yards and BAM - there were the bucks. The big mature bucks simply do not like the feeders. I don't know if the bucks do not like an easy meal or if the does are such bitches that they chase off the bucks. Does are mean!

THIS

2 Quick cases:


1) I hunt 800+ contiguous acres with very little pressure. Have seen one of "our" bucks a couple different times over 1 1/4 miles from the time I previously saw him.

2) Friend of mine killed a super stud last month over a 1 1/2 miles from where a friend of his had pics of him on a different farm. Both places are well over 1,500 acres each with, again, very little pressure.


Home range in the spring and summer has a true definition. As the acorns drop, pressure increases, vacuum increases, testosterone increases, etcetera; that home range seems to have no definition. 126 acres is extremely tough to control within any category. 800 is hard enough!

I agree buddy I got a 104 acres and plant corn and run feeders too and it's impossible once all the things you mentioned above, they gone

I don’t look at a mile as being any kind of real distance for a buck anymore. I've jump wounded bucks before that ran a mile and disappeared into the property's "lake" before you could turn around and blink twice…..I mean no more than a minute or two and they’ve gone a mile…. Sure on a normal daily routine outside of the rut they probably stay tighter but they can cover some ground in a hurry when they start traveling. A 2 or 3 mile loop would be nothing for one in a nights time.

They just naturally wander. I know of one buck that guy had on camera all summer and fall on a private farm that was killed 10 miles away on public chasing a doe. A mile ain't nothing to a buck. I think all the db's dumping corn can pull them away too.

So unless they are already wandering how do they find the db’s corn piles?