In my 8 years of hunting Alabama, I've noticed that extreme cold affects deer movement more than anything else. In my home state of Kentucky, it generally gets the deer up and moving to find food, but in Alabama, they seem to completely shut down. That would be my guess as to the lack of observed rut activity last year, just too cold.

My good friend, Jughead, has a pretty good theory as it relates to this as well. When the ground is frozen solid, as it was much of January last year, daylight deer movement is non existent unless the ground thaws, or it at least seems to be. Maybe the majority of the daylight movement occurred on south facing hill/mountain sides where the sun thawed those areas out around noon?

we work together and he lets me hunt with him and carry all his big arse turkey's out when I can