Here in Montgomery County where I hunt, I saw some minor chasing and I emphasize minor chasing the last week of the season. It is in my opinion that our rut was just kicking in around Feb 6th. I wish they would just back the opening of deer season up two weeks and shut down the season for season for a two week period over Christmas and just extend it on into February until the 24th. Getting multiple pics every day of mature bucks chasing doe right now.

Another thing I would like to see is that they stop allowing folks to shoot quail during deer season. They are only shooting tame cage birds anyway so why does it matter when they shoot them. It is not hunting so I refuse to refer to as such. We had multiple hunts screwed up this year as a result of our neighbors hunting quail and their damn dogs running across the property line. The neighbors even knew we had hunters in shooting houses adjacent to where they were shooting the tame birds and still allowed their dogs to cross over the property line by 200-300 yds.

The rut around here seemed to trickle from the week before Christmas till the end of season, mostly at night. First year I can remember not seeing a buck chase a doe even once. Alot of people around here reporting the same. It was a strange deer season, to say the least.

In Pike County, it seemed on our property the rut was winding down the last few days of the season and from what I've seen on camera since then, seems to be done with now. Doesn't mean there won't be a second one kick in sometime.

I am a little south of you and on my place it is generally at its peak for looking/chasing the last two weeks of January and is usually at its best around MLK day.When the new season started I moved the two week rut hunt up to the last of January and first of February and quickly noticed all the fun stuff was happening the first part of the trip and things got dead the second week.Went back to the last two weeks of January, which this year was spectacular.The last few years my buddy who is local and hunts to season end has seen very little after the 1st.Would not have any problem shutting down a good chunk of December because it is so terrible anyway around my place anyway. Christmas this year you would not think there was a deer on the entire place based on what was seen.

There were a few a chasing mid Jan here but major action was last week of season and week after that's when big boys got moving

Have nighthunter do a conception study. I bet many of you would be very surprised

What would that surprise tell us?

When your deer were actually bred vs the rut activity you’ve actually witnessed

Our deer in Wilcox, and Butler are at peak right now.

I get that, but you acted like you already knew what it would show us and prove us wrong or something, so was curious about what you thought the results would be.

Last year I saw one of my bigger deer nudging a doe through my turkey decoys opening weekend.

Im sorry but I disagree, my place is 5-7 miles from you and I've seen bucks chasing does since the 15th. Theyre still pushing does now, not all the does cycle at the same time as I'm sure you know. there are tons of deer in this area and the does will cycle until until they get bred which may take longer because the deer density is so high. I think the first phase of our rut is the 15-25th of Jan.

What you're seeing right now in Wilcox and Butler is the second group of does, late cycling yearlings and those that did not get bred back in January coming back into estrous. They were breeding does in Wilcox from the 15th through around the 25th or 26th. All dont come in at the same exact time but we saw bucks tending does with the peak being around the 21st. All this current activity is the bucks heating back up and trying hard to find those few does and yearlings that are late coming in or weren't bred the first time. I promise you that if you have a conception/fetal study done on your property, you'll have a bunch that will show as being bred between the 12th and 25th of Jan. Just because you didnt see it doesnt mean it wasnt happening.

While most places in Wilcox I would definitely agree with you on this, but we had very little activity throughout January monitored form the old and around 15 cameras. Even seeing bucks grouped together as late as Jan 28. We are the farthest southeast you can get into Wilcox also.

What you see happening during the day is nothing compared to what is going on at night. Thanks to some clover, a street light, and 15-20 half-tame does…..I was able to watch it all play out in my back yard this year and it really opened my eyes as to when the rut occurs around me. I was also very humbled by what I saw in my backyard at night versus what I could get in my scope during the day. This is what I saw in Macon Co

The bucks started cruising and setting up on doe concentrations approx. Jan 8-18…This is what I’d call the pre-rut….The first stray doe started really getting chased around Jan 19-20…..The peak of chasing activity was Jan 25-28…..Things were going nuts for those few days. There was a lull in action the last few days of the month…Jan 29-31….This is what I’d call the lockdown phase when most bucks are tending a doe. Feb 1-7 saw bucks on the move again. The big boys were moving more as well until they found a doe to tend. This was the tail end of does going into estrous and there was more competition for the few remaining ones. The last time I saw a doe being tended was on Feb 8….after the 10th things kinda just went dead. That’s a brief summary of what I saw. From what I could tell most does were bred between approx. Jan 22 and Feb 8 with the biggest percentage of them probably being bred Jan 28– Feb 1……

I think the rut varies a lot from county to county and even within a county.
And warm weather will make it look like it is either all over or non existent. Whereas it just makes it happen even more at night.
Such as the first week of February when it was in the 70s and even 80.

And the rut itself is kind of a lukewarm rut. I call it a stealth rut.
Because I have never seen a hard wide open rut.
And I think that it mostly happens at night, especially with mature bucks.

Chasing - it is rare for me to see a mature buck actually chase after a doe.
And it seems that it is basically 1s and 2s that do chasing and dogging.
Usually unsuccessfully.

It seems to me that 4, 5 6 year old bucks do 98% of their cruising for does at night.
With most of them it is all done at night.

What I see is that these older bucks do not even have to chase.
They just cruise calmly and with authority.
They just show up slowly walking to check a scrape or doe bedding area or a doe feeding area or a hot trail.
And just by show of authority get a doe to submit.

And you just have to be lucky to be in the right spot when he actually does that in daylight.

Agree with ALL of this.

More competition for less does now, plus less pressure on them. Of course you're going to see more actual rutting activity.

Our first phase "peak" rut in north Baldwin County was around the 24-25th of January.

I'm not interested in the spikes and 2 year old bucks. They are just like teenagers, they will chase anything with legs and hole. I am referring to the mature 5-7 old bucks. I saw two mature bucks shadowing does the last weekend of the season and since setting out 14 cameras on Feb 12th, I have noticed a huge increase in buck activity. Granted some of it is due to no pressure, but the bigger more mature bucks are pushing does right now. We killed bucks the last two weeks of the season that were over 200lbs and if they were winding down the rut at this time, there is no way they would still be carrying that type of weight, unless they are just lounging around in the woods and letting all the does come to them for servicing, which aint happening. Well aware of the doe cycle times as we have seen bucks still chasing doe during turkey season with fresh scraping still going on. I got a pic the other night of a buck that would have easily been 215lbs two weeks ago and the new pic, he would be lucky to hit 180.

It’s weird you said that I was hunting in Macon county on January 31st with 2 other guys. I was sitting a hardwood bottom along a creek bend, another guy was on a road between a pine thicket and hardwoods, and the other guy was on a greenfield. We saw 16 does between the 3 of us and not one buck. But on February 2nd one of those guys killed a big mature 6 point that seemed to be just cruising. We had assumed the rut hadn’t really started yet and was just beginning to pick up. We did have a guy kill a nice 5 point on January 21st that he said cane in behind some does but didn’t appear to be chasing them.

This right here is exactly what Im seeing.