Greetings, I will be hunting in Henry County in the area of Hwy 93, near Abbeville. Was just curious about the timing of the rut, and if it will be in general like the rut map predicts in January. We hunted last year in the same area and didn’t see much of a rut at all. Any local knowledge of the area would be appreciated.
I hunt the Henry/Barbour line within 30 miles or so of you. There are several different rut phases in this area but I've hunted this area for over 15 years and the rut for us is always the best from about Jan 22-28. We still have plenty of rut activity after those dates but that seems to be our prime. Of course the cooler the temp is the more daylight activity you'll see. We run around 15 cameras and our cameras also show the mature bucks begin showing up around Jan 18th in daylight but peak somewhere around the 24th/25th depending on temp. Below I listed the last two seasons of harvest we've had.
1/21/2020 - four year old eight point (killed at 7:30AM checking scrapes)
1/25/2020 - five year old ten point (killed at 4:30PM cruising a swamp creek)
12/19/2020 (temp was below freezing, not rut) - five to six year old 9 point (Killed at 8AM)
12/25/2020 - Five/six year old 9 point (Shot at 8AM - not rut) - CNC helped me recover him, found him at lunch
1/18/2021 - Five year old 8 point (killed at 8:30AM - searching for does on scrape line) I have a video on my youtube channel of this one
2/6/2021 - Four/five year old main frame 8 point with stickers (killed at 7:30AM) I have a video on my youtube of this one too