Every year, right around turkey opener, I get the same question: "I'm seeing bucks chasing does, fresh rubs and scrapes, and bucks fighting. Is the rut still going on in my area?"

First, a small percentage of does cannot conceive. They still enter estrus, and are bred, but they do not conceive. These does may continue to cycle into estrus every 28-30 days, 4 or 5 times following the first, primary estrus. Each time they enter estrus, bucks are all over them, as often, by that time, they are the only hot doe in the area. The rut in my area is early to mid-November, yet I've seen a group of bucks chasing a single estrus doe in every month of the winter, and even into the spring.

On the other hand, a sudden surge in buck rutting activity in late March or early April is usually what Dr. D mentioned--the surge of testosterone a buck's body produces just prior to antlergenesis--the new antler growth process. This usually occurs at this time of year. Some years, I'll leave my cameras running over traditional scrapes until late spring, and it's amazing to see the sudden interest in scrapes in April that had been ignored since December. And bucks don't just start visiting them again. They often go through the full scrape sequence.