It was just happenstance. Military base I primarily hunt on held their final gun hunt on Jan 11. Two friends and I decided to go to Barbour WMA for really no other reason that it was the most reputable WMA that was having a hunt. Didn't matter if the deer there were rutting or not, they just happened to be. The deer I killed and the deer I missed were both chasing does, very aggressively I might add. But actually, doesn't that really help my argument?...that's a LONG way south in Alabama, and those deer were absolutely nilly-willy chasing does like there was no tomorrow in the middle of January. TEven moreso, I talked to several folks who said they had been camped out bowhunting for several days prior to that gun hunt, and they had seen hard chasing all week.