Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Buck behavior long term

I've heard several folks claim that a buck will return to the same areas year after year. Do any of you have evidence or insight that would verify this? Camera data, visual sightings, other?

Thanks!
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Yes it is a very true thing. On our property we historically summer a ton of bucks and have a decent number that stay on us. They disperse and return. I also know that they will rut in in different place than they winter on occasion. Im hunting a deer right now that doesn't summer or winter on us. Every year he shows up pre rut and stays for 15-20 days. I have maybe 50 pictures of him in the same place for the last 4 years within a day. Now Ill be the first to admit my deer are not pressured and I monitor cameras like crazy. We killed a deer on one of our farms that scored 177 and he was very habitual year after year. He did the same thing constantly it only took 3 hunts to kill him because of the pattern we put together on cameras over the course of 3 years you could predict almost to the day what he would do.

To a certain extent its true. I've been running a bunch of cams on 5k acres now for close to 15 years. One thing that I can tell up for sure,is that each buck is unique. A study MSU deer lab recently put out goes on to categorize bucks and label them; some bucks stick to a home range and patterns year after year,whereas others(nomads/travelers) are very hard to predict. There was also a category that consisted of a little of both. In my experience,bucks in general have summer ranges,but those are history when the velvet sheds off. Once they're hard horned,I've had bucks use the same thousand acres for 2 years in a row,then find out they shifted the following year. Each buck has their own personality. Theres no set blueprint for a buck

Good answer.
Some will some will not. I have several examples of bucks staying in the same small area for several years.

Got one I’ve been after since we got this place. He’s been in camera for the past 4 years here.

wish I had better input here but usually if i have apic of a buck some other lucky duck kills them.lol

Good info, keep it coming! Thanks folks

I think a lot of it revolves around dominance and subordinance and a constantly evolving game of King of the Hill

Not trying to hijack the thread but how much does food and doe population play into all this?

On our big lease we have bucks with core areas of 100 acres and bucks that show up a couple times a month. One of the roaming bucks makes a big loop according to mine and neighbors cameras. He might be on my Southern camera for 3-4 days then their northern camera for the same period. That’s roughly 2 miles apart. Some of our bucks only stay on the southern section of our property (350 acres) and we get pics daily. Each buck has their own personality so to speak and the ones that hang close are much easier to kill lol. The ones with small ranges have grown up in those small ranges.

Bucks ?I use cc to pay for stuff

I think doe concentrations dictate most movement around the rut.....I think young bucks just get in where they fit in their first year or two and then return back to those spots as older bucks.....of course this is just generally speaking.....Whether they continue to stay and for how long during the rut depends on how the dominance shakes out.....and that will change over time. I've seen a number of the same bucks over the years that I knew showed up here for the rut for multiple years in a row

I have a lot of bucks that will leave and go chasing but when they are done if they make it they always come back home

I have gotten away from running cameras now. but when I did, I would have the same bucks showing up on camera daily. Then I would have a few pics of a new buck then gone, never to be seen again. I think I killed one buck that was on camera. The ones I killed I never knew they were there until I shot them. Were they always there but avoid the cameras, or did they come from miles away? So who knows, seems they all do different things. As far as year to year, it seems there is a new crop every year.


When running dogs, If I jump a good buck that does not get killed, I will go back the next day to the same spot, often able to keep running the same deer until we get him. But that does not always work, sometimes you jump one and come back to the same spot to find nothing. Again, they all do different things.

At the risk of derailing my own thread ...

This is my 8th season deer hunting and I've seen a lot of things that have helped me form my own theories about buck behavior without the use of cameras. I don't like cameras because I see so many folks repeatedly polluting the areas they are scouting by going in over and over checking the cameras. Most of these folks don't kill a lot of deer ...

All of this discussion helps a lot and I appreciate all of you chiming in with your own experiences. But a big takeaway for me in this discussion is that I am going to have to change my attitude about cameras and learn to take advantage of them so that I can see firsthand the things you guys are discussing. I will have to come up with a good long term plan for using them without overly disturbing the areas I’m scouting. It's a shame that the areas I hunt don't have cell service and I can't take advantage of the cams that send pictures to my cell phone.

So, to continue the discussion let me pose this question … Let’s say you are out scouting and jump a good buck. After he runs off, you scout the area and find it tore up with a long line of rubs, scrapes, poop, and obvious bedding areas (presumably from the does he’s tending). Given that you have scared him off and have thoroughly polluted his trail, wouldn’t it be a good idea to put cameras out in the area, leave them for an extended time, then collect the pictures and study them in preparation for the next season? Note how I am alluding to my first question about bucks returning to the same areas each season …

Thoughts?

If that happens I am sitting right where I jumped the deer, or in the direction it ran, and waiting on it to come back. If they have set up camp like in the scenario above, he will be back. Countless times, after jumping them with dogs I see them coming back in on the same trail they left on, smelling there way back.

Yes

Every deer is different. They have different personalities just like us. If anyone thinks they’ve got a deer figured out they are wrong. Sure you can get a fairly good pattern but usually as soon as you do they change the game again.

I think of deer as having more trends/tendencies than patterns.

We tracked a buck with cameras and visual sightings 5 years. He was 3 when we first took note of him. He lived in a small area, I’d say 250-300 acres. It had everything he needed including security.

I get the same deer in the same areas every year. They may leave during rut but they will be back. An when they get really old their core area will start getting smaller typically

We have one good buck that returns to the feeder Feb 11 thru Nov 19 each year. No idea where he is Nov 20-Feb 10, but for 3 years we have not seen him on the hoof.