I looked back at my pictures over the last 5yrs or so of when we killed our biggest bucks. I hunt both private land inside Bankhead and some Government land. My daughter shot her 8pt chasing does on Nov.15th on a youth hunt, and another 8 a couple yrs later on the same week. I have killed 3 good deer in the last 3 years. 2 were shot from Nov.20-27. The outlier was a buck following a doe Dec.20 but that was on a property south of 278 at Natural Bridge. Weird thing is that same property is where she killed on Nov 15th chasing. ;
These areas where bubbles meet and intermingle are not 100% lines in the sand for doe herds. There’s buffer zones of a mile or so width (give or take depending on the scenario) around the perimeter of each bubble where you’re more likely to see some stray spill over mixing in if one bubble is trying to expand. There's the possibility for a lot of different scenarios to play out over time depending on how management changes. The further you get away from that edge though the more uniform its likely to become…..especially if you have a high density interior…. There may be a good deal of interplay between bubbles or there may be virtually none just depending on the doe management at play within each and whether or not herds are “burgeoning” outward.
That’s why even though my main rut in always Jan. 19 – Feb 6……….every few years I see a stray hot doe around Jan 7-9…..That doe was most likely from one of the other South Alabama stocking source that exists to the north. If you look back at the original stockings you had some does that came from Sumter and some does that came from Clarke I believe it was……The early Jan does are the doe lines that came from the Sumter releases and the late Jan are the does from the Clarke Co line……The Clarke Co line dominates my bubble pretty dang uniformly because that’s was what was released on the big dog interior property owners and they’ve been reproducing that line at a pretty good clip…..
I say all that to explain where you’re stray Nov doe likely came from.
