From what I've seen and heard afield, I'd say this week is late pre-rut/early rut. Some does to the extreme, old and young, are starting, from what I've seen, and there's a bit of chase going on, but on the whole, not much really. I'd say start rattling, not very aggressively yet though, and wait until next week to start grunting. Easy rattling now might not bring any in, but it should if nothing esle kind of inure the deer to the imperfections in your rattle, that way when it really counts, they don't stop to think about the off sound of it. And by keeping your "fighting" kind of light, they'll be more curious at this stage, and come to investigate. THey might not be so drawn to fight right now, I haven't witnessed any hard hitting yet, some minor scuffles and some light sparring, but nothing noteable yet.

BTW, where ya at in KS, I've done most of my scouting in central 6, but have done a lot of scouting and almost all of my hunting up in middle to north 8 and a little scouting in mid 9. Seems like the trend is around 4 days faster up north, but that's a very isolated herd (from hunting and towns, people in general), while it seems to be slower the closer I get to FT. Riley.

Screw the 10 ring, keep them in the zero!!!