What confuses me is seeing mating ritual behavior (chasing, sparring) from young bucks, but not from mature bucks around this time of year. I assume the real rut is centered on mature bucks altering their behavior for the sake of mating. Nonetheless, young bucks chasing does sets off the timing of the whole thing, I think. Anyway, I know we are getting close when I hear of bucks running into public places causing mild havoc such as this:

http://www.nbc4.com/news/5182697/detail.html

This happens every year around here. The young guns just throw caution to the wind and lose all sense of prudence. A friend of mine and I were talking about it after our hunt a couple weeks ago and concluded that the big hammers never really return to that level of boldness. They smartened up and really never show there face during daytime, or very little even during the seeking phase. I know that is probably most likely due to what area they inhabit. Safe havens such as suburbia America for example has huge bucks roaming at will through backyards never to be hunted. On the other hand, a mature buck who resides on land that gets a lot of hunting pressure may not be so disillusioned.