njbuck22

Jeff, a doe will eventually push their button bucks away, out of the does home range. Its natures way of preventing interbreeding. That being said, unless the mother is shot or killed in another manner before she kicks out the button, the button will have to travel and find another area to call home. This might be close by, or it could be miles away depending on the habitat.

My take on deer densities would be similiar to Mobow's. I feel that in areas such as mine ( Jeff, our areas seem very similiar, lots of deer with an out of balance buck to doe ratio) bucks just dont need to travel much to find their girls. Due to the out of balance, rattleing hardly ever works for me. I can get a buck to look in my direction when i hit the horns, but thats about it. Grunting also only turns a buck every so often. I have so many does in my area that a buck doesnt have to move much at all to find one. Bucks here often have very small "home" ranges. Due to this overabundance of deer, i have to either get lucky on a specific buck in the early season on feeding patterns ( these patterns arent constant cause im hunting backyard bucks) or hope that a hot doe will bring him by me during the daylight hours of the rut. Mature bucks here hardly move during the day ( where i hunt atleast) cause there is no need for them too. I feel that the large deer density hurts my ability to see more mature animals during the day. Thats a major reason i try to take out a large number of does each season.