OK,
Wednesday night my father saw a 10+ point mature buck just north of where I hunt on his farm. (See attached picture) (Picture is roughly 3/4mile x 3/4mile)


If the picture is not present please go here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/familykeiser/detail?.dir=/4339&.dnm=181f.jpg

The buck was sighted crossing the road just under a 1/2 mile north of the woods I hunt. The woods is around 15-20 acres, surrounded mostly by farm fields but on the north side you will see where they totally reworked the ground for a flood control program that myfather and the neighbor have joined. Prior to that earthwork that area was tall grasses that was a great beding area.

OK back to my question if that mature buck crossed the road where it did (See picture) would it be the same buck marking up my woods?

I saw a buck two years ago that was this caliber in that woods(of course out of range even with my shotgun) did not see him last year. But would he travel that 1/2 mile often?

Also west of this 1/2-3/4 miles some public hunting area owned by the state that hold many deer, would they get pushed that far?

Your feedback and questions are desired.

Most likely he could be marking up your woods. How big of trees is he rubbing on? Usually the big boys are marking up some pretty big trees. On your question about how much they move, it depends on what type of year. During Sep and October they stay in their core area unlessed pushed out. But during the rut they will travel a long ways and leave thier core area until winter. Last year a guy in our hunting party tood video of a huge unmistakable 8 pointer that scored about 165. Two days later my dad shot him and that was about 2 1/2 miles away from where we video taped him.

It is very possible, 3/4 of a mile is nothing to a mature buck, most will travel much farther than that. It is also possible, that there could be more than one mature buck in the area you describe. There may be more than one buck making sign in your hunting area, but it is likely he is the one or one of the deer making sign in your area. A couple years ago, I had game cams on different farms about a mile or a little more apart, and managed to get pictures of the same buck on a regular basis on both pieces of property, and sometimes on the same night, so he had to travel a little over a mile to get in front of both cams but he did. I also have video of 4 bucks in the summer in velvet and later in the year got game cam pics of two of these bucks two miles away, and even managed to tag on of them almost two miles form where I videoed them. They will travel.