I was hunting this afternoon and a few does came in. While I was preparing for a shot, they took a different route and into a thicket. I figured I would givethe grunt call a chance. I blew it twice real softly and the old doe perked her head up. She quickly walked away, so I bleated and all hell broke loose.

I saw the 2 does jump up from the middle of the thick stuff and in a full sprint come a 130 8 pointer. This buck puts on a show for the next 5 minutes or so. He is literally on the tail of the doe like it was Novemeber 1st. He continually grunted non stop the whole time. By the time it was finished, the does were off and the buck made a scrape about 40 yards away. No shot was available through all the brush.

After the hunt I went to an archery shop to practice a little, and told one of the guys in there about my hunt. He said he had people coming in all week saying they had seen mature bucks bumping does in the early mornings and late evenings already. I have found this very strange, as usually I see very little if any buck movement at this point in the year.

last week i seen small 6 ptr chasing a doe all over the place so, i thought pre-rut was starting to kick-in.But about an hour later i seen two more bucks walking with each other were one would go the other followed.They all looked to be the same age. so whats going on with that.

I also live in ILLINOIS and was driving home from setting up a trail camera at a friends farm on the 20thand had a doe run out in front of me with a 140" or so right on her tail.Last year I did'nt see any rutting activity until about Nov. 3rd.


Mathews LX
Gold Tip
Muzzy 100gr.

I live in Illinois as well and haven't seen much at all. Except on my cams that is. Still not much rutting with the pics on the cameras either. In person, every doe I have seen has had her fawn/s with her. Don't they usually split up in the rut? Also, on the camera last Friday I got a picture of two 115-125 class bucks together. So Im not too sure around here, but where in Illinois are you guys from, I am from East-Central Illinois here. Near Bloomington/Normal.

Not seein much pre-rut activity in northwest Arkansas either. Bucks on our cameras have beeneither together or loners. Does all have their fawns with them too. The one small 4 pt that came in with the does was more interested in eating than checkin! However, caught a bigger 6 point on the camera Saturday night and his neck was a whole lot bigger than the other bucks we've seen. (Pictures should be loaded in our Trailcam gallery today sometime.)

I haven't seen any chasing or rubs yet, but I found the beginning of a few scrapes yesterday.

Haven't seen any chasing, but I did find a handful of rubs and 3 scrapes this weekend.

The scraping and rubbing has been going on here for a couple of weeks, but the searching doesn't seem to have begun at all. I passed on a decent 10 point the other day that was just walking around with a doe, so I am sure that the beginnings of the rut are still a week or two away... at least around here.

So does that mean that it would be ok to start calling with a buck grunt/growl and a doe bleat now?

Tazman this guy answered to the rattling horns and grunt tube on the the 16th so ifI was you I would be rattling lightly and also hitting the grunt tube every now and them. This buck came running in pissed off about a minute after I hit the calls.