Did a Deer management job the past 3 nights,in the Hughesville,Charlotte Hall area of Charles and St.marys county.Cant get into specifics of why,But had to take a few deer out,even some bucks,And to my surprise,The bucks were running the doe's hard,and necks swelled up big time,What a srewed up Rut.This has to be in all my eyars of doing what I do,The most unpridictable ,Deer movement and rutting stage timing ,I have ever seen.

On a side note,Shot a Spike 5 inches each spike,that was what I can a "himshe" ,Sceintifically,it is classed as a buck,But had no "Scrotum" and had no testicle,Except for a 1/4 urinary track trace tube,for urinating,Also has Nipples,but no other female performations.Aged at 5 years.

There is definitely no shortage of deer in suburban MD. As a matter of fact, I don't see the herd downsizing to a manageable level anytime soon. Regardless of the liberal bag limits, I wouldn't worry about devastating the herd.

I concur with the rut being nocturnal this year. I did hear of some stories where people heard or saw some action during the dark of night. The weather was a major factor in generating this I believe.

Who knows, with January cool weather there maybe some daytime rutting activity left over to enjoy.

I've read alot of things on several forums about how bad or weird the rut was this year, and even saw it myself. We hunted Ohio during what was supposed to be the best time, but saw almost no rutting activity. The funny thing is that the guy who does the moon prediction for Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine predicted a "classic and intense" rut. I believe I read where this was supposed to be one of the best years for great rut hunting activity (based on his moon theory) in many years.

I always thought the lunar theory was a bit loony anyway.

I have been seeing basically the same thing although I hunted a lottery hunt at the wildlife research center in Beltsville and saw 7 deer all bucks in one bachelor group this was on the 18th of dec. I hunted the eastern shore (fishingbay wma) on Friday dec. 31 and saw only three other vehicles parked on the roads in and didn’t run in to any other hunters. The only shots I heard all day where from goose hunters .There were five of use in our group and no deer were sited all day

Preliminary numbers were posted by Maryland DNR. Looks like somebody was finding the deer!

Well... I got my second deer, on the last day of MD muzzy season at about 4 PM. Actually it was a pretty good day for seeing deer. I saw a nice doe early in the morning but didn't have a shot. Stayed in the stand untill close to 1:00, I saw nothing more. I was back in stand on the other side of the property by 2:00. I had seen 2 other deer prior to the one I shot but they both slipped to the back side of a thicket. The one I shot came from the same direction as the others but she came to the front side of the thicket. She gave me a 50 yard shot, droped her in her tracks.

LnL

I hunted the 7-8 rifle season and saw normal amount, the rut was differnt this year because the moon, the rut started the in December rather than the end of October.

for the last 4 or 5 years the dnr has declared worrior on deer and if you harvest six or seven deer a year your gona see less deer,this year it was 10 deer for each season.

I had a pretty good year. I took 5 with my bow and 1 with shotgun. The LAST two were taken on opening morning of the modern firearms season. I took a 7 point with the gun and a huge 5 1/2 year old doe 5 minutes later with my bow. I only got out a few times after that, but when I did, the number of sightings was way down.

Wow if all of you Md. boys do that good the DNR will love you!!