countrymudder

well, i know that the deer will change patterns during the rut, no doubt..but i dont like to depend on it. I live in arkansas and yes, there is a bunch of white oaks here, and there is tons of acorns on the ground, but, i think i found the problem. I went to my deer camp outside of perryville, which is 6000 acres of rolling mountains, trees and what have ya, the place is hardly populated with nohumans at all around the area, except for some farm land. I saw deer all weekend up there, they was poppin out left and right. In the other spot i hunt in butlerville arkansas, it is way more populated, there is a lot of deer here too, but also a lot more humans in this area, and the land is much smaller, about 400 acres, surrounded by houses. During the evening i can here people mowing there lawns, kids playin in the yard, cars speedin up and down roads, four wheelers rippin through the woods, and all of this is happenin about half a mile off. And if i can here it the deer can too and i was thinkin about on my deer stand the other day, hell, if i was a deer, i'de be comin out at night too!! But here lately with the rain, more deer was movin, not just because of the front that came through, but the kids couldnt come out and play, no one could mow, and cars were not speedin up and down the roads. Oh and the week days arent so bad either in the mornings, cuz all the kids are goin toschool. But you can here em in the evenings, oh yea, and i cant rule out all the dang dogs barkin. Its gonna be tough, but there is a big one roamin around out there, and ill see him sooner or later. I wont have a problem in perryville the, its peace and quite there, i dont here nothin but the sounds of nature and i really love it there.

Buck Huntin Girl

I personally am having the same problem right now. It's okay though, I still have a month of bow season and all of gun and muzzleloader. I didn't set up my trailcam this year, so I don't have my usual "cheatsheet" on when they are up and about. All I can go off of is that I am seeing very few deer through the daylight hours than what I am used to. When I hunt mornings, I'm usually in my stand 1/2 before I can even shoot, and I hear them moving right by me in the pitch black still of the night. I catch a silhouette every now and then, but nothing during shooting hours. I am not even catching any movement on my way out of the stand in the evenings.

As my husband says though, if you sit out there every day, one of them is going to make a mistake and walk right by your stand, you just have to make sure you are there!

Keep at it, with every passing day we get closer to the rut, their hormones will dictate over their wits and there will be a lot of mistakes made on their parts. Keep your chin up! For what it's worth, I believe that if there is a deer population in close proximity to a human population, they become accustomed to the everyday sounds we make. They hear kids playing in their yards, it's normal to them, so I wouldn't sweat it. Give 'em a couple of weeks and things will change.

spur0701

I don't know countrymudder, I think some deer get used to those neighboorhood sounds, I hunt a lot of backyard woodlots.......I'll put up a stand and a PVC feeder, I've seen deer eating and lookup between mouth fulls of corn watching someone mowing the yard or kids riding bikes a few hundred yards away. I was hunting behind a friends house about a half mile away a few weeks ago. I got in the stand late, about 430, and the owner came out shortly after and was in the back yard with her kids for about 30 minutes, she didn't even realize I was there..........I could see movement about 70 or 80 yards back in the woods where some were bedded, as soon as the lady and her kids went inside they made a bee line for the feeder....5 does and yearlings.

VA5326

Mudder,

Don't worry brother, in a few weeks he won't be thinking with upper brain he'll be thinking with his lower one. When that happens (as you probably know)all senses of self preservation go out the window for the boys, especially, in urbanized areas. Just make sure you're in the most advantageouslocation as possible. Trust me, he won't be thinking about the cars zooming by, kids playing and what not. Questions: anyone else hunting the area? Are the four wheelers being used by hunters? I assume they are not because you didin't say anything about it in your previous posts. Like you said sooner or later you'll see the big boy and when you do, breathe andaim true.

Slim Pickins

we have tried to stay out of our hunting areas and the deer still remain nocturnal. Even during preseason we only entered the area to put up trail cameras and still only got pictures of deer during the night. in fact we had a 3 week period where only 3 pictures of deer were seen during the day and they were all doe.

countrymudder

the four wheelers are not other hunters, just people ridin around sometimes, and no, there is noone else hunting it. And this place really just got recently populated, like in the course of one or two years, so maybe they are not use to the sounds quite yet. Thaks for all the input guys..and gal. But, no ofense, im glad to see im not the only one having this problem!!

wis_bow_huntr

Quit feeding them so much and they wont go noctournal. No really were just in the october lull should be over pretty soon.

superstrutter

I've been seeing lots of does and fawns but no bucks. Just because the rut will be going on doesn't mean you will see lots of bucks running around though. When it's hot the bucks will do their work at night when it's cooler. Three years ago we had a very warm fall and winter. The bucks down here on my place usually rut in late Oct. or the first couple of weeks in Nov. That year the rut took place early. It was over by the first of Nov. I put two cameras up and got pictures of 18 different bucks on scrapes. All pictures were in the dark. I did not see a single one of these bucks. I killed a couple bucks later in the year, but the rut was long gone. The hot weather had these bucks totally nocturnal, even during the rut. I even hunted the middle of the day. Still no sightings. This is not the norm, but it can happen. This is my land so there is very little pressure. Needless to say it was pretty frustrating. If the weather stays right then you will eventually start seeing deer. The weather has been pretty good down here lately, so I expect to start seeing bucks pretty soon.

NEW61375

If you sit there, they will come. Get away from the fields or feeders. Focus on transition zones, staging areas (near food sources), travel routes (the downwind side of known doe bedding areas is a great place to look). Just a couple of tips I have found useful.

Another thing I often do is hunt an area you think is not a good spot. Hear me out on this. Some prime areas often get overlooked because they do not meet some form of"good stand" criteria. Don't get me wrong keep the wind in your favor and be smart but try something completely different, you might be surprised. I hunt a 100 acre farm with the same buddies every year and every year I wait for them to decide where they would like to hunt then I take the "scraps". Those tiny2-4 acrestands of woods, old gas lines,"noisy" stands near a road or adog pen are always shunned or overlooked by the others and I jump right on it and have enjoyedjust as muchif not more success on more than one occasion.The deer are there and they are moving at some point during daylight hours, you just need to find them. My dad always said that there isnot much of a difference between being a successful hunter and being the guy sitting in the woods looking stupid. I spent a lot of time being the second part of that sentence and I don't regret it one bitbecause I know what not to do now. We pattern deer and deer pattern us, switch it up, vary your approach,hunt harder and smarter, if something isn't working try something else.

NJheadhunter71

I had a similar issue last year. Bait pile camerasshowed a couple big boys in june, july, august then towards the end of sept. it started to change, less day pictures more dusk pictures. Then they were coming into the bait at dark and by themselves then 11pm, 1am 3am andby Nov, "poof" no more pictures of the big ones. Now there is absolutey no hunting pressure (thats right no other hunters accept a friend on mine 600 yards away) and other than filling the bait drum we did not go into the area (which we did all summer1 every 2 weeks)He alsohad some of the same bucks and also some different big ones on film. The kicker is this, all the bucks that were on average 80 inchers or less still showed up all winter! Even under the stands, sleeping under the bait bucket and all! It all did 180 degrees come the first to 2nd week of Jan. but........now they had no antlers and one in the 170 range andhad a half rack! I came close during the rut on a split G-2 hog 10 pointbut he bedded a doe in route to my setup and bedded50 yards from me in a thicket only to have one of the small ones antagonize him into moving the doe out of the area. This year NO baiting and only hunting rut prerut. we will see..........