I am new to hunting and have a question for you all. While hunting this past weekend I was sitting in my stand and saw Two doe, a fawn, and an Eight point. Is this normal for the Eight point to be feeding with the doe? By the end of the day and the next morning the Buck was chasing the doe around the field. Does this mean the rut is close? The first pic is the doe and buck eating together and the next one is a close up of the buck. I am hunting in West Texas and the cold is finally hitting. The pics aren' t that great, I filmed them on a video camera and had to upload them to my computer.

Hi,

Bucks are mostly solitary animals except during the rut. The buck was chasing the doe around because she was either in heat or ready to go in heat.

Good Luck!
Mark
http://www.buckhuntersecrets.com

Thanks for the info Mark, and I will check that site out.

Those are GREAT pics! I really enjoyed looking at them and your hunting set up. Thanks for posting them. Question: did you bag a deer - how could you let those go? -zeke

No Deer yet.....But plenty of them around. If I don' t see anything bigger than that 8 point then he is mine in a couple of weeks. Another guy on our lease got footage of an 8 point with atleast an 18 inch spread...He is still kicking himself for not shooting it....

It usually means that. I live in north west Texas and have been seeing the bucks chasing the does. The full blown rut is just around the corner. I think with in the next week or two we will be seeing the agressive, all out, rut. I saw two bucks chasing does pretty hard this morning. Im holding out for the big boys. Im going to start rattling tomorrow, to see if that bruser will come out.

Bucks tend to stay by themselves. Before the rut and after the rut they tend to stay alone, but it is not uncommon to see a group of " bachelors" moving together. Durning the rut, the bucks have just one thing on their mind.

if you can hold out dont shoot the small 8 pt unless you will mount it, shoot a doe let those small bucks walk, but just getting started i understand if you shoot him, but try to let him walk i know it will be tough

Generally or should i say typically the smaller bucks will start chasing does before they are ready, jumping the gun sort to speak. If a doe is in heat and your area hold a good number of bucks you will typically see more than one buck in the area or giving chase. That is why you sometimes see a smaller buck, then a larger buck further behind a doe, once she is ready that larger buck will run his little foe right out of town. Hang tight if does are coming to your area than bucks will as well, the fact he was feeding shows that his interets are split, a mature buck will not give 2 sh$ts about food come peak rut.

Thanks again for all the information guys. I plan on letting this little buck mature for next year. There have been sightings of bigger deer. This is my first year hunting and have already seen alot of animals. Opening day of deer season there was a doe and a fawn eating like the ones up on the first picture and I got bored of watching them so I started looking around for more deer. Well about 100 yards out I see something moving. I got the binos out and low and behold it was a Bobcat creeping up on the deer. I couldn' t believe it. I got the gun and needless to say he is getting stuffed right now. About 60 pounds. Sorry to blab guys but I still can' t even believe I shot a Bobcat...