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Rut Report: November 19
Posted By Bill Winke at 11/19/2010 12:00:00 AM

My own experiences are too limited to use them as the only reference.  There may be something strange going on with our farm this year, so I started calling folks that hunt every day to find out what they are seeing out there.  The answer has been nearly the same from all of them: this has been one of the worst - if not the worst rut they have ever experienced.  That certainly mirrors my own experience. 

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Greg Clements with the buck we call "Lathrop".  This very old buck was
looking for a hot doe in the area of our stand when Greg shot him.

It seems that unless you have a hot doe right near your stand somewhere, you aren't seeing any mature buck activity .  That is why the rut has been so hit and miss - so sporadic this year.  I have seen very little cruising among mature bucks.  We have a low doe population on our farm (and starting to be a low buck population too).  The bucks don't have a lot of does to choose from so you would think they would have to cruise more to find them.  That is the way it has worked the past few years - lots of cruising among mature bucks.  Not this year. 

I don't have a good answer.  Some people are saying the moon has stretched out the rut and made it less intense.  Not sure I will buy that.  Others say that the week of Thanksgiving is going to be the magic week.  I will be out there every day so I hope they are right.  A few others have told me that the mature bucks are more active at midday and that all their mature buck sightings have been around middday.  Now that may be something to hang my hat on. We usually sit until 11:00 AM each day and get back on stand around 2:00, so it is possible we are missing something.  I may stay out a bit longer these next few days to see.  The only old buck we saw yesterday was at 10:15, so maybe there is something to it.

Regardless of the struggles, we have had some action.  The producer for the Main Show, Greg Clements, was hunting with me and shot this great buck on November 15. It is a deer we call "Lathrop".  If you have been following the show over the past few seasons, you know this to be a buck with which we have a lot of history.  So that makes for a fun story that we will bring to you on the Monday show. 

Again, Greg's bucks came as the result of a hot doe in the area.  We saw eight bucks that morning including three mature bucks all of them were looking for that doe.  Find the hot doe, find the bucks.  That seems to be the message of this year's rut.

Good luck.  I'll keep at it and keep reporting my findings.