Where Did the Bucks Go?
Posted By
Bill Winke
at
10/3/2011 12:00:00 AM
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This is what I am seeing on my cameras now - nighttime photos in the same spots where I was getting lots of daylight photos only a week earlier. Times are changing! |
I pulled the cards three times. On the first two pulls, I was getting lots of daylight photos. However, on the third pull, that took place on Saturday, I got zero daylight photos of these same bucks. In fact, the total number of photos of bucks dropped noticeably. They just weren't showing up anymore.
Unfortunately, this is what I was used to seeing in past seasons. Normally when I started running trail cameras in early October, I got very few daylight photos of mature bucks. Some years, I literally got none. All the mature bucks on the farm were nocturnal during that time - even though I hadn't even started hunting them. This is something in their physiology. Apparently, they naturally become nocturnal around this timeframe. Bummer. I was hoping somehow that it was going to be different this year. Nope.
So, if you aren't seeing mature bucks during the daylight or aren't getting any daylight photos of your best bucks, don't feel alone. This is common behavior, it seems. If my experiences through the years are any indication, the bucks become increasingly nocturnal from the time they shed their velvet until some point in late October when their daylight activity again picks up in preparation for the rut.
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| This is the buck that I call the "G5 Buck". He is the most visible mature buck on the farm, yet even he has stopped showing up during the daylight on my cameras. |
As a result, I am going to be much more reluctant to hunt my best areas for the time being. I need to get the cameras back out and keep monitoring the activity levels of the bucks to see if any of them shows a trend toward daylight activity, but for right now, I am going to stay out of the woods.
I am sure you have heard about the October lull. I have had biologists tell me it doesn't exist. I don't know where they are doing their research, but it isn't on my farm. There is no doubt whatsoever that the October lull is real. Hunt careful and hunt smart - watch those trail cam photos - and you can still be successful at this time. But if you are too aggressive now - hunting at times and places where the bucks are nocturnal - you can actually harm your chances for success during the end of October and the first weeks of November when historically the mature bucks do break out of their nocturnal patterns.
