12-1-11: Slow Rut
Posted By
Sam Soholt
at
12/1/2011 12:00:00 AM
Filed under:
blog - michigan
Brandon Leep - Southwest Michigan
The beginning of November came with great expectations of a wild rut that would result in catching a mature Michigan whitetail in his most vulnerable state. However, the rut and deer activity was a shear disappointment for both Jake and I this year. We focused our time in the stand on the better spots that we have to hunt and still managed to see only a handful of young bucks with not a shooter to be found. As archery season came to a close we put our Hoyts back in their cases and took to the range to get the Nikons on top of the shotguns dialed in. We were once again optimistic about the November 15th Michigan gun opener as this is always a time when the deer are running everywhere in attempts to escape the hunters. We were once again very disappointed with the amount of deer activity on the opener and also on the first weekend of the season. In all the time we spent on stand thus far with a gun in hand we have only seen a few does and a young 3 point. I would chalk the lack of deer activity up to just plain bad luck but based on the number of shots that I’ve heard; I would say that everyone is having the same experience this year. I’ve talked to a lot of people this year and everyone seems to be saying the same thing, sure there are some deer being killed here and there but nothing like what it should be or used to be. I’m not sure if deer numbers are down that much or if they are being driven out of the area due to the crops being off early and the fields being chisel plowed resulting in less food. Hopefully everyone out there has had better luck than us because we are starting to get a bit discouraged. We will keep climbing up in the stand and with snow right around the corner our expectations will once again be lifted in hopes of catching a mature buck entering the food plots during the cold daylight hours.
