Rut behavior, pressure, food source preference, moon phase? Goid bucks only need to get lucky once, after that they become wary
Lots of the larger racks at my place go missing right before rifle season about when bow season opens . Some never return and it leads us to think they were taken by the neighbors .
There was this really tall 9 point that ran with a couple of 8 points and a trash buck . They all stay on my place most of the time and we see them on camera all year long .
The trash buck never left with them and hung around the entire year .
The last 2 seasons the tall 9 goes missing at the same time and comes back about 3 weeks after rifle season .
So here in lies the question , Smart , Wary , or just dumb Lucky ? Because yes I would have taken him if I saw him
what say yawl ?
sum kawl me tha outlaw ketchn whales
Just summer ground versus winter ground. We have a few bucks that do the same thing. We typically have a couple weeks to get on them before they are gone for the season. No idea where they go.
Once bucks get a couple of hunting seasons under their belt, they sense and smell more human intrusion in Fall, they know something's up. Of course luck plays a part in how long they might survive, but I've known bucks that had safe places to hang out and they hole up during the day and move around at night. Trail camera pics confirmed it.
Jim
hdhntr LIKED above post
i did see him one time at midnight i think last year on the same camera maybe ....
it might be just that , i had a bud who swore the biggest bucks were real good at staying on the down low.
but i never saw even a glimpse of him this year since late October.
and i know for sure there are a few spots that humans dont travel at my place
and on the neighbors ranch as well .
sum kawl me tha outlaw ketchn whales
We have about 500 acres that no one hunts at all between our two partials of land. That is where our deer hang out until the seasons over. If we don't get the ones we want within the first few weeks of the season then they are gone and only become night runners. But this is a good thing for me because it ensures I have another chance for a nicer buck in the future.
Ketchn LIKED above post
About 10 years ago, I was arrowhead hunting in a big field with an old house that had fallen in on a knoll out in the middle. It was all grown up around the house and this oasis was way out in the middle of the plowed field, hundreds of yards from any woods. As I got closer to the knoll, I noticed multiple sets of huge buck tracks heading to and from that little patch of brush. About the time I got close, a grown buck busted out the other side and bounded out across the open field. It was beautiful to see. Some of the guys who hunt that land had told of a big buck that nobody ever saw, except at night on trail cameras. You wouldn't think that little piece of cover would be enough to hide a big buck, or that any self respecting buck would think of hiding there, but there he was. There's good reason he got as big as he was. I never told those guys what I found and figured if I found him that easy, they could too. I never heard of anybody tagging that buck, which he would have been talked about if anybody ever got that deer.
I was fishing for White Bass on the Haw River in early Spring 2005 from my canoe and eased out to one of the islands in the river above Hwy 64. It's a real rocky river and can be dangerous when it gets up high, but there was just enough flow to get around without taking my life into my own hands. Just as I pulled up to one of the smaller islands (you could see across it), a big buck jumped up and took off across the river headed to the other side. Same sort of thing, that buck found a safe spot to hang out away from normal human traffic where he could survive to get older & bigger than most might ever hope to. There wouldn't be much sneaking up on that dude. He had enough cover to hide and the river was almost like a force field that kept people from wading or boating out to him. He only had to leave his island when flood waters got up, which seldom happens during hunting season.
Jim