Illinois rut


6sixpoint_nobrows

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Yep...i gambled this year and thought that with the moon being full on the 1st, that i should hold off on my vacation until the second and third week of Nov. I am off from Saturday night the 7th and don't have to be back to work until the 19th. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that i can put it together!!!

On another note...this is great stuff here. I put my fiance up in one of my hang ons yesterday afternoon at about 2:00...She absolutely hates sitting for more than 2 hours...anyhow, i told her to be on her toes at all times, and not to get out of the stand until i get there. I went and sat in a ground blind on the downwind side of a huge prairie bedding area...I didnt see crap, until the farmer fired up his combine and started picking beans at about 5:00. he pushed about 5 deer off the field but they ran the other way, and i couldn't tell what they were - but i knew they came from this prairie. So i get out of my stand and start hiking over to where the Fiance is. Its about 5:20 and i am at the bottom of her tree looking up and she is speachless just shaking her head back and forth. She lowers down her bow and i look at her quiver and all her arrows are still in it, so i just assume she's super hacked at me for making her sit there that long without seeing a thing...WRONG!!! She gets down and says " OH MY GOD!!! i JUST HAD A MONSTER 8 PTR WALK BY AT 9 YARDS!!!!" at this point i am thinking, ok, and why do you have all your arrows in your quiver? She is almost yelling at me at this point. "He HE He walked by right where you said he would but i didn't see him unitl he was to my right, and i drew my bow on him...I bleeping had him, i had him...but i just couldn't pull the trigger......OOOOOHHHH STUPID BUCK FEVER"

I had to listen to this the whole way home...i couldn't stop chuckling...this was not the first time she got the fever and forgot to shoot, nor was it the second time...this was the third time on a buck over 135. We got home and i pulled up some pics, and we were able to identify which buck it was...he's a mature 4 1/2 year old 8 that i think will go high 130's...

sorry for the long post, but i had to share it...i am still laughing about it.

haha thats pretty good. hopefully she gets him next time! or better yet you two double up on giants. that would make for a good wedding present..

so i talked to a land owner yesterday to hunt this 200 are farm up by my dads house that i used to hunt when i was younger. i used to get huge trail camera pictures of bucks and its been resting for over a year now so when the land owner said i could hunt i was pretty stoked. im waiting for the corn to get out and some temperatures to drop, which ever comes first. sounds like everyone is starting to see more and more bucks chasing, man im so pumped!

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As of tuesday I was seeing some good action. Had a good 8pt at 25 yds and he needed take one more step for me to take a shot with out brush or limbs in my way. Instead he turned the other way and followed the creek out to a bean field and I never saw him again. I was bummed cause that buck has been shredding trees and making scrapes right by my stand. He was in there before sunrise doing this and I was begging the sun to come up so I could see what he was. right at daylight he got up walked to my left and just didnt give me a shot!! After that I seen alot of chasing right in front of one of my other stands on the edge of a bean field. No shooters but the action was heating up!! Im going back to that stand tomorrow morning. Hopefully he is not bedded there before I get set up. I would think he would still be in the fields. Good luck everyone because this is the best time of year to be in the woods!! Dont let the warm weather keep you from hunting either!! When the rut is on you never know what can happen!!

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Ive seen two monster bucks chasing does for the past week right behind my house!!! Every night they come out in the alfalfa and give a pretty good show. The one I saw last night has been out there for 3 days in a row, and chased off every doe in sight!!! I've even seen them in the middle of the day. So id say the rut is here for sure "central Illinois"

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Weekend update... Had great movement over the weekend, saw a couple shooters roaming. Passed on several small bucks. Stayed and hunted Monday and Tuesday and things really slowed down for me. Havent seen much chasing yet, just bucks on their feet. Hopefully next weekend they are chasing hard!

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i could not take it no more, i had to kill a deer with my bow for the first time. so a 3 point came by, so close to shooting it.....then a 4 point came by and i said "that's it hes mine". drew back put of 40 yard pin on him and let it go. i hear my dad say "went right under him" i said "DANG IT" so yes i missed my first buck this morning :(

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really pumped now guys. hunted a place we call the church ground cuz a church owns its, this place really its gods backyard. tonight i got in the tree at this property for the first time about 3 weeks. the mock scrape i snuck in a made a few weeks ago was demolished and big buck prints left in it. that was really encouraging to see. all night i didnt see nothing or hear anything but squirels. but about ten minutes before i was about to leave a heard something that sounded like a deer running to me, sure enough it was a doe ,then i heard something grunting behind her and not too far behind her. i grabbed my grunt call to see if i could pull the buck off of her to get him close to see how big of a buck he was, they were both in bow range but it was just too dark in the timber to tell. i could see there outlines really well and body size but just couldnt tell how big this buck was. from the sound of his grunt he sounded mature and a big body on him too. i was able to get him to stop and walk my way about ten yards. still couldnt tell what he was just too dang dark. he turned around and started walking the other way that doe went then stopped and he hung around out of bow range waiting for this "other" buck to come out and fight. eventually he left after a half hour, im so pumped to get in the tree tommorrow!

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unfortunately im behing the camera all weekend for shotgun. oh well, just wanna be out there.

tonight walking to my stand i had a small (maybe 90 or100 inch) 8 point at 30 yards, he was trailing nose to the ground right in front of me. finally got to my stand and about an hour later i heard a grunt to my right, and a buck the we have got sheds from the last three years was on the ridge over from me. the same ridge i thought about hunting tonight but didnt because have hunted there last two nights! he is a giant 10 pointer, with a doe in front of him he was sixty yards through the timber, grunt snort wheeze, rattle could not pull him off of her. broke my heart, he is a giant deer and a giant body on him. hope he stays on the property for the next three days of shotgun, maybe i can make something happen next week

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  • 2 weeks later...

The rut has ended and I never saw a buck chasing a doe.

The first rutting activity I observed this season happened on October 28th. A buck marking the edges of a corn field.

Saw a 120's buck crusing for does on November 4th. Saw another small buck marking trees on the 5th. On the 11th I saw a real nice buck marking territory and crusing field edges. A doe came into the field and the buck came back. The doe ran off and the buck never did find her. The 12th saw a lot more deer activity. I arrowed a nice buck (looked like a perfect shot), but never found him. I searched all the next day.:(

Then the gun season (20-22nd) I saw a 4 point responding to calls and some does acting nervous and a surprise spike that I mistook for a doe.

Went bow hunting the 27th and 28th and saw/heard nothing! Another 2 weeks and the second rut should start. I'm not giving up on a nice buck till January 17th!

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It sure has been a wierd rut this year in southern IL. Seems like the bucks were in the searching stage off and on but never did really get in the chasing stage. Not sure if it was the bucks or does cause even with the bucks that i seen crusing walked right up on some doe trails, checked them and then just kept moving on but when i had some pass the scent trail i laid down they came right in but nothing worth shooting. Hoping maybe we will just have a better second rut this year with more does coming in.

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I am going to blame it on the corn...Us hunters probably missed so much due to them critters running and staying in the standing corn...I decided to do some scouting in some standing corn by two of my sets, and what i found was amazing. The infrastructure of navigational systems in the standing corn blew my mind - with the corn, against the corn, every direction, main paths - just unbelievable. It was easy to tell that they have been in there heavy. Thats all i can say...a few days down in East Central illinois i saw alot of good activity - but where i was didn't have any standing corn.

hopefully December brings some heat!

good luck

dan

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I don't know guys, we have seen quite a bit of activity in our area. I had a real nice 8 and two 4 pts chasing a doe crazy the 18th. My buddy actually had seveal chasing and fighting around him just this past Saturday morning.

We never did see allot of scrapes or rubs in our areas, but we have been seeing a decent amount of chasing.

Based on a report from Monday night though, it looks like it could be winding down.

OK by me, winter patterning time!

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