Rut in the Panhandle

[Droptine]

Anyone heard anything? I went up to the lease opening weekend and endured the hot and windy weather. I didn't go this weekend so I was wondering if anyone had been hunting in the panhandle and if so are the bucks chasing yet?
I leaving this Friday and plan to stay until Dec 1st.
Droptine

[texasaviator]

Droptine,

I hunt in Crowell, which is in Foard County. If you look @ a map, this is on the verge of where the panhandle begins. We hunt 20,000 acres there, and have for many years. The rut for us ALWAYS starts on / around Thanksgiving. Just like clockwork. Hope this helps you? I ALWAYS schedule my extended hunts around the week after Thanksgiving.

texasaviator

[kellyg]

Welcome to the board texasaviator!!

[Dead Eye]

Hey Guys

I hunted around Matador this past weekend not even close to the rut. The next new moon is the 23rd that might be close then.

Laters Dead Eye

[Droptine]

Well I just came back from two weeks of tough hunting, too warm, too windy and the rut hasn't busted loose yet. The young bucks are messing with the does a little, but the big boys are staying out of sight.
In two weeks of hunting there were only two good bucks seen and my hunting buddy took one of them.
He was a main frame 10, but he had broken off his brow tine on one side smooth with the main beam so that made him a 9. He still scored 149 and 2/8 and was only 3 1/2 so he should have let him go, but just got fooled like most of us have at one time or another.
Going back this weekend, maybe things will pick up.
Droptine

[captkb]

We had hog hunters out this past Saturday, but when they took a break around 10 that morning we did a little driving around just to see what was moving. Seen 13 different bucks and all but one was chasing a doe. In one wheat field we saw 4 different bucks chasing the same doe - got to see two of the smaller bucks really lock the horns up. The big buck sat back in the edge of the brush and waited until they pushed the doe closer and then he ran them all off. He looked to be a main frame 12 pt with a 17-18 inch spread. Only thing wrong with him was none of his tines were very tall. We also seen a BIG 10pt that was tall, heavy and wide - a 150 class buck easy. Biggest problem with all these bucks was only one of them was on our place and it wasn't either of the big ones. From what we saw it sure looked like the rut was in full swing.

[Droptine]

captkb,
What part of the panhandle are you in? We are on a new lease in Childress county that we know hasn't been hunted for over ten years, but we are just not seeing the kind of deer that I know are in the area. Everyone I talk to around the immediate area tells me they are seeing the same thing that we are. I have seen one decent buck chasing a doe and several yearling bucks (18 mo) nosing around, but the big boys have yet to show.
Most of the deer movement has been the last 30 minutes of daylight and then they are bedded down by 8 in the morning.
They are almost totally nocturnal and I know it isn't from hunting pressure. Maybe it is the warm weather?
This panhandle hunting can sure be tough
Droptine

[captkb]

The area I am talking about is between Stamford and Haskell. All the activity I talked about before was between 10am and 2pm. Is your place overrun with hogs this yr, compared to the past couple of yrs? We looked at leasing a bigger place in the same area we are in now - an area we know has a good number of deer. After doing a good bit of scouting all we found was this place is overrun with hogs. Made us wonder if the hogs hadn't already pushed the deer out. We ended up not leasing this place for that reason. I do know there are hogs all around the Childress area. Just a thought.

Are ya'll going to hunt in any of the varmint hunts out of Childress this coming yr?

[Droptine]

We don't have any hogs at all, or a least I haven't seen any signs of them being around. We are about a mile south of the river. We know that there are good bucks on the place because we have pictures of them we got from the gamecams, but they have all been at night.
It just puzzles me that the deer seem to be so nocturnal when they haven't been pressured or hunted that hard.
We have seen a few coyotes and a couple of bobcats and tons of quail.
We will probably do some thinning of the varmits after deer season is over.
Droptine