Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Southern whitetail herd going nocturnal?

i live in central MS. same here as well. however last wednesday and thurs i had deer everywhere mid afternoon. a pile if does a couple small bucks. nothing over the weekend tho. weather here is insane. 40 degrees one day. 72 the next

Saw activity at 430 pm Sunday.

Same situation here in one of my hunting spots.

I was blaming it on dramatic increase in drilling activity in the area and late wheat planting. The third possibility is the same old doe still recognizes my truck.

I was going to blame them oil guys too, but I'm the only one on my lease that is not employed in the oil industry so I've kept quiet.

The deer know my truck too. I overheard a doe telling her fawns to stay away when "Ole Dead Eye's" truck is there.

FWIW on our lease place which is large enough to move around in, vs my own 100 acres.... when the deer do the bye bye act, I pick the right wind day and move into the thickets around their bedding areas REALLY slow at daylight so I can see... and takes me sometimes and hour to make 150 yards into their thickets with a lawnchair...

Absolutely amazing what is around in the bush....

One year I had not seen a deer in almost 2 weekends to speak of basically... the right morning came along, and I slipped in, not that far from camp but where I know they travel when the pressure has been on for months... and areas they bed.... And saw over 25 deer, I'm not sure quite what that number was but probably about 50/50 on bucks and does... and they never knew I was around... and went on with normal life.

The other interesting thing... our ratio is pretty even for some reason... and when the bucks take over the feeders, they give the does no peace....

When its come time to kill my does.... I"ve often had to go only 200 yards or less away from the feeders and watch the edges of the brush to find a bunch of does... doign their thing, but they are within 200 yards in a direction I can't see.... and never show up at the feeders because they'll get chased and or run off.

I suspect a lot of you move around as needed in hard times, like a person has to do.

I know if my camera is showing night only.... and I"m needing to kill... I start moving cameras around closer to bedding areas and such to see where they are and if I can figure a time to catch them. Amazingly sometimes its at the pond around noonish for a drink...

As to hunting pressure, even though it doesn't get"worse" in a lot of areas, just the simple fact that for going on 2 months there have been some type of vehicles or foot traffic where there was none for 10 months prior is all it takes....

I try to stay well away from the stand with a vehicle, and walk in very early and out late, and I still get busted from time to time just coming or going from the stand. None of htat helps. At all.

Jpro,

Same where we are not far from you. The only difference is that our cams are not revealing any action period. We saw plenty of deer until about the first week of November and it's been a bust ever since. I haven't seen this few deer in many years. The sad thing is with the cams not showing anything either, it sort of makes you feel they've either moved or there has been a die off. Our plots look untouched. You can dump corn in front of a cam and nothing touches it but vermin. Hunted my best stand 6 times and never saw the first deer. Put cams on all the good trails around it and caught a couple doe and a couple small bucks at night over a several week period. Many claimed it was from a bumper acorn crop. I thought that as well until I made several scouting trips in the only hardwoods we have and found no acorns. Very weird season. I even sat many times on long gas line ROWs to see nothing at all.

I can't complain though as I killed a really nice buck in the early season, so it's been a good year. It's just a bummer to hunt for a month and not see much of anything.

I'm moving to the delta to try for a month. Hopefully it's not the same over that way.

Really? You have to ask?

GA DNR collared an 8-pt years ago in private woodlands near FDR State Park. He moved onto the Park after the first day of deer season and remained there, moving only at night, until the season was over.

We're observing the same thing on a couple of different properties in West TN and North MS. The deer are there, but as others have stated, daylight movement has been virtually non existent. And I'll add that I'm hearing this from about everybody I talk to in the area. Neither of these properties receive a lot of pressure and the same goes for the surrounding properties. We're also a pretty veteran group of hunters who don't use ATVs except to recover downed game, are extremely cautious of wind directions, stand approach and don't over hunt any certain area or stand. Point being, we're pretty low impact in our hunting style so I don't attribute it to pressure.

We've run trail cameras pretty steady on one of the properties, but aren't obsessed with going into the area and checking them frequently, and really only pull cards from them if we happen to be coming or going to a stand in that area. The overwhelming majority of activity on the cameras this entire fall has been at night.

As others have stated, there are multiple factors that come into play. We've had a good acorn crop, a wet summer and there has been a lot of food around. Add to that that the weather on the weekends since about late October has been a series of warm fronts with variable winds that don't help matters, especially when hunting in hilly terrain where the thermals can really mess you up. If you've only had the weekends to hunt, that's just complicated matters further.

I'm fortunate to live in area with a lot of deer around the house, so I can pretty much tell when things are "right" and when they're not, and the best hunting days we've had around here since mid-November have been during the weekdays when a lot of folks are working. Even at that, the local deer around the house have been moving more so at night than during the traditional morning and evening timeframes. And they get little to no pressure.

I've been at this for 30 years hunting in this same area of the country, so this isn't my first rodeo, but it's certainly been a significantly off year by traditional standards. Fortunately I took a really good buck early, but haven't seen another that I wanted to pull the trigger on yet. I'm far from giving up, though. I've taken some of my biggest bucks at times just like this when most folks throw in the towel. Sooner or later, one will give up its guard. You just have to be there when it happens.

I talked to our wildlife officer a couple of weeks age one he said our deer count was down over a hundred from last year. Too many acorns and deer not moving during the day.

I remember a few years back the place I hunted, a few of the guys were convinced there was a die-off due to blue tongue. No dead deer found mind you, they just weren't seeing deer. They all hunted on weekends. I hunted during the week and saw gobs of deer.

Seen other times/places when land use or the character of the land adjacent to where I/or others were hunting changed, and it drastically changed the deer herd's patterns.

Pressure and land changes can have it's effects. Sometimes it may be something out of your knowledge and control. And, in the southern areas where our deer don't rut til later, we also have the "December doldrums". Time between opening day in Novemeber and the rut (anywhere from late December to late January) when many complain of the same thing...deer going nocturnal.

I killed a doe opening day, and an 8pt the day after Thanksgiving, and have not had much chance to hunt since. I killed the 8pt at straight up noon on a day when nobody else saw any deer where I was hunting. I've heard of the same complaint in the last couple of weeks locally too. I believe the single biggest pressure that affects deer is scent. They get used to seeing people, and hearing shots, but when they smell you in close proximity, that will make them change things. They learn to pattern people's movements, and I have had some success hunting midday, especially on a full moon.

There may be some validity to them "going nocturnal" at times when the pressure is on.

We are picking up some really nice bucks on our cameras and all of them @ 1 -3 a.m. Have seen smaller ones right at dark and 1st light. Rut hasn't really kicked in yet, though.

Well, we're post rut and have been since Thanksgiving or so, every year it's the same thing. See very few animals and not uncommon to sit 2-3 hunts and not see anything.

However, after Christmas through January I might kill a monster.

I hunt one property where I'm the only hunter. I've watched 6 different bucks all through the season during daylight hunting. Another place I hunt which is a lease and hunted hard by a lot of people the deer really slow down day movement a couple of weeks into the season. I don't use cameras or feeders so I'm only speaking of day movement as sighted by myself. Luckily, things generally pick up in January with the rut.

things are slow in Montgomery and Stewart county in tn
and slow on fort Campbell ky


aint had a lot of sightings thruout the year


have had seen a couple of good bucks

one with a unloaded muzzle loader right after I had to shoot my "earn a buck doe" on ftcky not 35 ft away

and several other good bucks I just could not get the crosshairs on for 2-3 seconds to get off a shot



liberal limits on does in tn are killing the rut action and deer population
not to mention making the does a whole heck of alot smarter

less does = less breeding/rut time = less fawn recruitment= less deer overall

tn needs to look at this 3 doe a day limit and the effect it has had since 2008 and 2009

and the new biologist on ftcky needs a kick in the nads with earn a buck policy he came up with


once again
if you kill off way too many does
that = less rutting action and rutting time and also = less fawn recruitment



basic fuggin sense............................................

I hunt the same lease with slg888. Been a miserable season. Although I killed a nice hog. Deer have all but disappeared there and at my other place in the same county. Not even seeing fresh sign

With fewer does, the rut you get will be a better/harder rut. There will be more competition for the does and better bucks will breed does and fewer cull bucks will breed them.

With an excess number of does, the rut isn't nearly as good. No competition for does. Bucks hookup and layup with a doe for a couple of days while she's hot. He'll try to move as little as possible with her to avoid other bucks. When done with her he will move to the next one who he won't have to search much for if there is a surplus of does.

With fewer does the bucks will move more and be more aggressive.

...but yes, there will likely be fewer deer if you kill more does.

when all the brown downers in tn start complaining about no deer is probably when the govs cronyies on the twrc will command the twra to reduce doe limits so the population will rebound in overhunted areas


the brown downers are the root of this and eye candy limits for them as put out by the twrc to the twra for license sales are to blame also








from very reliable inside sources that I have spoken and others have also spoken too

almost 2/3rds of the twra biologist 5-7 yrs ago were against increased doe limits and having back to back ml and then rifle season
a lot of them are also in favor of a 2 buck limit
which most people I hunt with or associate with are also in favor of


our regs
are designed for the bubba brown downer hunters who get out opening weekend of ml and rifle
guys who might hunt 6-7 days a yr max is what drives our regs
and then the guys who have connections with twrc political appointees by the governor
good ole boy shyt................


the regs when we had 2 separate ml seasons and rifle seasons
and bow seasons worked just fine

at least the deer got a respite between ml and rifle with that week of bow inbetween

this was changed for simplicitys sake
cause it just soo confusing to your average hunter according to the twrc

b.s.
it was done so friends of twrc appointees could hunt back to back ml and rifle cause they was ticked off cause bow hunters got some pre rut and rut action





unfortunately it will never change

twra people have stopped fighting the govs appointees on the trwc cause of job security
which I have also heard from good sources



and going to the meetings don't make a difference in squat
unless you have some connection to a twrc appointee from your region








that is what is going in tn deer and turkey regs




the state needs to go to a 2 buck limit
and 1 doe a day limit and do a 3 turkey limit



then things will rebound


look at what they did when ehd hit hard in 2007


not a fuggin thing

they actually expanded unit l
and in some of the hardest hit counties at that........



trwc runs the show and has control of the strings of the trwa in all reality............

I respectfully and totally disagree with the less does= more intense rut line of thought.
(it actually equals a shorter rut and the bucks go elsewhere to look for does once all the does have been bred on said land

I have heard that a million 6 times
and It probably works on areas you can actually control
like fenced private land or huge tracts of hunt club land

but when ya aint got no control over what the adjacent bubbas shoot on their spots
not to mention poachers
stuff people don't even tag
and then tn,s telepoach system which can be gamed numerous ways

having a good population of resident does on your property is the way to go for good hunting

then you get the satellite bucks coming to your palce instead of vice versa

I have seen this happen

bucks you never have even seen in October and November
show up in mid to late December to visit and scope out your resident does

I would rather have 20-30 resident does on 250-300 acres and a little common sense in killing a few of em real late in the season
and a have couple of good bucks hanging around breeding the girls for a longer amount of time espically when i know the ground than have less does and having the bucks satellite away to find does on other lands to get whacked by a bubba who will check him in via telepoach as a doe if at all.........
and then knowing you have unbred does for the smaller December rut coming into their 1st estrous for some late season action also

I"m with you in theory, but I'd kill the few does as early as possible, so you aren't chancing killing the doe that the best buck just bred.... With 20-30 does you are only talking taking 2-3 anyway.... get em out early and move on.

The way I see it, I kill EVERY doe in sight. Give all that meat to starving winos or fuggit just toss the carcasses into a ditch.

I can do that every year just me and my buds.


Oh wait, goddammitt where's all the bucks at? Oh that's right there aint no pussy in my thickets cause i killed it all in the name of cheap beer and remington.

Now all my resident bucks are wandering off 5 miles away all exposed to spotlighters.


Jeeze I'm punching myself in the nuts now cause all my does are depleted. I sure hope the magic fairy from the State Game Dept can air drop me some more pussy to hold these bucks in my thickets.

Oh well, I gotta run. CoreLokts are "on sell" at the Fulton, Tn walmart.