Has the prerut started

[treemarshal]

I was with my buddy hunting the southern part of the state helping him fill his coues rifle tag (& if the opportunity presented itself fill my archery tag) and we classed up a nice 90inch buck that he ended up tagging. To my suprise the buck was already with some does and chasing off other smaller bucks. He continually rounded up the does when they got to far away from him. I thought it was a little early for the deer to be as active as they were. Was this the exception or have others noticed simular activity? P.S. We recorded the hunt on video so hopefully we will have it posted soon

[rimhunter]

was out today and saw the samething this buck was running around so much his tongue was hanging out

Bruce

[treemarshal]

was out today and saw the samething this buck was running around so much his tongue was hanging out

Bruce

whats your take on this? You don't think the rut is starting this early do you?

[azcouesandelk]

I believe the rut is starting up. I watched several bucks this last weekend chasing does all over the place and sparing.

[msgbarney]

I was out Sunday and was watching a one antlered spike herding serveral does. His head was down and moving from one to the other. It might have been that one doe had come into esterus already, so it might mean it has or will start soon.

[crazyaboutcoues]

We did see a couple small bucks ticking eachothers antlers in 36B but the does were still by themselves. I also saw a new scrape on a saddle. Should be starting soon.

[COOSEFAN]

I've been down south for the last 10 days and after the storm blew through a week ago the deer became very active. There were bucks chasing does and sparring, the bigger 80-100" type bucks were close to the action but weren't participating much. I figured the bucks were still in bachelor type groups and although they were still hanging together, the younger bucks drug the rest of the group around checking out new girlfriends. As the storm blew through and things warmed up the activity lessened and by last Mon. the bigger bucks were bedding down just after light and not getting up much till after dark sometime. Last couple of days seemed like an Oct. hunt As far as the first part of the hunt went.......opening day was the day to "get-er-done".....hopefully it gets cold and nasty down there again soon! JIM>

[Coues Sniper]

Same here Jim... I was down in Mexico last week and i was surprised at the amount of "rut like" activity we saw. I saw a small 2 point rutting a doe hard, he was doing the lip curl and everything, and some of the guys with me saw some similar activity. However, these were all really small bucks acting this way and i suspect that the storm that passed through had alot to do with it. The deer were all very active after being down for so long, and there were still bachelor groups of bucks (the buck I killed was with 3 other bucks.) I think the weather just has them a little excited. Plus the deer seem to be very healthy this year; most of the deer i saw were very fat - almost pregnant looking! The buck i killed had more fat on him than I've seen on a Coues deer.