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| I'm thankful for opportunities to hunt with friends and family. |
Heather and I did just that and we were blessed with a wonderful of display of deer rutting behavior. Here's a quick rundown from our Thanksgiving hunt.
Through the darkness, the green glow from the truck thermometer read 56. The average high is in the 40s, so I was slightly pessimistic about seeing much deer movement with the unseasonable heat. Our plan was to sit in a travel corridor between where three large corn fields come together and suspected deer bedding. We snuck in as the first blue/green glow hit the horizon.
Despite the abnormal warmth, a herd of ten deer waltzed through the valley beneath us shortly before sunrise. The first 4 does were quite skittish as they ran past, pausing only long enough for me to give the biggest one a Montec buzz-cut (I later recovered my clean arrow and discovered the tuft of white chest fur a few feet away). The rest of the herd was much more relaxed as they passed by.
At 7:35 spike and a forkhorn paid little attention to my grunt call as they walked by at 45 yards. Moments later a yearling doe blitzed up the hill, tail cocked sideways and mouth agape. Right behind her was a very impressive 8-pt buck. Heather still has her buck tag, so I grunted in hopes to lure him away from the hot doe as she angled away. That plan failed, but it did incite him to put on an impressive territorial display of impromptu scraping and rubbing. After thrashing a bush, I noticed two other young bucks were shadowing the doe as well. He grunted, snort wheezed and devastated random pockets of unsuspecting forest understory to prove he was the king. The smaller bucks kept their distance from the mature eight as the whole crowd passed by within 50 yards. Since I could gauge his reaction, I tickled my rattling antler tips together to see if he could come over to us an break up the sparring. He turned and looked, circled twice like he was going to approach, but in the end decided to stay with his petite new girlfriend. What a display!?
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| Winter winds blew in much colder temps on Black Friday. |
Now the howling winds of change have descended from the Arctic, blasting cold into Iowa on Friday. Once the winds relax, Arctic high pressure is one of the best ingredients to a good late November hunt.
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| Black Friday's temperature change. |
The cold weather will have some herds settling into a need-to-feed pattern, drawing deer to major food sources making them a cold weather hot spot. We hunted a morning travel corridor between the fields and their bedding -a simple strategy that works. Evening sits over food sources work well now, as does will come for food and bucks will come for food and does.
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| Expect cold nights and mild days... average weather to end November. |
The doe we saw in heat on Nov. 22nd was only half the size of the buck tending her. Based on her skinny neck and long legs but short stature, I think she was a yearling. This could be secondary rut behavior as unbred does cycle back into estrous and younger deer enter estrous for the first time. With a more seasonable cold weather pattern shaping up this week, Iowa bowhunters will have one last week of great weather to get the job done before shot gunners take to the woods. This week's highs in the 30s, 40s and a few 50s plus lows in the 20s/30s will give central Iowa hunters something to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving.
-Chris
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