Finally the rut has begun in southern Ontario!!

steve750

steve750

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Hey guys,

Finally after a month of scattered weather in southern Ontario, and me setting my own persoanl best of 5 days in a row hunting with only a longsleeve shirt on, it has finally snowed and stayed below 0. And wouldn't you know it.... Just today I saw a buck chasing a doe, unfortunately 183 yards is a little to far for a bow. FINALLY! lets just hope its not a short one this year!
 
steve750 said:
anyone else notice southern ontario having a very slow deer season so far? Lots of sign, but no deer to be seen.
Click to expand...

What WMU are you in? I hunt 63A and IMHO the deer population is smaller that normal, but not down enough to get worked up over. We manage our property for deer & provided food for them last Winter. There were definitely less fawns this year, but that was just due to the long snowy Winter.

George
 
The rut seemed to be on where we were on opening week, with lots of buck activity, and 2 bucks were taken chasing does. Scapes everywhere, however the doe & fawn population seems to have been hit hard by the long winter. The bucks were around, just not alot of does.

I think they'll rut and breed, no matter the weather, they just move more in the cold.
 
Our area of 63A took a huge hit, tons of wolves and a lot of snow for a long time last year, I hope the numbers come back soon.
 
We've noticed that the deer population is way down this year .
Where we would see between 30 to 40 deer at one time(most seen was 47) on my son's property last September, this year we were lucky to see 5.
Lately they have come back a bit , I'll usually see about 10 at one time, with a maximum sighting of 18 in the cut-over alfalfa fields .
Lots of does and fawns , with only a few bucks(2 spikes,one fork,one small 6-point and one small 8-point) nothing worth shooting has been hanging around .
I haven't noticed any does come into heat and the two bigger bucks haven't been chasing them much .
Usual peak of the rut is November 11 in this area .
 
I hunt in WMU 46, and live in 53A I was successful Opening morning with a good Doe. Our Gang of 10 normally gets 3-6 Deer, We got 2 Opening morning but nothing the rest of the week. There was alot of sign but could not catch anymore. They seemed to be hanging around the shores of swamps and bodies of water.
 
I'm hunting in 69A, and been seeing scat and tracks, but no animals. Anyone in the area willing to show some decent spots? I'm having a poor year so far; be nice to at least see a deer.
 
Tripping over does and fawns in 46 like below.

DSC_0054-1.jpg


A few scrapes and rubs but have yet to see the guy making the scrapes.
 
#'s are down here too, Not many fawns born this year. I think the weather has the deer screwed right up, I havent seen a deer yet while out hunting.....Seen 10 deer within 20 minutes driving home from work at dusk tonight though .....
 
In 64A the first week we were worried as we were seeing no deer. We have seen 14 this week alone and have seen bucks with does several days in a row. I would agree that the peak of the rut is now. Numbers are lower than in the recent past, but we are still seeing a good number of deer. One thing we have noticed at our camp and surrounding camps is the number of young bucks being seen. There seems to be a much higher number of young bucks compared to previous years.

I got a 10 point the first week and a 6 point (with a busted rack) this morning.

Things are finally heating up!! We still have a few tags in camp, so we will be out Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

:sniper:
 
In 79 I was seeing rubs in the beginning of october. I would sit on heavy traffic areas but nothing was out in the day, most likely because it was to warm.

today I saw a magnificent 12 pt, the rack stuck out further then the deers nose, he was runing after a nice size doe as i was on my way to my spot which was about 40 yds from where the deer were seen. They ran through a bush and into another field. If i was two minutes earlier i would have had him! story of my hunting career! "F WORD!"
 
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