[Shane06fl]

TnBowhunter rut? what rut!!!! I hunt just south of Atlanta and the deer are confused, well they are confusing me. Mid October the scrapeing stopped, usually means Bucks are in full rut and tending does heavily. We were seeing Doe that were tended and seeing lots of chasing to, but this was a full 3 weeks+ earlier than it should be. Then the scrapes started back up, no one is seeing any chasing, no doe getting tended too and the bucks are going crazy since they aren't getting lucky. The deer aren't eating acorns or the food plots and they have no fat on them. The bucks are swelled up and their hocks are good and ripe. The thinking among the experts (camp members) is that the rut is hosed because of the drought in GA right now. The mature doe's don't wanna go in to heat, maybe mother nature is regulating itself.

I seen the same thing in Florida in 1997-1998 when we had a nasty drought. Then it was another 2 years before a real good rut was seen.