How, When & Why Bucks Navigate the Landscape - MSU Buck Movement GPS Study! - EP. 540 

I like how they say deer brains aren't logical like ours, and then proceeded to point out all of the logical elements to feeding and movement that deer adhere to

Just wanted to point out that the biologists at MSU have stated in many of their interviews that they only collar adult bucks which they characterize as 2.5 yr olds and older which would mean all of their data in this presentation could technically be interpreted as to reflect mature buck movement patterns. I know most people aren’t going to classify a 2.5yr old buck as mature, but I just wanted to point out that they do not have yearling or 1.5 year olds collared in the study.

I was camping in a wma a couple weeks ago, i could either hunt the morning or evening so I decided to hunt the evening. the biologist stopped by and told me he saw a bunch of deer in the foodplots around 9am. I looked at the moon phase and that was exactly the overhead time. could have kicked myself for not checking since should have hunted in the morning and worked in the afternoon. didn't even need to be up really early

Moon phase , ok maybe not. Moon Position in my experience definitely yes , I have kept journals many years and there is just no way all the deer I have seen moving with 30 minutes or less of over head/ underfoot is a coincidence. It just happens way too many times.

Thanks for all the useful information guys! I was able to successfully put my two teenage boys on their first nice bucks! My 15 year old killed a nice 8 point on 31 Dec 23 to close out the new year and my 17 year old killed another nice 8 point on News Years day. Absolute best weekend of hunting I’ve ever had! God is good!

At 34min the barchart shows a gradual increase in net distance from prerut to post rut. This aligns with my big woods hunting/cameras of seeing more "new" bucks later than earlier in the rut. I interpret my camera data as: early rut the buck does alot of small circles, and as the rut goes on bucks will move areas or expend their circles to access more doe. Do yall see/think similar to this?

I’ve hunted by the solunar hunting guide and from my observation it’s pretty accurate ! I gave it a try and the deer almost matched times that were the high times ! I believe the high & low times guides are good to go by …

A-nal-o-jus.. means basically comparable or similar. Great podcast fellers!! Always learn something from every one I listen to

Great information! On a side note, is there any possibility of getting Josh Driver on another podcast?

Yeah I would love to see y’all get Bronson and Steve on the show.

Hail State 🎉

There is the main rut then 2 n 3rd rut. You guys expirence all 3, just way later in the season because of your geographic location in the south. Here in mid/north MO our main is 2nd/3rd week of Nov, 2nd is in Dec b4 xmas, 3rd in Jan. What you saw in March was your 2nd or 3rd rut. Ruts are approx 30 days give or take apart.

Maybe check the moon position back on the days of high end low movement on the study.

This is a very interesting study. However, as one of you pointed out earlier the rut statistics can be severely altered when obtaining data from managed private land. Buck to doe ratio is very lopsided on public land. They should do a study taken strictly on public land then compare the data. I think your assumption about buck movement during the rut based on buck to doe ratio would be found to be true.

Alot of times they wont even move unless you get right up on them in thickets they are sneaky

These studies confirm that being a mobile hunter is a big advantage.

Most of the bucks you bust you never hear or see they just get up and creepnoff

The link doesn’t work for me. Can yall repost it or check the link please. I’d like to read the paper

Yardage don't match they contradict there own info, unless I didn't understand it. If a buck moves 4500 to 7500 yards daily that's 187 to 312 yards per hour. Then at 30 minutes in video they show max movement of 110 yards at peak rut. That puts max movement at 2640 if it was constant.

If this study is from msu. All the deer collard and reported on wer mature bucks 3,5 years and older.

November & December is our time period. Our bell curve is collapsing up here in MN right around X-mas. The bell curve in December here is around December 10th to the 15th. My thinking is that all the pretenders r totally emasculated by now. Only so many times u can get struck down with the women in a club b4 u r totally exhausted & give up. That's when the mature bucks that know it's about a marathon & not a sprint take over. Many times they r breeding & many of the pretenders arent in the game & have shed their antlers cuz they exhausted their bodies. I TRY to hunt a 2000 acre Conservation area which is 10 times worse than any WMA. There's absolutely no deer conservation going on here. The # of dogwalkers to deer hunters on this area is 3 to 1. Over the last 10 yrs every year u see less tracks & deer sightings of either sex. I hunt the thickest areas on the fringes but most of my deer encounters r young bucks that i pass on. Some i pass on 5 times over in different places. Haven’t drawn my bow on a doe here in 3 yrs. They r here but all i ever see evidence of a doe is when they force their fawns to stick in an area w/o them for 2 to 3 days. The time this year was November 8th-10th. Where they put uo red signs where u can't hunt is the thickest area within 500 feet of houses. Already found 2 sets of shed anters from deer that weren't yearlings but were fully mature yet. Both sets i found scouting when all I had on me was a backpack. The temps were in the 40's -50's with rain so it was unusual weather for here. I setup 2 spots for next year so come next September & can slip in there & hunt & not disturb the area like some guys do during the early season. Both r pinchpoints so i can put a camera up 20 feet into a 🌳 shining down into a known 🦌 travel route. The area is all setup to hunt & i left paracord in there so i can check out this spot in March with a sim card reader & put the card back into it & then check it again in May. There's a big track that usually shows up here the last few days of October. I'm more interested in just getting a pic & I know that the late November time period is when I need to be here. The part when u talk about giving up evening hunts is something i agree with. Many hunters do hunt on Saturday but I've found Sunday mornings they aren't there hunting & I see more deer between 9 to 11 AM when things line up between moon position, low hunting pressure & potential people with dogs that believe they belong there & that they have no obligation to EVER clean up their dogshit! That late season deer hunt only happens if I don't shoot my one & only buck in September in the 1st pinchpoint. The buck i passed on there was a 2 yr old in 2022. A big bodied deer that a guy with a bird barreled shotgun on the opening day of muzzleloader season 6 weeks ago shot @ this buck with birdshot & didn't draw blood😢. That's right, birdshot with a bird barrel Why he had slugs in one pocket & birdshot in another i'll never know. 😮