North Dakota Rut Report
David Giarrizzo of Tag N' Brag provides a whitetail rut update for North Dakota.
Location: central North Dakota Rut stage: pre pre-rut Current buck movement: 6/10
Projected buck movement: 6/10 The recent cold and snow in mid October halted crop harvest, but now corn and beans are coming out everywhere. That's been a huge factor for us suddenly getting a bunch of new bucks on trail camera. Just within the last three days, we had four new shooters show up, including two shooter bucks that we hadn't seen since September. However, most of what we're seeing is nocturnal. Some scrapes are showing up, but it doesn't feel like we've hit pre-rut yet. A lot of the deer we are seeing during daylight are in the last moments of shooting hours with their heads buried in alfalfa. Bucks have yet to show interest in the does, even as they feed next to each other in fields. Mild temps are on the way, and I suspect buck movement won't change much. Mature deer will begin to soon expand their homerange, but we're still a week or so off of seeing big bucks showing themselves during daylight.
