re: Louisiana/ Mississippi Rut: 2019/ 2020

Just to follow up regarding the rut in the area of Tensas I’m hunting, I’m thinking we are about 4-6 days from the rut.

I hunted again this morning and am currently hunting and it’s been bucks mostly 2.5 years and younger with a couple 3.5 sparring and checking does out.

I saw a couple that I nearly pulled the trigger on this morning. There was a beautiful tall 10 point that came out around 9:15 and I watched him nearly half an hour trying to decide if I should shoot or not. He was probably mid 140s but he was still a young deer. I must’ve clicked the safety on and off 50 times in that 30 minutes.

I think I made the right decision letting him walk. There are bigger, more mature deer in the area on camera but they’re not coming out in the daylight until the does are hot.

Once my brothers and I reached a somewhat mature age (young teens) my dad put restrictions on the bucks we could take. Mainly that they be at least a 4.5 year or older buck. By the time we all were out of high school we didn’t shoot anything younger than 5.5 year old and it’s been that way ever since. I know we’ve shot some deer over the last 16 years that were younger than 5.5 but we try our best to take mature deer. It’s hard to judge a deer age on the hoof but as we got older and had experience, it’s not as hard anymore.

Even now that dad is gone, we still follow those guidelines between my brothers and I.

I’m filled with gratitude and I’m so blessed to be here in this stand right now. We’ve been very blessed and I’m thankful my father held onto this place and kept my $ hungry uncle and aunt from selling some of the property to someone not related to us. We were not rich at all coming up but my dad worked his arse off to not only keep the property we had but to buy my aunt and uncle out in 1995. They really had no choice though because my grandfather put in his will that if my dad’s siblings ever wanted to sell, it would have to be to my father for fair market price. The land wasn’t nearly as expensive back then but still high for that time. I couldn’t afford to hunt this area if had to pay what some of these folks are paying to be in a lease along the river.

Sorry for the long arse rant and straying off topic. There’s a bunch of personal shite I probably shouldn’t have posted but sitting here thinking about dad has me a little emotional. He was a great man and our hunting buddy.