whats everyone seeing?

whats every one seeing for rut activity? to early to use scent? rattling and grunting working? whats every one think. i hunt near eau claire wi

thanks,
Chris

I’ve been out hunting for the last 3 days. Been seeing young bucks searching for does. This morning I had an encounter with an 8 point BEAST at 8:30 the morning. He was scent checking the ridges and got as close as 60 yards before he sensed something wasn’t right. Went back in the thick stuff and disappeared for good. Then this afternoon the farmer whose land I hunt called me to tell me there were two deer in the middle of a picked and disc corn field.

I drove over to the field and sure thing there they were. The doe was sitting on the highest spot in the middle of the field and off to her side was a 2 1/2 year old buck taking a nap. I grabbed my Canon 7D camera and 400mm lens and started clicking. He got up walked over to the doe. Pushed back up and proceeded to breed her right in the middle of the field. I kept clicking then realized I forgot my compact flash card! Hope this helped!

Not seeing much yet, in my “metro” spots…

Lots of young bucks running around. I drive 17 miles on the interstate just south of Eau Claire every day and still have not seen any bruizers laying on the road. The average is still 2 new dead bucks a night…. Next week should be interesting. I did see a nice 8 point Sunday at 9:30 on my way to church standing on the drive way of a friend of mine. I caught up with him at church and told him about it. After I got home he called me up and said he had a 150″-160″ dogging a doe in his back yard. That’s all it took for him to throw up a treestand on his 1.3 acres.

The bucks are still together in Pine Co.
I wrongfully used Buck Fire as a cover sent from a Key Wick off my stand. It brought two very nice bucks directly under my stand for quite a while. No shot opportunities though. I wish I had used it in a shooting lane instead of as a cover scent from my stand.

Have had pretty good movement in SE MN area. Some younger bucks cruising while the larger bucks seem to still be waiting a bit. I have had good success rattling in the last couple days. Rattled in a couple decent bucks but all in the 110 to 120 class 8’s. Last night two 8 pointers came in together scent checking a ridge when they got a little wiff of me, i was pretty surprised to see the two together. This weekend should be blast off for MN shotgun season like usual.