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MSU Deer Lab study on Buck Movement

JJ3

JJ3

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Aug 24, 2009
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Location
West Tennessee, USA
I don't think I've seen this on here, but I came across a new paper published by the MSU Deer Lab on buck movement. They put radio collars on bucks on. 50,000 acre area and then tracked movement year round. The paper reports on differences in day and night time movement pre-rut, peak rut, and post rut. Not surprising they cover a lot more distance during peak rut! They also found that there was no correlation of movement based on moon phase.


 
One of the findings they categorized bucks as sedentary or mobile. The sedentary bucks tended to stay within a single home range of about 700 acres. The mobile bucks moved between 2 or more home ranges that might be several miles apart.

We saw this play out a few years back the first year on our current lease. We put cameras out mid-Sept and immediately started getting pics of 3 nice bucks — an 8 pt, a 9 pt and a 10 pt. The 10 pt disappeared in mid-October. We didn't see it again until it walked into the field following 2 does Nov 19. I posted a picture of it here in the forum and another member contacted me wanting to know where I killed it. Turned out his buddy had watched it 3 or 4 times during muzzleloader — they were hunting over 3 miles from us. So while it had disappeared from our home range it had settled in its other home range for a month. It was a 4.5 year old.

Similar the 9 pt disappeared from second week of Nov until Dec 22 when my daughter was able to kill it during a pouring rain. It was a 5.5+ yr old. It had been on our cameras 2-3 times a week until it disappeared in November.

The 8 pt kept its home range on our lease until he walked in front of me the second weekend of muzzleloader!
 
JJ3 said:
One of the findings they categorized bucks as sedentary or mobile. The sedentary bucks tended to stay within a single home range of about 700 acres. The mobile bucks moved between 2 or more home ranges that might be several miles apart.

We saw this play out a few years back the first year on our current lease. We put cameras out mid-Sept and immediately started getting pics of 3 nice bucks — an 8 pt, a 9 pt and a 10 pt. The 10 pt disappeared in mid-October. We didn't see it again until it walked into the field following 2 does Nov 19. I posted a picture of it here in the forum and another member contacted me wanting to know where I killed it. Turned out his buddy had watched it 3 or 4 times during muzzleloader — they were hunting over 3 miles from us. So while it had disappeared from our home range it had settled in its other home range for a month. It was a 4.5 year old.

Similar the 9 pt disappeared from second week of Nov until Dec 22 when my daughter was able to kill it during a pouring rain. It was a 5.5+ yr old. It had been on our cameras 2-3 times a week until it disappeared in November.

The 8 pt kept its home range on our lease until he walked in front of me the second weekend of muzzleloader!
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As soon as I started running season-long photo censuses, I started to see stuff exactly like you're talking about JJ3. Yet at the time, GPS collar studies were so new that no one had picked up on these movement patterns. I'm so glad Auburn and MSU have taken GPS collar studies to such extensive levels. They have now documented many of the movement patterns I suspected I was seeing, especially the pattern of bucks that up and leave their normal range and travel to a different location possibly miles away just for the rut, then return to their normal range. I see this pattern a fair amount. I think it was an Auburn study that found approximately 20% of older bucks doing this.
 
TheLBLman said:
I've long thought "movement based on moon phases" was mostly just an old wives' tale.

I do think there may be a very small correlation, but not enough to effect when you hunt.
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I firmly believe the moon plays a role, but it is the weakest influence on movement of all influences. In my opinion, stage of the rut, hunting pressure, and weather play much bigger roles, in that order.
 
Just shows the randomness of being in the right place, right time. We as hunters place so much emphasis on our spots and certainly some are better than others but certainly it's a lot of just dumb luck!

Maybe we should put less emphasis on the spot and more of making an accurate and killing shot which is one of the only elements we have control over.
 
fairchaser said:
Just shows the randomness of being in the right place, right time. We as hunters place so much emphasis on our spots and certainly some are better than others but certainly it's a lot of just dumb luck!

Maybe we should put less emphasis on the spot and more of making an accurate and killing shot which is one of the only elements we have control over.
Click to expand...

That's why I always urge folks to hunt hard for a buck if they know he's around because if they wait until the weekend he might just be long gone.
 
I've got this saved on my computer in my trail camera photo files, I have yet to have the time to nerd out on it but can't wait. I did read a little about sedentary and mobile bucks, I have always referred to them as homebodies and roamers. The buck I killed this year was a rut roamer and knew I needed to get on him before he shifted on me. I got lucky that we got an excellent early cold front to get him on his feet when I needed it.

I love this kind of data and can't wait to read it.

One study I would love to see is how a particular buck changes his pattern as they age. I would speculate the buck shrinks his range drastically and spends most of his time in small pockets.
 

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