I'm headed down right after Christmas for the MO. Muzzleloader season. Will there be any rut or secondary rut activity at that time? Just wondering if I should bring some calls or horns along. This will be my first out of state hunt since the early 90's and looking forward to it. Will be hunting around Unionville so it's the northern part of the state.
Good question, I am wondering the same thing. I ave no idea, our main rut is cold as ice as far as I can tell. Rubs are stale, scrapes are cold and inactive. I watched a really nice 8 point last week grazing around a winter pea/rye field with does and a younger 8 point and none seemed interested in anything but eating.
I'm going to agree with Covey, mostly. Yesterday I was hunting after the rain quit, it was about 10:45am. There was a decent breeze and mostly cloudy. I thought I could hear grunting. Since it is public ground I wasn't sure what to think, then I heard rustling in the leaves. Sure enough out popped a doe and fawn. There were about 4 grunts but the buck never appeared. Yesterday afternoon I seen a little 4pt basket trailing a group of does/fawns. He didn't go after them very hard at all. In fact he only followed them in to the ditch I was in then left going back the direction he came from. Not long after that I seen what appeared to be a 2 1/2 yr old 8 ptr minding his own business walking across the field through the weeds. A friend told me that he seen a bruiser 10 ptr chasing the heck out of a group of does yesterday morning. Not sure.
By Christmas I'd say hunt the food. As stated the sign is getting stale. In my area our "main " rut kicked off in the 2nd week of November.
