Hey guys, I am looking for some advice. Earlier this year I hunted a small 30 acre piece of public land I found on Onx for the first time. Scouted it out once, set up the lone wolf the following weekend and tagged a nice buck alongside a creek bottom on an almost 90 degree day. I have purposefully stayed out of there since then as I do not have another buck tag in NJ until October 26th. Going in to set a stand in the same tree yesterday as where I had shot my buck I decided to scout the upper ridge first and I was blown away. In all my life I had never seen so much fresh buck sign, in an area about 70-80 yards across I found a minimum of 8-10 rubs on trees of all sizes and at least 15 scrapes, half of which did not even have any leaves on them. All of the sign was super fresh, I hung my set about 30 yards off of the core area of sign and hung some cams I am gonna let soak for a few weeks. My question is, with all of this sign so early, what do you guys think I can expect in terms of his movement? Is there a good chance this deer will simply move off before I have a chance to hunt him the last several days of october due to the rut, or is there a possibility he will never even leave? I have never stumbled upon anything like this, so I am both in shock and in search of answers.
Anybody that tells you that they know exactly what a buck will do when the rut kicks in is a damn liar.
