We just had these two deer show up out of no where withing the last 10 days or so and are regularly hitting this same feeder. The tall 8 with no brows is coming in around 7 frequently but not consistent(camera is an hour ahead), and the super mature deer is pretty much nocturnal. We are expecting the second portion of the rut to come very shortly, last week we saw almost no activity so it seems as if the bucks were bedded down with their does. However, these deer have not been seen anywhere else. We have a couple smaller shooters that are consistent, but not nearly as big as these. So I'm wondering if I should focus my time on these deer, or move onto the smaller shooters. With this warm snap this week, and temps dropping on thursday, I am hoping it might have them on their feet.

Next week should be a good mid week for deer movement with the full moon. I'd set up close to the feed before the next does come into season and these boys start roaming again. I pick my days off with the moon phase and cold fronts. Hopefully a cold front hits 2 days before a full moon and lingers for about 3 days.

I would, both look like nice mature bucks.

I don't think you will have much luck finding them around a feeder during shooting light. If you know or can figure out what direction they are coming from I would move that way till you find them. may try hand corning some areas with a camera and hunting that also.

Feeder slings WAY too much corn. 1st thing would be to turn it down so if they're not there within 30-60 minutes of it going off, it gets eaten by somebody else. Otherwise, find some good trails that you think they're using and set up 100-200 yards off the feeder area. Like Hook said above, monitor the weather/moon and see what you can get done. Good luck!

Put out some free choice sweet feed, hang some doe in heat soaked tampons around when you are hunting take with you when you leave. Maybe try grunting every 10 min or so don't over do it.

What am I missing? I see brow tines on the 8. Without them he would be a slick 6.

With the 8 coming in frequently at 7PM, I would try to find his travel route to the feeder. Set up along his route to the feeder and you might get him before last light.

That’s days of corn piled up, I was shocked to see those eating corn. It’s set to 4 or 5 seconds I cannot remember

It’s a typo I should’ve said 7, his right brow is either so small, or broken I haven’t seen it with my own eyes yet...

Curious why you think a full moon is a good thing for deer movement?

cause you have more shooting light after dark

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are.

Stop feeding them at night. I agree with the earlier comment of sling less corn. The whole purpose of the timer on the feeder is to pattern and train the deer. In the daylight. Assuming that shooting them in the dark is bad form, I'd stick to the deer you can see during shooting hours.

He is much bigger than the rest so his tracks should stand out......back track him to his bedding area and set up on the trail coming out toward the feeder.

That's pretty funny but in all seriousness. Here are some full moon bucks that have been taken where I hunt in Central Texas and South Texas.

If you are on a large piece of property and will be able to hunt a lot for the remainder of the season first thing I would do is and have it throwing a little earlier to draw them in sooner.


If that does not work I would do as U Bubba said

I would be careful Not to search for him all of the way to his bedding area for you might push him out of your hunting area.

Good luck

If you can locate a scrape near the feed source, set up down wind, or at least cross wind and wait.

I remember back in the early 1980s, I had a small lease in northwestern Williamson county, 240 acres that has about a 30 acre patch of heavy live oak & cedar, the rest was all old laid out terraced farm land to the east. I had an old ground blind on the edge of those trees that was probably 20+ years old, almost falling down that I sat on a metal 5 gallon bucket to be low enough to see out the openings. The deer (40-50) would come in thru the wooded area and hang out until right at dark before crossing the old farm land to the adjoining place to the east that had ~40 acres of oats planted. right at dark, they would start crossing to the oats. Same thing at daylight coming back. Anyway, I had been seeing a good 8 point and a 12 point but it was always to dark. One afternoon hunt, it was going to be a full moon, so I stayed put as the does/yearlings/fawns started to cross, the moon came up and it was so bright, it was almost light daylight thru the trees. I could make out several good bucks intermingled with the does but couldn't tell which was closest to me. I kept sitting and waiting. I never could make out which was on which side and they never separated enough for a clean shot. Finally they all made their way across the big open pasture and I headed to the truck. It was about 8:00 pm (sundown was about 5:40). Thankfully, I never fired a shot as there was a GW at the LO house having coffee when I was driving past, they came out on the porch, so I stopped to visit. The GW asked why I was still out so late and I said I had deer all around me and didn't want to spook them off. He laughed, and the LO said dang son, you should have shot one, then he laughed. I laughed along with them for a minute then said, yeah, then I could explain to both of you why I shot 2 hours past sundown, and I laughed, they looked at each other and said, yep, that would be some explaining for sure.... we had a good laugh at least.

Through the years, I have seen much more deer movement around the full moon than I have seen during the new moon. This past Thanksgiving was a new moon, and although I killed a really nice buck, I and our entire party saw very few deer. The Previous Thanksgiving was centered around the full moon, and everyone was covered up with deer. The same thing occurred during a Late Dec/early Jan bow hunt that my brother in law and I take to OK. Three years in a row, we would take the trip around the full moon, and we would see 40-50 deer a day! They were stacked up in the clover fields like chord wood all day long. One year we went on a new moon due to timing of when we could get off of work, and were lucky to see a few deer a day. Our other buddy went back two weekends later on the full moon and said they were stacked up like chord wood again.

Well I did a little research this morning and it turns out there is a lot of debate among the experts on this subject. Most of the official studies have been inconclusive. Honestly, the idea that deer are more likely to move at night ergo less likely to move during the day if there is a full moon always made sense to me. I based my hunting decisions on weather and time of year, but have always thought it was an added bonus if there wasn't much moon light.

Yes, there is definitely debate on the subject. LOL. I am in the opposite camp as you. Based solely on my observations from 37 years of hunting. Definitely not scientific, but from what I have seen, I would rather hunt from the quarter moon through the full moon to the quarter moon again and skip the new moon. Now, if the new moon falls during a time that I am able to go hunting, I'll go anyhow, I just won't expect to see as many deer.

Well, I found where they were bedding. Happened to be directly to the side of the box blind, they would be coming in front of the box blind, towards the river bottom. Around 10am, this deer came in hot on a doe and was able to harvest a mature deer that needed to be taken from the gene pool!

Great buck
Congrats

Well done, congrats on a nice buck!