im going on a rifle hunt late november for whitetail. will rattling be an effective method then? Also what size class should i expect down there?

Size is completely site specific. Certainly STx on average has bigger deer than a lot of Texas but no way to tell.
To me ratting would be a little early.

Would generally say too early but about 10 years ago I saw great rutting activity over Thanksgiving week while hunting Webb/Zapata county lines; was best and maybe only hard rut activity I'd seen in 40+ years of hunting down there. I will preface and say it was unusually cold that Nov., high temps were only in low to mid 40s most of that week. By far week before Xmas into 2nd week of Jan. we're always best for rutting activity there.

I start rattling the first weekend of season, it has always produced bucks, but may not always produce the one you want to shoot. It’s almost never too early, but it can definitely be too late to rattle one in.

South Texas is a big place.

Where your at is gonna 100% matter.

Some areas of south texas will produce giants, others have a hard time breaking out of the 140" class. Body size will certainly be bigger than say a hill country or gulf coast buck, but contrary to popular beliief there isn't a 170" buck behind every bush.


As for rattling, do it. You won't know until you try. Depending on the specific region, you may only be a few weeks out of the peak of the rut, so I would give it a try. I'm a big fan of rattling.

if you're talking about on the public land draw down on the refuges like with the nilgai deep south tx rut will be in december with the peak of it being mid december and into the new year. mature age deer on good range conditions will weigh 150-200lbs on the hoof. dressed weights maybe 130-150+ depending on what the live weight was

I hunt low fence Maverick Co, medium size bucks are already fighting, several are already broken up

As mentioned it depends on the area you are hunting and south Texas covers a lot of territory so rutting activity can vary but you can rattle any time and deer will sometimes come to horns even if it's only because they are curious.

I was in Iraan yesterday and was surprised to see a bachelor group of 3 bucks hanging out.

i'm more around Hebbronville. we are seeing some rut activity already but the real rut always seems more mid december. the more mature bucks are more active then for us it seems. around that time of year we start seeing deer that we dont' see most other parts of the year.