Sparring to a fight....(pic heavy)

These pics are all from this past season. The bucks were not very active in Oct to mid Nov. When the rut here started buck movement picked up. It was not until the second rut kicked in around Dec 15th that the bucks really started to move. Attitudes and tempers flared with the numbers of bucks in a small area around feeders. The number of broken tines and bucks with injuries increased as the season wore on.
These two young bucks sparred for 15 minutes or so in an oats plot in mid Nov.

This 8 pt bowed up to two different bucks later in mid Dec. The buck in the pen wanted no part of the 8pt on the outside of the feed pen. Lot of posturing for about a month.




Few days later this same 8pt tried to adjust the attitude on another 8pt after a younger buck chased a doe into the oats food plot. There was around 20 bucks in the oats and at the feeder. Tempers flared multiple times in a matter of minutes.

These two bucks got into a short but intense fight one morning in Dec.

Great pictures as usual..

Nice pics.

Another short but intense fight in late Dec. This is first set of pics of this short fight.

Welcome back!! Missed you for a while here!

Great pics as usual. I liked how the doe in the second sequence initially freaked out to the fighting, but then kindly just trotted off as if this is a normal occurrence for them and nothing to be scared of...which it is for them. Pretty cool to see the deer habits in the wild. They seemed pretty close to those bucks too. Awesome!!

In the third set of pics, the doe right behind those two looks like she is thinking "oh great, I am trying to look all good for them and all they care about is fighting"

2nd set of pics of the short fight.

Sometimes the right attitude keeps you out of a fight.

Must have been very fun to watch. With all those bucks around did anyone slip under the radar and do the tending while everyone else was fighting?

Not these times but I have seen it in the past on a few occasions. Most of these "fights" were from new bucks showing up in a place they had not been for weeks or ever. It was generally the buck that was a regular at the feeder that took "offense" to the new intruder that was of similar age. Most all of these pics were in the 2nd rut phase here and bucks were moving back in around here in large numbers. I went from seeing 3-5 bucks per sit to 15-22 per sit. I had corn fed out in three directions and 2 feed pens at this blind to space them out.

Nice pics

Another welcome back and the pics are great as always

Awesome pics. I saw more fighting and sparing this year than I have ever seen.

Great Pics

Stx, how far apart are the two feed pens? And are the feed pens simply corn feeders or do you have protein in one/both along with corn?

Just curious as I am planning on setting up some corn feeders amidst a protein station and was wondering what is too far apart vs what is too close together? Deer density on my place is pretty strong and I think could handle several feeders within a few hundred yards of each other....just didn't know if this was too close?

Good to see you posting, Amigo!

One is due east of the blind at around 100 yards while the second one is 180 yards to the SW of the same blind. So they are around 250 yards apart with mixed South Texas brush inbetween them. Both have feed pens, corn feeders and protein feeders. One has 2 protein feeders and the other has 1. I feed protein year round and have for 5.5 yrs now. I also road feed every time I hunt around both feed pens and the road in the middle of the 2 pens. There is oats on the road between the two feed pens and then to the north of the east pen. I have had 21 bucks and 17 does/4 fawns at one morning hunt at this setup. With most deer on road corn and the rest in pens. Never had numbers of deer like this in the past on my place. This is the second hunting season with two pens on that one blind.

Well looky who it is.... great pics man! The one I was hunting all year got popped on thanksgiving so only doe for me

The one I was hunting all archery got popped the first week of general season. Then two weeks later let a nice 5x5 walk for several hunts over the next 10 days only to see him get popped by my neighbor. I was fine with him killing him since I chose to let him walk. I took him a pic of him I had taken when I was seeing him chasing does.

Yup! part of the game!

The neighbor that killed the big buck I was after was 12 and it was her first deer... was happy for her they are one that do feed alot also.. now how spoilt she will be in the future is unclear

I figured he would have dropped the first week of general also... surprised he lasted that long..

Your plots look like they did well this year!

Bet they look like a golf green now though!

Great pics

Thanks for sharing. I have yet to witness a true fight but hopefully it will happen one of these days.

Great pics!

They are hammered to the ground right now even with Dec and Jan rains. Worst shape they have been in since I started planting oats. To many mouths on them at this point. Never seen so many bucks late in the year like this year. I counted up over 35 bucks that I had seen or on TC one morning sitting in the blind. I had 20 bucks in front of me that morning. I added up off of TC pics and still pics from hunting and came up with 49 different bucks from late Aug till last week. Of that total only 6 are no shows. I only know of one that was shot of those 6 for sure. Just an abnormally high number of bucks for this area.
That was a dang nice buck you were hunting. Part of hunting though. The 10 pt I passed on I was okay with letting him walk but had said if he makes it till mid December I might try him to kill him with my bow. 2 days after the last time I saw him I heard a shot in the neighbors and felt he was shot. I was holding out hope on a nice 8 pt that I had on TC from August till first of November.



Thanks everyone.

Fantastic pics!

Fantastic! Thanks for the photos.

Thanks everyone.

Geeze if everything would have matched those 3s and beams... cool character though!

Wow. Incredible pics. Thank you for sharing.

If..if...if his 3's and 4's matched up I would have killed him the last week of archery season. I was content to let him walk and happy my neighbor liked him.

Thanks again everyone.

Awesome pics, as usual!

Same here... Great pics, ranchman. Glad to see you posting again.

Nice pics. Welcome back.

Good to see this post. I really have missed your excellent camera work.

Marc

Great pictures.

Always . Thanks stx and glad to see you back!!!

Thanks again everyone.

These are some really great photos of the fighting action. I haven't been so lucky with my photography yet.

I learn quite a few years ago that in all my years of hunting I was seeing a lot of unique things while hunting. So I started taking a camera back in 2003 to me with to the blind when hunting. Now I do not miss many of those rare or unique things that we all see when hunting.