The rut in zone C

I have noticed it running longer for sure.
More late season fawns on the ground this year than normal.
Too many does in my opinion. We will be trying our best to work on that.

Nassau county close to the Georgia line.

Turkeys are firing up earlier too....

I have seen 3 sets of fawns on my cameras this year. Currently the first are losing their spots. There are mid sized fawns and a few little bitty fawns. This is Columbia County and Alachua County. Our main rut has always been Halloween. Then around Thanksgiving. They must have had another around Christmas! Agree there are too many does.

I noticed scrapes before Labor Day this year. I am East of Hilliard on 108.

The last couple of seasons I’ve noticed a longer rut duration. I believe the buck doe ratio is off with too many does resulting in does cycling back into estrus keeping bucks on the prowl. I need to check with our biologist on this speculation.

Having multiple rut phases is inescapable on public land because they'd either have to kill a pile of does or restrict buck harvest severely. In all reality, it's a problem in most of FL since the fawn recruitment rate is so low. An even buck to doe ratio would collapse our population.

I have hunted the past 2 weekends and have only been seeing young does and fawns so far. As soon as the bachelor groups of bucks went hard horn I am now only getting pictures of them at night. That goes for the old does as well. I hear this Sunday morning is going to be in the 50's, so I hope to have some movement. The pre-rut should get going soon. Good luck in the woods gentlemen.

That's good to hear. Do you often see a 2nd rut around Highsprings/Alachua?

Report tonight was 6 bucks chasing.
 Just east of you guys.
Buddy got a good one down.

It's weird for sure. Right now is typically zero hour. Bucks have been cruising. Scrapes were hit hard the first week of October and then not at all. Does are definitely being bred around now. I've seen the tending behavior on cam and newborn fawns backdated to this second full week of October. BUT not much chasing and not a lot of widespread roaming for the bucks. There is a flurry of chasing after this initial breeding, and then it falls off until around Veteran's Day when I really see more traditional rut behavior. I think the bucks are more desperate here since it's the second cycle. The problem is that it's more sporadic. BUT I see more chasing than in the October cycle, and I see what I never see in October, and that is bucks actually hanging with does. I never jump bucks bedded with does in October, but had it happen many times around Veteran's Day. Moving in towards Thanksgiving I'll start to have bucks show up that I haven't seen all season. You'll see them or get a pic one time and that will be it. He's probably two miles away the next day.

I try to focus more on the October cycle because I can more easily pattern the bucks. The problem is I have a bow in my hands. Twice this season I've seen the buck I'm after out of range. Tuesday evening he was at 60 yards following the trail of a doe that passed by an hour earlier. By the time ML comes his pattern will likely be different. If I lived closer and had more time to spend in the woods, I'd hunt more during the November cycle with a gun in hand, cooler temps, fewer mosquitoes, and hope for one of those wild chasing days.

Some more musings after thinking about it this weekend while in my stand:

If you head just a few miles south into Marion County, there is no October rut that I've seen. Those bucks aren't really getting started until late in October, with breeding happening around the same as the second cycle in Alachua. This makes me think there might be two populations of does in Alachua, and possibly other counties riding that line of the Zone B late rut. One population cycles first in early October. The other group cycles first in early November. This is just a hypothesis.

There also seems to be something about that Thanksgiving week across the state (can't speak for Zone A, though) that gets them going. I've hunted areas with late ruts (Jan/Feb) and seen bucks chasing during that week. This is in Zone B and D on several different WMAs. I've also seen it in Zone C on areas that had already had their peak cycle. Throw in a cold front, and it really amplifies it. I can't say that breeding is happening, but it's almost like they know that all their northern brethren are getting some and they feel left out.

We’re c5 close to D2
Deer are still bachelored up
Depending on the year the fun stuff doesn’t happen until well into nov. Some years late dec it seems to change periodically

Yep everything above lines up perfectly and this is typical Florida deer rut. I’ve seen fawns in November, hard horns after the rest of the local herd had lost antlers and scraping and chasing for most all of November through January here in central. Sure beats a two week rut or general gun like they have up north😉