While I was at the lease this last weekend I was told something about how does are breed. The guy said when a doe goes into heat she will go to thick cover and hide until a buck seeks her out. Then when a buck has found her he will stay with her for 24 to 36 hours and breed her about ten times during the this time. Well if the rut is usually a week and a half to two weeks long. That means that a buck will only breed 4 to 5 does during the rut. So does this help explain why big bucks are so hard to find alot of the time or is what this guy told me not true. It made since when he told me, but just wondering what you guys think?

I really don't know if the doe goes and hides but once a big buck is locked down with a hot doe, he will make every step that she makes until she is bread and goes out. Then he looks for another doe so the 4 or 5 does in a season sounds about right. To me the peak of the rut is the hardest time to try and kill a mature buck. Unless the doe leads him to you or you just stumble into him he is almost unkillable at these times. I prefer the pre rut and post rut periods when the bucks are moving more and looking for the first and last does that are in estrus.

MC

I concur with Mike and I believe that your friend is mostly right.

I have not heard that before. Usually the buck tries to keep the doe in open country. Some of the best hunting during the rut is country with the least amount of brush. There was a recent study done that says that mature bucks only breed about two does on average. As was stated pre-rut and post-rut are the best times to hunt.

Seems to me that when the doe gets tired of the horny buck chasing her around she just drops him off at the feeder and the hunter takes care of her proplem for her

Thats why I like to hunt the rut.

One time a hot doe came into one of our feeders with a buck slobbering behind her. My brother shot the buck and the doe stood there eating her corn after he fell over dead!
We had to scare her away so that we could check out my brothers buck.I don't think that does hide when in heat.