Just got back last night, here's my update:
Day one hunted ag fields and watched a river bottom for movement. Covered ground and glassed a lot. Still hunted a game trail and ran into a very curious doe. End of the evening a different doe showed up right before dark, with the tiniest spike I've ever seen about 10 minutes behind her. Cold and clear but very little movement.
Day two I hiked up into some forested hill country to hunt some cuts. The weather was mid 30's and spitting snow with a trace of snow on the ground. On the way in saw a doe and fawn crossing a trail and then later bumped 4 more doe bedded on a cut slope just below me. I set up camp and hunted till dark but no deer movement to speak of. Snow started coming in and on my hike back to camp I noticed bobcat tracks following mine to my evening glassing spot, which was neat.
Day three was cold and very wet. Overnight more snow had rolled in and dropped a couple more inches but then turned to freezing rain, which soaked everything I had. Optics were difficult to use, and it became very hard to stay warm. Still, conditions felt perfect for deer movement and the tracks in the snow told a story that there were plenty of deer in the area (bucks included) but there was zero daytime movement.
I packed up and headed back to the truck and drove home late in the day, and am awake now typing this about to head out for blacktail. Overall the hunt was fun and it's beautiful country, and I'd love to see what this tag is like at peak whitetail numbers. Still, there were definitely deer where I was at and I am sure a better hunter could've capitalized.
So, question: I've never hunted whitetail before but I've seen plenty of blacktail rut movement, and I was under the impression this tag was a whitetail rut tag. Is it just a numbers thing or was this indicative of what a whitetail rut looks like? The movement patterns I was seeing (mostly nocturnal movement, or at the very least hints of crepuscular) didn't feel "rutty" to me.