Buckstopshere

Good questions guys. But I come at it from a different angle. First of all, we all know when the rut is here each year. Since we hunt about every day and have for many years and write about it, so I can look back and compare data. Interestingly, hunting blogs are a great data base. If guys see rutting action, they often post it. If they don't and it is dead out there, they post that too. An analysis of all the hunting blogs is certainly anecdotal evidence, but it is one more support for when the rut happens. Of course it happens in different areas of the country at different times. Like in Texas, there are actually Three separate rutting times! Must be crazy down there! But each one month apart. I used to think that the First week of November is Always the best, here. But over the years, other weeks from the last week in October to the third week in November were the hottest...and what I mean by hottest is that time when the most deer are on their feet in the daytime and everyone is saying (even if it isn't me.) "Man, the deer are in rut, they were grunting...running, chasing does..." And a lot of bucks get arrowed at that time, even though Doc's scenario and frustration is all so true. Nonetheless, I am fascinated by the timing of it. It changes each year. Is there a correlation? Yes there is. By keeping track on a calendar over the years and checking everything from temperature to the moon phases, sure enough. Yes indeed. There is a correlation. What is it? It appears to be a simple formula, 10 days after the Full Moon after the Harvest Moon. Why? Just science. So I started looking into photoperiodism and how it effects all critters including man. How? There is a little pine cone shaped gland in our brain and in the deer's brain that is sensitive to light. It is called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus. This little gland in some animals is considered the master gland, regulating the others with hormones including melatonin. Among other things it is a timing mechanism so that the bucks and does can both come into sexual readiness at the same time. There are many questions and we are just beginning to understand. But as we record what we see and jetison some of the popular myths of the rut, we come closer to answering them.

Wow! Very cool. Thanks for posting. Yes, this is perfect timing and coincides with when the rut will be full blown this year. This sign was the first week of September, about 10 days after the Full Moon in August. We will seen the same thing happen in the first week of October and then again, the main peak of scraping will occur the first week in November, and then a final peak in this phase of the rutting activity will occur in the first week of December. It probably occurred the same way back in 2002, and then in 1994. Both other times the Harvest Moon, the Full Moon in September coincides with the Autumal Equinox as it does this year. My scrape areas have not shown that kind of action yet and maybe it is because the deer are in the acorns, because we here in Allegany County are having a bumper acorn year in some woodlots too.

There's always been big bucks in Pa. and there always will be. A couple pictures of big bucks is not what I would call proof that Antler Restrictions work. Don't mean a thing. I could show you pictures of bigger bucks from Pa. before AR's. Does that mean AR's don't work? That's just anecdotal evidence at the best. But whopper bucks, nonetheless.

To me, it is fascinating fun and just intriguing to try and figure out the annual pattern of the rut. It is very complicated, and leads me down a lot of trails of understanding about biology and zoology. But what a learning experience in nature! As for the moon and weirdness, I don't go into all the witchcraft stuff. That kind of thinking needs to be unlearned. The moon's effect on whitetail deer is just science. The moon is a light that skews the photoperiodism effect which is from the same light source, the sun. The moon's effect on animals in the best analysis is just plain down and dirty science. The annual whitetail deer breeding behavior is measured, recorded, and then tested to see if the theory works and if we can predict the same behavior a year in advance. Either we are right or we are wrong. No spirituality, witches, werewolves, mushrooms or metaphysics to it. But I know it scares away some people. The answer to the why of that is another intriguing path of understanding to follow.

Larry: And one other point, I don't think you made the point about the guy that "managed away" his deer herd on his 1700 acres...how many of those does that he shot off were button bucks? And those are the bucks of the future! The birth ratio is about one buck fawn to one doe fawn and since buck fawns are a bit bigger than doe fawns, many times hunters (yours truly included, sad to say,) have shot button bucks thinking they saw a doe and her smaller fawn, when in fact it was two fawns, a buck fawn and doe fawn. The reality of trying to achieve a one-to-one buck doe ratio would be a very difficult thing to achieve. And do they count button bucks as bucks? And how do they tell the difference? Sounds like pretty faulty science to me, once you look into it with a practical eye.

Erussel: I saw the same show (or another one just like it) and thought the same thing! B.S.! It would be so much more interesting...not to mention Truthful!...to explain a marginal hit and what they had to do to retrieve the animal...on the blood trail. Why pretend that it was a great shot and act like he just won the World Series!? Well, probably because they don't really know the difference.

Slowhand: Sorry, the vid's url is: The link doesn't seem to work right now, but if you copy and paste the url, it does for me. Thanks

I fooled around with mock scrapes many years ago and had no success. After looking at tons of photos an video clips from my trail cams at scrapes, I noticed deer pay much more attention to the overhanging branch than the pawed up dirt. And it enhances scrapes sometimes to pee in them. So I experimented with the overhanging branch by cutting some overhanging branches off hot scrapes that were unhuntable (like near barns, ATV race courses, etc.) and then zip-tying them to a scrape with cameras. Wow. The activity at the scrapes jumped dramatically. So I tried it during the last week of the archery season in NY last year and arrowed a buck coming into the scrape. I augmented the setup with frozen buck tarsal glands too. The buck came in sideways with his ears back ready to fight when I double-lunged him. I put together a little video on how I did it. Here's the link.

He contradicts what he wrote in his book, " Hunting Whitetails by the Moon," with his new, latest prediction. In the book he has a chart that predicts breeding activity. For 2010, in the book he writes that the Rutting Moon will be Oct. 22 with what he calls the chase phase from Oct. 19 to the 28 with the breeding to be Oct. 29- Nov. 11. There are a number of years that have the Autumnal Equinox and the Full Moon in September hit about the same time, like this year. It happened most recently in 2002, in 1994, and 1986 (Sept. 18 Full Moon.) My notes (because I have been writing outdoor columns for newspapers since 1978,) are quite clear with late October rut activity in those years, so I expect it to happen again this year. Actually I can remember 1994 quite well because I switched from a Howard Hill long bow to my first compound bow in 1996, and it was not the final season of my long bow hunting, but the year before that. And that year I shot one of my biggest bucks. Anyway, Charley wrote in his book that he did not have data concerning the 1994 rut (Sept. 19 was the Full Moon then.) He said about 1994, "I witnessed and photographed a heavy amount of buck rutting activity the last week of October and also photographed breeding before Nov. 1." If the pattern repeats with the moon, the deer's rut should unfold on approximately the same dates. Secondly, I don't get what he means when he says it is a weird year, the latest moon we will ever see. ? 'Course that depends on how long we live... ;D But, if we make it a couple more years, in 2012 the Full Moon in Sept. will be Sept. 30. That's a full week later. And I would expect to see the rut's window dressings...from the appearance of scapes, to when the does abandon their fawns, to when the breeding bucks bed with their doe group to cycle about one year later than this year. But what I really don't understand is that he said that hot time last year was around Nov. 2. That was the date of the Full Moon in 2009. Ok. Then wouldn't you think the hot time this year would be around the Full Moon too? (I don't agree with his basic premise though, because the first week of Nov. last year was dead here and in northern Pa.) But what about consistency? I mean the Full Moon is going to be Oct. 23 and Nov. 21 this year. His new, improved rutting times do not line up with the calendar dates. Nov. 17th this year? Where does that come from?

Most of the time during archery season, the deer do not seem to move during the middle of the day in my neck of the woods. Here in Allegany County we have a lot of people in the woods besides lots of bow hunters, from small game hunters, hikers, birders, trail runners and that is not to mention all the ATV, dirt bike and trail bike traffic in the woods. In the early morning, few (except turkey and waterfowl hunters) we have a few hours more or less to ourselves. Late afternoon, most of the joy riders are out of the woods. I think the deer become quite reluctant to come out into the fields to stage and feed unless it is private property and access limited to only hunters. I too have tried it in the middle of the day after hearing tell that it's a great time to hunt. It may very well be in some places, but not here in my experience.

I think that the terminology of the rut has hunters confused. This seek, chase, breed, rest, breakdown is not accurate in my experience, any more than the pre-rut, rut, and post-rut terminology explains what is going on in the woods. The terminology is systematically misleading. In my experience, each season, whitetails have an early rut, a peak rut, and a late rut, each about 28 days (a lunar month) apart. Some years the early rut is barely noticeable, other years the woods are torn up. Some years the peak rut (or better yet we could call it the mid rut) is hardly any more noticeable than the early rut and the late rut. And some years we have a smokin' hot late rut. But whatever, we will know who's right and who's wrong this year in a couple months! You have to love the accountability...unlike the Doomsday prognosticators and weather men on TV. ;D

Bill: My two scents is that we will have the October Lull in the third week of October and things won't start popping out there until around the beginning of November. So no, I don't think we will see a lot of chasing in the end of October this year...except maybe on the last couple days. Halloween should be hot as the Last Quarter of the moon starts.

Sam: But the question is...who can tell how old a buck is on the hoof in a wild, hunting situation? There is no accurate way to tell the age of a wild whitetail deer. A guy showed me a picture of the most average looking seven point you have ever seen that he shot. He had it aged by the DEC. They said it was 11 years old! We can have great looking yearling bucks here in NYS that are 100 class eight pointers. And then we can have a 2.5 year old buck that is a little scrub. They are a dime a dozen. So on a practical level, since there is no way to tell age, especially for a lot of guys who only are out in the woods a couple times a year, since we don't hunt in high fence situations we will never see bucks average any older than we do now...with AR's or without AR's But why this genuflection to the great god of the 3 year old buck? And at what cost? The price we have paid by demeaning small bucks and the hunter's who shoot them is a drop off in deer hunter's ranks, a big win for the anti's, and frankly, a lot less fun and brotherhood in the sport we love so much.

Here is an interesting take on AR's: It's a quote from an article on genetics from the Texas Deer Association. I was not familiar with Texas game laws and did not realize that they are experimenting with AR's all right...but shooting spikes and three-pointers there is legal in an AR system! They are trying to protected bucks with branched antlers. Here's the quote: "In 2002, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) established antler-based harvest restrictions in six counties in an effort to protect young bucks and improve hunter satisfaction. Legal bucks were defined as those having six points or more, or 13 inches inside spread, or having a spike antler on at least one side.(My emphasis in bold.) The six-point requirement has since been dropped, but these regulations intended to protect young bucks with branched antlers, yet allow for the harvest of spikes and three-point deer. From a genetic standpoint, the idea is to try to balance any differential removal of the best young deer by allowing the harvest of spikes on the lower end. These restrictions have been popular and expanded to about 60 counties with more possible next year." So they are subtle in this tacit admission that there can be a high-grading effect like what was experienced in Mississippi with the antlers actually getting smaller once AR's was implemented on public land. It is in effect a slot limit, like when fishing on some lakes where you can keep the little guys and the big guys, but not a protected size range in the middle. I guess it makes more sense to me in a way...but it strikes me as so governmental, what we used to say that this new spin is, "neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring." Most of you guys are too young to have heard that one. So is it OK to shoot spikes and three-pointers or not OK to shoot them from an AR perspective? :

Don't you imagine that it is a lot easier and more profitable to film a free hunt from a sponsor, invite a retired major league ball player, a country singer, or a comedian to a game farm, and set them up in a cabin on stilts to shoot a deer coming into a timed feeder, than to go through all the work, effort, sweat, expense, and frustration to actually film a real wild hunt?

I hate to hunt on the Full Moon too, especially in the evening. Don't mind it so much when the Full Moon is waning, usually about five days after full illumination. Then we get into the darker phases and things always start to pop for me. But what I hate even more than the Full Moon is the darn First Quarter, a day or two before the Full Moon. In all my years of hunting, that late afternoon stand is the worst ever for seeing deer. But I can't stay out of the woods during bow season so I am always out there anyway...heck even those last few days of the First Quarter, just before the Full Moon with a bow and arrow sounds pretty darn good right now!

Right. And it is a good Black Cherry year too. Deer, turkey and bear really hit them hard. It is a very underrated mast. Last weekend a buddy and I were checking out the activity under the cherry trees... turkey, deer and bear.

Ha! ;D A buddy of mine was hunting two season's ago on opening day of the rifle season here with his son. His son was shooting a .270 and hit a huge buck hard, I think through the neck. The buck was with a doe and when he shot, she ran confused and quartering towards him. He told me that the buck died on the run with a second shot in him, trying to put his nose up under her tail!

I know it is fashionable to say that deer do not breed when the temperature is over 45 F. but I disagree. First of all, I have seen them chasing does when it is 65 F. with their tongues hanging out. Secondly, they are animals. When they want to breed and the time is right, nothing will stop them. Have you ever bred dogs? Try to keep a bitch in heat and a stud dog apart! Doesn't matter what the temperature, they get it done. And thirdly, I don't know how old you are, but I can remember way back when the moon was full and just before I settled down. It didn't matter if it was in a cold cabin, a hot, sweaty beach,... When the rut is on...it's on. These are wild animals and don't come up with the excuses like I have a headache or...I can't dear, it's just too hot. ;D

UPSTATE Redneck: I think you got it right. I've had a lot of fun over the years and I think I have it figured out. My theory is not just opinion, but is based on almost 40 years of fanatically chasing deer and killing a lot of them, observation, writing it down and pouring through all the other rut prognostications so I understand their theories. Charlie A. says this year the rut is not to happen in NY state until after the bow season, at least according to his calendar. Hmmm. Doesn't do you much good if you are an archer. My two scents is: the rut Always has three high points and breeding is done in between each of the high points too. But when is that high point? It varies each year. Is there a pattern? Yes. The last time we had the conjunction of the Autumal Equinox and the Full Moon in September was in 2002. I missed a huge rutting buck that made scrapes as he tended a doe beneath my treestand. I center-punched a red oak tree, as the doe fed under me and was about to blow me in. The date was Nov. 2. Full blown rut. If you have 10 minutes to burn, here is an amateurish video I put together with my rut prediction for this season. I hope you enjoy it. I tried to put some humor in it.

SOB: I guess the term "drive" has a whole new meaning now when guys drive their ATV's in a deer drive. ;D Can some hunter's get any lazier? In the muzzleloader season, I get together with a couple guys and we put on a "push," like Doc said it is more of a guy sitting on stand on one side of a hill and somebody else or maybe two slowly still hunting in a long, slow loop. I don't do drives with a bow or rifle anymore. It's like herding cats and not very productive.

NO garlic? No bourbon? Next you'll say I can't have a beer! ;D But seriously, thanks for the tip. I always thought that our biggest weakness in scent control is our breath. Maybe this would help. I use an apple and chew on a couple every time I take a stand near apple trees...hoping it will act as a cover up. Thanks!

Good point Cabin Fever. The quartering to shot is a bad one to take. Those guys on the TV probably don't know the difference, what's a good shot and what's a bad shot to take. Just because somebody makes a video, doesn't necessarily mean that they are knowledgeable and seasoned hunters. If this is an example of their good hunting judgment, I'm glad they don't show us their bad stuff!

That is a good idea putting "a wrap" on the arrow so it is easier to find in the weeds when they miss or zip through a target. My deer foam target is getting kind of weak in the chest area and sometimes my arrows bury themselves in the sod and when they are camo, they are difficult to find. I might like to experiment with these wraps. Thanks!

What a beauty. But it always amazes me where they go when the season starts. They have their summer hangouts and then they take off for places unknown just after their antlers harden up. And then next year...they are back. My guess is that they head for traditional rutting areas.