Rut & Pre-Rut Timing

[nyslowhand]

You anima!!

[Cabin Fever]

Plus, these poor SOB's only get it for a few days per YEAR!! OUCH!!

This reminds me. I was watching a hunting show on the Outdoor Channel a couple days ago called Inside Outdoors. They were bowhunting during the rut in Kansas. Before they showed this particular hunt, they said that they weren't prepared for what they saw next.... A big buck appears chasing a doe hard. I kept getting glimpses of something and wondered to myself, what the hell is that colored thing was next to the buck all the time? As the buck got closer and in the open, you could see it was an arrow hanging out of his shoulder!! It looked like a sharp quartering away shot with just the broadhead burried in his shoulder, but the rest of the arrow was bouncing around along side him as he ran chasing the doe!! He chased that doe HARD and right by the hunters, but they couldn't get him to even slow down for them to get a shot at him. Now if an arrow in the shoulder didn't even seem to to slow his desire to breed, I don't know what would? I must admit, that would probably even slow my libido for a while! 

[Buckstopshere]

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!

[UpStateRedNeck]

Oh I can't wait to watch that video when I get home!  I don't think it will download here at work, that's impressive though!

Appreciate all the input guys, I'll probably wait until the first week of October to request the time off.

[CNYlungbuster]

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

Couldn't agree more while I still beieve that extremely hot weather will just push them nocturnal....like cabin fever said "these poor SOB'S only get a few days a year"  You can bet that thier gonna be making the most of it. 

[Outdoorcountry]

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

LOL!  That's a funny response and I agree.  I never said they wouldn't breed....Only the intensity of the rut is affected.  During breeding the buck is with a hot doe all day regardless of ALL variables.  But when it's hott, they don't move AS MUCH as they do when it's cold.

[sweet old bill]

so we are saying that the chase period is from the last week of Oct tru the fiorst two weeks of Nov....then the next 2 weeks will be the actual breeding of the doe's....

[Buckstopshere]

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.

[Outdoorcountry]

so we are saying that the chase period is from the last week of Oct tru the fiorst two weeks of Nov....then the next 2 weeks will be the actual breeding of the doe's....

My prediction is that the 3rd week of November will have the most all day movement of bucks as they chase does entering estrus but are not yet ready to breed.

My favorite time to hunt is the seeking phase which I think will be the 2nd week of November.  I have had good success calling bucks and having them respond during this period.

[Doc]

My prediction is that once the chase phase has begun, I will be seeing deer everywhere but on the trails. I will see deer in places I never would expect to see them, and they will be just about impossible to get set up within bow range as they ram around the woods at full tilt pestering every doe they can come in contact with, unless I just happen to get lucky (that would be a good day to go out and buy a lottery ticket. The part of rut that I have the most luck with is when the bucks start spending hours wandering around, tending and creating scrapes. That's when they are the most careless, and on the move and scent-checking deer trails. Once that is over, all bets are off and the next phase of rut should be called the "luck phase".  ;D

Doc

[nyslowhand]

The "luck phase" falls within the Planets therory, nothing to do with the moon.

If all the planets are perfectly aligned, you're in the right place at the right time you could get lucky (hunting!!).

[Buckstopshere]

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

[sweet old bill]

No matter the time I still will be out there. Being retired I sure seem to have the time and the woods in Late Oct and early Nov are the place to be.

I wish all will get the buck of there dreams this year.

I finally saw one that fits that requirement on the 4th target of my 3D course with a small 4 point buck he was a big 10 plus buck.

[nyslowhand]

Three seperate ruts, interesting thought.

I don't agree with it, but an interesting opinion anyways.

[Cabin Fever]

I just watched the latest Deer and Deer Hunting show on Versus. Charlie Alshemier was on there with his annual rut predictions. He said that after the Oct. full moon, activity will pick up some until the first few days of Nov. From Nov. 7-14, there will be very little activity and sightings. Then activity will be great the week of Thanksgiving (gun season). Sounds like he's really sticking his neck out on this one, predicting so little activity the 2nd week of Nov.

[Buckstopshere]

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?

[nyslowhand]

Not directed at any specific individuals or disputing anyone's opinion, but:

When you think you have deer all figured out, you're in for a huge disappointment!

All the historical patterning for this annual event goes out the window if the weather is uncooperative.

Also, the deer are not that predictable, especially during the rut time frame.

It's an annual event that's going to happen when their ready!

A hunter plans with the information and time they have available.

They spend as much time in the woods as possible and hopefully their in the right place at the right time!!

Peroid.

[sweet old bill]

In over 40 years of hunting I always have found that for some reason in the southern tier of NY I did the best in the last week  of Oct and the first week of Nov....I can not think back to when I had buck running after the doe in the 3rd or 4th week of Nov...I know he is the Pro but I just never have seen it that late in Nov...how about you and your past history of hunting..

[Larry]

if i could only hunt 1 time frame it would be nov 7-15th

[Doc]

if i could only hunt 1 time frame it would be nov 7-15th

Thankfully, I don't have to make that choice since I am retired and can hunt whenever I want. Besides all this studying of moon phases and such puts me in mind of witchcraft and is entirely too complicated and contradictory for me to bother myself with.

However, I will say that the one part of rut that I find to be the absolute most frustrating is that time when we begin to see deer running wildly through the woods like a pack of dogs are on their heels, with the does trying to keep one step ahead of a pushy buck. That is the time when trails are abandoned and entire home ranges are uprooted, and every bit of scouting and patterning goes right out the window. During that time, you would have just as good a chance of getting in bow range if you were standing in the middle of a parking lot as you do in the woods.  ;D  When all that crazy nonsense is going on, I spend a whole lot of time wishing I had stood over there, or maybe over there, or more likely, wish I had a rifle in my hands.

There was one time during that crazy period when I actually got a buck that was chasing a doe to come real close. I did that because when the doe came barreling through, I repositioned myself to cover the ground that she had just run over. Sure enough, here came Mr. Goofy trotting along with his nose to the ground like a beagle. Only one problem ....... he was traveling just under a full run and wouldn't hold still. I can't make that kind of moving shot. So I made a little vocal noise (a bleat) to stop him for a shot. Nope, not on your life. So I whistled. He never raised his head or even slowed up. So I hollered at him. Nope, not interested. So I jumped out and waved my arms. I'm not sure how I ever would have gotten the shot off even if he had stopped, but I was getting desparate. Well, as it turned out, he never even slowed and all I could do was just watch him leave along the same direction as the doe did. So when I say that is the most frustrating time of the year, it is with good reason.

Doc

[nyslowhand]

Good thing you didn't have your doe estrous lure out.

You could have gotten hurt or worse. ???

[Doc]

Good thing you didn't have your doe estrous lure out.

You could have gotten hurt or worse. ???

You're right! that guy had one thing on his mind and was not about to be distracted. It's just a good thing I was not standing where the doe had just gone or I would probably have hoof prints on my face today.

Doc

[Buckstopshere]

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.

[Doc]

One of the things that makes me a bit of a skeptic is the verification inaccuracies or it's probably better to say the potential inaccuracies. I have seen a lot of rut activity over the years, but I am also aware of how easy it is to miss being in the right place at the right time to witness or record changes in that activity. For example, I have seen the most obvious sign of rut activity where bucks are chasing does all over the woods. Usually none of that occurs on any trail, but rather is just a doe's panicked attempt to get away from the buck. On some of the same days that I have seen this craziness going on, My brother-in-law a few ravines over saw nothing. I have also had the opposite happen where he saw the action and I saw nothing. All the signs of rut are extremely local and sporadic, so for me to actually detect the exact day that some phase of rut commenced or spiked, gets to be somewhat coincidental. The other thing that I would have problems defining is whether whatever I saw was 1 unique happening or whether deer all through the woods are doing the same things.

Another example is determining when the first scrape activity has commenced. I find a scrape ..... can I state with any certainty that that is the first scrape of the season?  Can I assume that all the rest of the bucks in the woods have begun their scrape activity on that day or even close to that day? How many years or decades of observations does it take to be able to state exact dates and conditions when certain phases of rut have commenced and are indeed following some theory. Sounds like a pretty tough thing to document in stone to the point where the theory becomes fact. Can it even be done?

What exactly is the proper scientific system for the verification process? I can concoct theories, but what army am I going to use to verify my theories? :-\

Doc

[nyslowhand]

Like you said (Doc), applying scientific methods and data collection would be fruitless or generalized at best.

It also as you mentioned a very generalized occurrence to the specific does home range that comes into estrous.

This is an annual event that occurs in a specific species of wildlife.

Is there such a thing as hard, fact based data that can predict wildlife behavior with any accuracy? Wild being the key word.

Generalized predictions or "Best Guess-timates", maybe.

We all know when it generally occurs and hope to be hunting during that timeframe.