The Rut

Some debate wheither something triggers the rut or if it just simply kicks in at the same time every year regaurdless of outside influences.

Interested in seeing what your take on this is and what do you base your belief on.

Change of seas.

The weather does have effects on the rut,but I go by the second full moon after the harvest moon,this year it's showing it to happen around the 2nd week of Nov,now as far as weather affecting the rut alot of people think that if the temps are warm that it delays the rut,NOT TRUE,all it does is makes all the action happen at night when it's cooler,yeah you will probally still see some young bucks out roaming around but the "Big Boys" will lay low most of the time until dark,I got first hand experience of it last year up in Indiana,first morning it was a nice 31 degrees and a buddy of mine stuck a mid 160's buck,but the next 5 days the temps got up into the high 60's and yes this was the first week of Nov,all the deer activity came to a hault during the day,but when we would be driving to and from the properties in the dark we would see bucks running does all over the place.

Yeah I am with Volway on this one. He hit the nail on the head.

I'm with Steve.

Very well said Steve I totally agree

I'm going to say it happens the same time every year, now that time could be and is different according to where you are. I hunt in several different counties throughout the state of Tennessee and talk with hunters during the season from Bristol to Memphis daily. Rut dates differ here as they do Texas, Kansas to Michigan. In the county I was born and raised the peak of the rut hits on or within a day or two of Thanksgiving. Stewart County is a place Ive hunted for 15 or so years only 200 miles NW and I believe the rut to peak around the 10th of November.

I'm with Steve on the effects weather and moonlight have on rut activity during daylight hours. Unseasonably warm weather or full moons can all but shut down daytime activity.

Weather does have some affect on it. I had a chance to talk with someone that owns a deer farm for urine sell and I have no doubt it's daylight. The amount of daylight available to a deer will trigger the rut. That's why it seems to happen about the same time each year. The guy I talked to can send his does into estrus by bringing them inside and shortening the amount of light they receive. Same with bucks. He can get them into rut in September by doing this. I asked about this several times to him and each time his answer was the same. Science don't lie and when he changes how much light they get each day over a couple of weeks they go into rut. That was the first chance I've had to do more than just read abotu it from all the experts and he had some incredibly great points and had been at this for many years so it's hard for me to argue this isn't what does it

Yep Robert thats right,thats why the second full moon after harvest moon is the ticket,thats when the "daylight " hours shorten dramatically.

Why is the rut in many parts of Texas late December and other states the begining of November? Isnt the loss of daylight the same throughout the US?

TRR wrote:

Why is the rut in many parts of Texas late December and other states the begining of November? Isnt the loss of daylight the same throughout the US?

That I can't answer. I've hunted from Kentucky to Wisconsin and from Ohio to Kansas and everywhere in between and the rut is always about the second week of November in all those places. We have a second rut about the second week in December too but it's nothing like the first one

Just a little info on the rut,Fall equinox moon (Harvest Moon)

This year, prior to the start of the 2010 deer season, the full moon and the autumn equinox are almost on the same day.

This in itself is a bit of an unusual celestial event.

But what does it mean for whitetail deer hunters in the Northeast and Midwest?

The fall equinox, that moment in time each year when daylight and dark are exactly the same length, can be marked on the calendar as either on Sept. 21 or Sept. 22. At that moment, night begins being longer than on each prior day.

And at that moment, the photoperiodic switch is tripped in many plants and animals, especially those which are termed by biologists as "short-day breeders," of which the whitetail is one.

Each year the closest moon to the equinox may be as far away as two weeks.

The last time the harvest moon, the common name of the full moon, rose close to the equinox in September was in 2002. Back in 1991, the full moon came up over the eastern horizon on Sept. 23, and in 1983 the full moon rose on Sept. 22.

In each of those years, the whitetail rut reached its peak 10 days after the following full moon in October, called appropriately the hunter's moon.

The hunter's moon is one of the main signals for the whitetail deer of the Northeast and the Midwest that it is time to breed.

How is the moon linked to an animal's biological rhythms? The theories seem far-fetched.

But these moon theories are based on nuts and bolts science, though certainly not without controversy in much the same way that we see the current debate on global warming, the doubt that emerged when Raymond Dart presented his findings from the South African caves to his contemporary anthropologists, and the controversy that emerged when an Italian scientist had the audacity to put forth radical scientific notion that the earth was round.

Science has penetrated the whitetails' breeding pattern and its relation to daylight and moonlight by studying blind deer and by being able to skew whitetail estrus patterns by keeping deer in the dark and artificially (with lights) create a "false rut."

As in the fall of 2002, the 2010 season is actually a "normal" fall because of the timing of the moon phases. On some hunting seasons, the full moon in September (normally the harvest moon) has occurred exceedingly early, so early in fact that actually the first full moon in October was closer to the equinox, making it, by definition, the harvest moon. (Like last year, in 2009, when the harvest moon was Oct. 3.) Of course, that made the hunter's moon land in November and consequently a later rut.

That only happens "once in a blue moon." And that is what happened this past December (2009) and also in November of 2001, two full moons in the same month. It's very rare, usually occurring only once every three and and a half years or so. By the way, the second moon of December was the "blue moon." But what did it do to the whitetail's breeding pattern?

Well, those of us who were out there saw that the rut was quite repressed during October and really didn't get rolling until the second week of November. Usually things start popping in the first week of November, or late October.

Of course, there are other factors besides the moon that affect the whitetails' breeding cycle. Bucks have their own metabolic and hormonal patterns, part of which are set off and set up by the does' chemical messages. And, in turn, the females are triggered by the bucks' scent, as we say, but really it is his chemical messages.

So last year, in 2009, the rut was unusual and a bit late. This year, the rut should begin to rock 'n' roll around 10 days earlier, or during the first week of November -- a classic, "normal" year.

Therefore, hunters should be in the trees at the start of November, expecting to fill the tag with a nice buck.

The tail end of the 2010 archery season, around the final week, could see a drop-off of significant daytime (diurnal) buck movement. My advice for the 2010 season, as it was for the 2002 season, the 1991 season and the 1983 season: "Get 'er done early."

Great info there Steve. Thanks for posting and I couldn't agree more with you on the rut and what effects it.

Thanks for the info Steve

Yeah great info Steve.

Thanks for the info Big Steve. Good to know.

Good read there Volway, thanks for posting. I shot one of my best bucks in 2002 and after reading that I have high hopes for the upcoming season. That was a git-r-done early year to.
Good luck to all this coming rut.

Steve second week of November works for the area I hunt in middle Tn but, seems like there is quite a few wholes in that therory. Peak breeding times range from 3rd week of January in Alabama to last Second week of November in North Dakota and everything in between.

I believe that evolution and survival play a much larger roll in breeding dates than the moon. From what I have read deer in the north breed earlier, and have shorter breeding seasons, than deer in the south, because spring arrives earlier and summer lasts longer in the south, which allows for a longer growing season for forage, and for the fawns.

If deer are breeding at different times all over eastern North America (and we all experience the same hunters moon), doesn't this destroyed the moon theory?

Second week in Nov. usually when the rut starts here. But the last couple years, it seems to start later like 3 weeks into nov.

For hunting the rut our season pretty much dictates the week I take off. The PA archery season runs till the end of the second week of Nov so the last week of the season is when I like to hit it hard. It comes back in the Monday after Thanksgiving with guns blazin.

TRR I too live in middle Tn,I go by this moon phase for the area's I hunt Iowa, Illinois, & Ky,I'm sure it is different for most folks,but in years past that is what I have gone by in those area's that I hunt and they are pretty much dead-on every year (give a day here or there)

Perfect info, Steve.