Cool article on the Whitetail Rut

[robby denning]

Hey Whitey brothers,

I’ve always been interested in how much more the WT guys know about the rut than us Muley guys. Guess it helps when you’ve all been hunting them a century longer than we have ours.

Anyway, this is a interesting article from The Deer Association:

The Southern Whitetail Rut Map is Crazy. Here's Why.

From July to January, whitetails are breeding somewhere in the South. See the rut map and an explanation for the widely scattered dates.

deerassociation.com

Let me know your thoughts on this.

 

[realunlucky]

Found it a super interesting article. I never realized the timing was so wildly different in the south.

I think the difference in amount of rut knowledge about whitetails vs muledeer mainly due to two facts.

1- most states predominately hunt thier whitetails during the rut putting more hunters afield during those times vs muledeer where traditionally the majority of hunts take place outside the rut.

2- sheer number of hunters after whitetails vs a more limited opportunity for chasing muledeer. If a small percentage of a massive group keep records that's still a bunch of data collected to be evaluated.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[Tex68w]

If the map holds any water at all then it explains why we are almost through the month of November and still have no signs of the rut here in the Texas Hill Country.

 

[Natimblue]

Good article

Curious how temperature can affect rut timing. Our hot Fall seems to have delayed it by a few weeks in NC.

 

[Billy Goat]

Good article

Curious how temperature can affect rut timing. Our hot Fall seems to have delayed it by a few weeks in NC.

Estrous cycles are based on photo period, amount of daylight. Temps change how active the deer are. Basically, deer are going to do what they do, hunters won't see as much of it until colder weather causes an increase in activity.


Now, that timing is different for different deer, that's what the article is explaining, or trying to. But whitetail aren't open season breeders, they will cycle usually no more than 2-3 times to breed.

 

[prm]

In regards to your comment about hunting them longer, that’s true, but also the amount of hunting in any given season. I can hunt whitetails from 1 Sept through 30 Apr where I live in VA. A regular license is for 6 deer (up to 3 bucks). I can get as many doe tags as I want where I am. Growing up in CO with the short seasons, I equate eastern whitetail hunting more with fishing. You go out for a couple hours in the morning or evening as your work schedule allows for months on end. The total time spent in the woods hunting over a season is much, much greater Whitetail hunting.

 

[deerhunt1988]

In my home county in Mississippi, the rut varies nearly a month from the northern end of the county to the southern end. Northern end we have breeding dates as early as mid-December, while in the southern part of the county we could have breeding into February.

I can drive an hour and half east into Alabama and hunt a mid-November rut. This area is the Bankhead National Forest. Its sort of an island forest situation, the rugged forest is almost completely surrounded by more ag/flatland. The deer reintroduced here were from Wisconsin, and have kept similar breeding dates as their Wisconsin ancestors.

I can drive an hour to an hour and a half north and hunt an early December rut in TN. A little farther north and i'm back into a November rut.

I can drive an hour and a half west and hunt an early December rut in MS.

Then as my local rut is winding down in January, I can drive 30 minutes east and hunt a late Jan-Feb. rut in Alabama.

The late Jan./Feb ruts are a result of where the restocked deer originally came from. The late Jan. rut in the southern end of my home county and across the line Alabama is from south MS/south Bama deer being brought up here. They've just kept their later rutting dates.

Pretty cool stuff and makes for a long rut to hunt!

Take a look at our breeding date map for Mississippi. This map was generated from THOUSANDS of data points. Data points being does harvested during "herd health checks" post season. During these health checks, a variety of biological data is collected , one being the age of fetuses. Which can be backdated to determine when the doe was bred.

 

[loganwayne]

I live in the western part of NC but also hunt in the center of the state down east they have the typical November rut. But at home it's usually second week of December. With alot of good buck chasing happening after the season goes out. Really the coast has a rut that happens earlier. So I could hunt three major ruts that happen at different times in my state

 

[Boarmaster]

Where I hunt in Alabama our rut is late January into early Feb. I get some odd looks from fellow deer hunters when I talk about going on my rut hunt in late Jan Into Feb. Lowdes County is where we are at in Greenville. South of Montgomery.

 

[FLATHEAD]

Killed my best Whitetail on Thanksgiving Day of '92. I found this deer 6 weeks earlier, making scrapes in early Oct. on public land in Alabama, where in this particular area the rut is sometime the first two weeks of Jan.
His neck was swelled up and hocks were dark, smelled strong.
Appeared to be trailing a doe when I shot him.
You just never know.

 

[KHNC]

Simple, Whitetail bucks are much hornier than muleys. I hear eating sage leads to ED. Whitetail dont eat sage, therefore are able to breed from Sept-February in the South. Its a target rich environment for bucks in most of the south too. Does all over. They dont even have to wait for ladies night at the local food plot. Just head over to a cornpile and pick one out.

 

[guylaga]

Last two bucks I arrowed in West Texas came on December 19th and December 27th.

The one on the 19th was chasing a doe along with two other smaller bucks, watched one make a scrape right before drawing back.

Both of them had swole necks.