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Bucks are more active, but what about the does? Pennsylvania research data show that does decrease their movements slightly in October and then they stay about the same even during the rut.
Oct 6, 2022 · STAGE 5: The Post Rut. Late November to early December. In most places, the last days of November and first days of December are pretty uneventful in terms of rut activity, with a couple notable exceptions. In areas with unbalanced buck-to-doe ratios, a percentage of adult does might have been missed.
- Josh Honeycutt
- The Pennsylvania Experiment
- Can Older Bucks Affect The Rut?
- What About The Moon?
- Conclusion
In 2002 the Pennsylvania Game Commission implemented new Antler Point Restrictions (APRs). Traditionally if a deer grew at least one antler longer than three inches, or had at least one antler with two or more points, it was defined as an antlered deer and legal for harvest. For decades, 80 percent of antlered deer harvested each year in Pennsylvan...
What effect did this change in the age structure have on the timing of breeding behavior? This is a question we posed before APRs were implemented. Because the rut is about breeding, we can determine when the rut occurs by determining when fawns are born. The way we did this was to check road-killed does for embryos in late winter and early spring....
If APRs did not affect the breeding dates, what about other environmental factors? Does the moon phase affect breeding date? Specifically, how well did the rutting moon—the second full moon after the autumn equinox—predict the rut in Pennsylvania? We can use our data from 1999-2006 to answer this question as well. In the table below we list the dat...
Should we be surprised that timing of the rut was not influenced by changes in the age structure of the population or moon phase? We probably shouldn’t be surprised and for a couple of reasons. First and most importantly, for deer in more northern latitudes, birth date of fawns is timed to maximize ideal rearing conditions. The earlier in the year ...
A buck’s ability to keep up the rutting chase in the post-rut moon is possible, but in most cases highly unlikely. Why? Research (Lambase 1972) shows that a buck’s sperm count in December is about half what it was in early November. So, physically, their drive isn’t there.
By all accounts, the answer is no. Scientific research on this topic is sparse, but data that do exist show that movement and activity are not affected by the moon. GPS-collared bucks in Pennsylvania showed no change in movement between full and new moons. The same goes for bucks studied in Texas.
Oct 28, 2021 · The rut. In October, the deer are out searching for other deer to continue the cycle of life. If you are hunting deer during the rut, he said, scouting for a buck’s home range is key.
Oct 18, 2012 · The research suggests those bucks stick pretty close to home, even during the rut. They may wander a bit before and after the peak of the rut, but older bucks seem to know, more than younger bucks, when it's time to get up and move. They may sit out the prelude, waiting for the main act.
