Thursday, September 07, 2006
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Rut is a three-letter word for deer hunting success
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Matt Knox won’t soon forget that morning he spent in a treestand the second week of last year’s muzzleloading deer season. By the time he climbed out of his stand at 10:30 a.m. he had seen eight different antlered bucks.
“They appeared to be everywhere, coursing the property like bird dogs looking for does. It was amazing,” said Knox, who is the deer biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Hunters use one word to describe what was happening around Knox’s treestand. That word is “rut.”
You might say that “rut” is another three-letter word for sex in the life of a deer. It is a time of heightened sexual interest and without it there would be a whole lot fewer trophy deer killed each season. The rut can cause a buck to cast aside some of his survival instincts and take chances that he normally wouldn’t take. It is the clink in his armor.
Smart hunters plan their activities around the rut. So the question for many along about this time of the year is this: “When will the peak of the rut occur in 2006?”
When I received that question from reader Jason Hale, I relayed it to Knox.
“This one is easy,” he said. “We have been collecting reproductive data from across the state for several years and although the peak date of breeding varies a little from year to year, the average is always around mid-November.”
While the best time to go hunting during the deer season is anytime you can get away, be aware if you are looking for a buck the peak hunting is going to be Nov. 11-17 of the muzzleloading season and Nov. 18-25 of the general firearms seasons. Sure, big deer will be killed outside of those dates, but if you want proof about the impact of the rut just go to a big game trophy show and see how the trophy heads line up with the dates of the peak of the rut. I recall cataloging trophy deer that had been entered in a contest and an amazing number of them had been killed the same day.
There are many clubhouse theories on what jumpstarts the rut; cold temperatures, the moon phrase, the food supply among them. Most of it is what Knox calls “bunk.”
The rut is triggered by photo period, he said. The seasonal change of light affects the pituitary glands in bucks, which stimulates the release of testosterone, a male sex hormone produced in the testes.
There are some secondary factors involved. “Healthier deer with a more balanced sex ratio and an older buck age structure will have an earlier and more intense rut,” Knox said. This can explain some of the variance in the timing of the rut.
While outdoor magazine writers churn out lots of copy on the pre-rut, the rut and the post-rut, in reality most does are bred in a pretty short period and then the rut is over, he said.
When you are afield at the magical peak time, you can be rewarded with a parade of bucks like Knox observed last muzzleloading season. It is a show that you won’t want to miss.
