Lunar table guys...When should the rut peak?

unless this hot weather hangs around the rut by moon phases should be early this year.

Oh Yeah, my KY bowhunting weekend. I hope you're right.

The first 15 days of Nov have always been the best time to see big bucks on the move from what I have seen in my 29 years of hunting deer in Indiana. I alway plan time off for these 15 days if possible. And I live in South Cental Indiana

November 4th last year had bucks running all over the woods I hunt. The seeking phase of the rut is great!

thanks.

Charlie is a friend of mine, and he's a great guy, but his idea that the rut is driven by the Hunter's Full Moon (2nd full moon after the fall equinox) is a load of doo-doo. His idea has been disproved repeatedly.

Now without question moon phases affect daylight deer movement patterns, changing the amount of activity hunters see during daylight. But moon phases do not change breeding dates. Remember that the vast majority of breeding occurs at night, when no one sees it.

To test this idea that the Hunter's Moon drives the breeding process, a couple of years ago a large number of the top white-tailed deer researchers in the world pooled all their fetal conception date data and compared that data to Hunter's Full Moon dates each year. If the Hunter's Moon date drives breeding, the peak of breeding for each location would be the same number of days after the full moon date. Yet that isn't what they found at all. They found what had been known for decades, that the peak breeding dates for any given location are the same from year to year, not varying more than a couple of days difference over the entire period, no matter how many years of data they looked at. Obviously, the full moon has no influence on breeding dates. Photoperiod (the length of the nights as the nights get longer in fall) drives localized breeding dates.

In addition, each given location can see a very different peak breeding date. This is well established. Breeding dates can be very late in parts of the South, while much earlier in the far North. However, this rule doesn't always hold true. Some areas of the Deep South have very early peak breeding dates, even earlier than in the North. For instance, peak breeding dates along the SC and GA coasts are in mid to late October.

Unique peak breeding dates are genetically programmed into localized deer herds. The actual dates will be perfected by Natural Selection to produce fawns at the optimal time of year for fawn survival.

As an example of how breeding dates don't vary from year to year, and aren't linked to the Hunter's Full Moon, some great data was published in an article in the latest issue of Quality Whitetails magazine. This article displays some very good fetal conception date data from Canada (New Brunswick). Charlie claim's that the affects of the full moon on the rut are stronger the farther north the deer are, so data from Canada should show the affects of the Hunter's full moon strongest. Yet fetuses from over 1,600 does over a nine year period showed peak breeding dates occur on or about the exact same date every year, while the date of the full moon ranged--during this study--over a 22 day period. The data shows:

Year-----Peak Breeding Date--Hunter's Full Moon Date

1997-------Nov. 27-------------------Nov. 14
1998-------Nov. 29-------------------Nov. 4
1999-------Nov. 28-------------------Oct. 25
2000-------Nov. 29-------------------Nov. 12
2001-------Nov. 29-------------------Nov. 1
2002-------Nov. 26-------------------Oct. 21
2003-------Nov. 27-------------------Nov. 9
2004-------Nov. 26-------------------Oct. 28
2005-------Nov. 23-------------------Nov. 16

Unequivocally, the full moon does NOT have anything to do with the peak of breeding. It is linked to the calendar date in each specific geographic location.

Many, many large fetal data sets from across North America like the one above exist, and they all show the same thing; the moon has nothing to do with the peak of breeding.

The first 2 weeks of November has been my most productive deer hunting.

I usually dont even step in the woods until October 25th.

There is no doubt that the first 2 weeks of November can be magical. I have the most confidence from Nov 4th to Veteran's Day. That week has always been peak movement time around central Indiana in my observations.

It can't be during the bow season, the bow benders are always screaming to take the gun season out of the rut!