Bucks Fighting October 5th??? ...What's up?

[TRAP]

Originally posted by rolltidehunter:
Rut will be the same  as last year. Bucks spar quite often. Even in early season.

I agree

[Overspined]

It's all based on the moon, same each year. Weather can change daylight activity each year of course, but remember its kind of a bell shaped curve.  A few will be bred early, a few late, and most in the middle which doesn't really change year to year.  If you are lucky to catch a hot doe or one near cycle, go get em!!!  The bucks may fight anytime they have antlers, or kick when they don't.

[Terry Green]

Thanks guys....in all my years, I've never seen or heard of this much activity so early. Especially full blown fighting. Just curious as to 'what's up'.

[StanM]

My father-in-law rifle hunts here in Oregon. He said this past weekend he saw two different bucks that looked like their necks were already swollen. Very early for around here. I have no idea why.

[pukwana]

I was out lasr night and had two bucks cross upwind of me and I could smell them before I could see them, I'm guessing 30 yds away with little to no breeze.  They were rank, and their necks were starting to swell.

[Izzy]

Tuesday morning I saw a buck laying down scrapes. Saw more fresh scrapes on another section oof the property and a mess of rubs, 2 of them 5 yards from my stand. For me this is more activity than I am used to this time of year.

[Izzy]

Yesterday I saw a doe running, stop look back. When she continued on she made that high pitched clicking grunt. Very exciting time to be in the woods around here, no telling what's going on.

[Mojostick]

Unless the earth has changed it's axis, the rut shouyld take place the same time as it has for 1000's of years.
Photo-period dictates the rut. Now, there can be some issue's down south, if you have poor buck to doe ratio and over-population that results in lots of late dropped fawns. But that's more of man-made problem and QDM may be the fix needed.
Here's a good read...


Whitetail Myths & Truths

With the amount of information on the Internet, you can’t believe everything you read. My good friend Bob Humphrey, a wildlife biologist and outdoor writer, and I were discussing some of the major fallacies about whitetails and, more specifically, whitetail hunting. We both agreed that for the most part, wildlife biologists have fallen short in educating the most underused segment of wildlife management — hunters. At the same time, hunters (and biologists, too) have failed miserably in educating the public on the benefits of hunting.
 
Recently, the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) signed up member number 50,000. With many state wildlife agencies feeling the pinch of fiscal shortages, the QDMA has filled a niche to inform and educate all us deer fanatics on the difference between fact and fiction.

Many hunters still believe the following myths to be gospel.
 
Fallacy #1: The moon determines the timing of the rut.
Many diehard hunters believe rut timing is dynamic and correlates to the moon phase. In short, depending on where you live, some believe the second full moon after the fall equinox, which occurs on different dates from year to year, determines the timing of the rut.

Although some outdoor writers may claim that moon phase or position dictates rut timing or movement patterns of deer, no one can produce a magic formula to make it so. Here’s my advice: Instead of planning your vacation time to hunt based on the moon theory, hunt before, during, and after the peak of the rut. For the majority of the country, the rut correlates to photoperiod or the decreasing amount of daylight hours — the second week of November across a majority of whitetail range.

Even if you still don’t believe that photoperiod triggers the rut, let’s assume you’re the deer god. As deer god, you would want your does to drop their fawns during the time of peak nutrition. This time period during the end of May (across much of the whitetail’s range) ensures the quality and quantity of does’ milk to be at their highest. Under the moon theory, the fall equinox can vary by more than one month, which would mean that fawns may or may not drop during the period of peak nutrition. As the deer god, you’re smart enough to see the fallacy in that plan. Many of your does and fawns would die due to inadequate amounts of quality milk. To summarize, the moon theory occurs in magazines and not in the wild.
 
Fallacy #2: The rut has four distinct phases: seeking phase, chase phase, breeding phase, and post-breeding phase.
Just like the moon theory, these phases of the rut are manmade descriptions, and no sound data whatsoever delineate the rut into these phases. Like almost all mammals, some does enter estrus early (prerut), most are on time (rut), and some are late (post-rut). The percentage of actual breeding fits very well on a classic bell curve (see Figure 1). Many does on the right-hand side of the curve are fawns breeding for the first time. Obviously, not all rutting activity can be assigned to a specific phase. Some bucks may be running does while others are actually breeding, and still others are bedding alone.

Fallacy #3: Home range for all whitetails is one square mile.
Although most hunters believe a deer’s yearly home range is roughly one square mile, home range size depends primarily on the quality of habitat. A buck could live his entire life in less than 450 acres, or two-thirds of a square mile, if the habitat is of high-enough quality. Similarly, many deer that live in urban environments have home ranges smaller than 400 acres. Conversely, deer that live in poor habitat may have annual home ranges of many square miles. When biologists combine the various data sets, they simply say that the home ranges of whitetails average out to roughly one square mile.


These are actual conception data from the state of Pennsylvania. Note the classic bell-shaped curve and the tail on the right-hand side. This is due to doe fawns breeding for the first time. Other states most likely follow the same trend, with highly productive Midwest states showing a higher percentage of fawn breeding on the right-hand side of the curve.
 
Fallacy #4: Dominant bucks do most of the breeding.
Although many believe this to be true, dominance in the deer herd comes from two factors: weight and attitude. New research shows that even if a buck sports Boone and Crockett headgear, on average he may be responsible for only three fawns per year. Additional genetic studies have shown that even in herds with balanced age structures, bucks of 31⁄2 or 41⁄2 years of age are the dominant breeders. So far, the world record stud buck sired only six offspring per season. Note: This does not include breeding attempts, only the number of fawns sired.
 
Fallacy #5: Mineral blocks ensure big antlers.
Mineral blocks do nothing to increase antler production. With that said, mineral blocks can’t hurt, either. Because mineral supplements are relatively cheap to purchase, why not supply deer with mineral supplements? Look for products that have a calcium-to-phosphorus ratio of 2:1, with no more than 35 percent salt. You’ll find many products containing 90 percent or more salt or sodium chloride (NaCl). If you want to spend your hard-earned money on a bag of salt, I’d suggest you go to the grocery store and buy some for a whole lot less money. Yes, deer love salt, but it offers little nutrition, and other minerals and trace elements are more important. Additionally, deer primarily use mineral supplements during the late winter to early fall time period. Note: All states east of the Mississippi River lack selenium (Se).

Fallacy #6: Buck-to-doe ratios are infallible.
Many state wildlife agencies will tell you they have a buck-to-doe ratio of 1:2. Hunters will tell you it’s more like one buck to eight-plus does. In reality, both biologists and hunters are correct. When biologists determine sex ratios, they look at adult deer. In contrast, hunters include all antlerless deer, such as button bucks, in their estimation of sex ratio. Believe it or not, it’s biologically impossible to have a skewed sex ratio of more than one buck to eight does — although I’ve witnessed herds that come very close.

Based on common population models, most biologists assume a sex ratio of one buck to one doe at conception. I’ll argue that biologists need to re-examine this assumption. Various data demonstrate a bias toward bucks at birth. However, button bucks definitely suffer a higher mortality rate than do doe fawns, so by the time hunting season comes along, the sex ratio of yearling deer balances out to a 1:1 ratio.

With that said, I’ve examined reproductive tracts in urban areas that reveal sex ratios of 65 percent
bucks to 35 percent does. Obviously, these data don’t correlate to a whole state, but it’s important to know that many population models were established when deer populations were just starting to increase. For some time now, deer populations have met or grossly exceeded carrying capacities of their habitat. Thus, in some herds, the sex ratios of fetuses may not be 1:1.


CJ’s Summary: Like many of you, I’m a deer geek and proud of it. For more biological information on deer, be sure to check out the Quality Deer Management Associ-ation at  1-800-209-DEER  call for membership


Read more:    http://www.bowhunter.com/feature_articles_bw_whitetailmyths_200808.html#ixzz2hKIQJgIa

[Mojostick]

Another good read for soutrhern hunters...


A Year in the Life of the White-tailed Deer
 
School of Forest Resources
University of Georgia
 
By the time you read this, the peak of the rut should be pretty much history for most of the state. However, if you should happen to be hunting in the extreme southwestern corner of the state, you can still look forward to a rut peaking sometime in mid-December.

In last month’s issue of GON, Daryl Kirby presented an excellent article on the timing of the rut. Accompanying the article was a map indicating the timing of the peak of the rut in various regions. This map provided some invaluable information to help hunters plan their trips afield depending on where they hunt.

The map also provided some of the clues for a biological riddle that has intrigued biologists and hunters alike for decades. An astute deer enthusiast certainly would have noticed that the peak of the rut across the state can vary by as much as 2 months, and most of this variation is due to the rut occurring progressively later in an east-to-west direction. This trend continues beyond the state borders, with an earlier rut in coastal South Carolina, and a progressively later rut through Alabama, Mississippi and into Louisiana. Interestingly, the rut gets earlier again in east Texas and then progressively later across the Lone Star state.

The riddle here is ‘Why should the rut vary across the state and the Southeast?’ and related to that is the question of ‘What then is the mechanism that triggers the rut?’

If you pose these questions to 10 different biologists, you’re likely to receive 10 different opinions, because we really don’t know the answers. There have been numerous theories proposed which suggest a variety of influences such as a genetic cue depending on the stocking source of the deer, the lunar cue dependent on the timing of the full moon, and the herd age structure and sex ratio. Let’s take a look at these theories based on some scientific data (but liberally sprinkled with my opinion!).

One thing that we know for certain is that in the temperate regions of North America, the breeding chronology of whitetails is primarily under the influence of changing photoperiod. Deer, like a variety of other animals, are short-day breeders. This means that their breeding season occurs at a time when the length of the day is decreasing.
Inside the deer’s brain is a gland called the pineal gland that secretes a hormone called melatonin. However, this gland only secretes melatonin under the influence of darkness. So, as nights grow longer, the portion of the day during which melatonin is secreted increases. So, it is in this way that deer can keep a ‘chemical clock’ that tracks the changing seasons. As the duration of melatonin secretion increases, it allows a series of other physiological changes to occur. Testosterone levels in the buck start to increase resulting in maturation of the antlers, shedding of velvet, increased aggression, increased sperm production, and increased interest in the does. Similar things occur in the does, with increased ovarian activity resulting in changing levels of estrogen and progesterone, which ultimately culminate with estrus and ovulation.

In the northern portions of the whitetail’s range, timing of reproduction is critical. Fawns born too early as a result of early breeding would be at risk of a spring storm, or maternal does may not have had sufficient time to restore body condition in the spring to provide sufficient care. Similarly, late born fawns may not have sufficient time to grow and develop sufficient fat stores to allow them to survive their first winter. In addition, photoperiod changes much more rapidly in more northerly latitudes, allowing the melatonin clock to time reproduction more precisely.

In southern ranges, the timing of reproduction is less critical, and fawns born early or late likely would have a greater chance of survival than those born ‘up North’. Photoperiod also changes more slowly in southern latitudes. Therefore, because seasonal climate changes are not as severe, fawns born in central Georgia in late May or early June tend to have about the same survival rates as fawns born in July in portions of Alabama, or even August in Mississippi.

So, although photoperiod is the overriding factor that ensures that breeding in the South occurs in the fall or winter, the somewhat forgiving climate in the southern states allows the timing of the rut to differ among different deer herds. But the questions remain: Why do different deer herds have different rutting periods across the south? and What triggers the rut in the different areas?

Probably the most commonly proposed explanation for the differing breeding dates across the South is that deer herds were restocked in the mid-1900’s with deer of varying origin, and the current breeding dates reflect the origins of these herds. In other words, there appears to be a genetic tie that dictates breeding chronology based on where the deer originally came from.

However, in my opinion, the stocking source theory doesn’t explain all of the trends that we see, and certainly is not well supported by the data. For example, the origins of the deer herds in many Piedmont counties (and other parts of the state as well) were primarily some of the coastal islands including Blackbeard, Ossabaw, and Jekyll. On these islands, most breeding occurs in late September or early October. However, the peak breeding in the counties receiving many of these deer usually falls around early or mid-November. As another example, much of Alabama was restocked with deer originating from Clarke and surrounding counties in the southwestern portion of the state. However, the timing of breeding across Alabama can be highly variable. These and other examples suggest that it is highly unlikely that there is a genetically-tied cue that triggers when the rut will occur. We’ve been able to further substantiate this in our research facility where we have been able to successfully change the timing of when does naturally come in heat, something that couldn’t be done if the timing was based on genetics.

The timing of the full moon in September or October also has been suggested as the triggering mechanism for the rut. Again, this clearly does not fit the data available because moon phase is the same all across the South, and the timing of the rut is very different. In a recent study, we looked at the breeding dates of >2,500 does from 7 states across the United States, and found absolutely no relationship between breeding dates and moon phase.

In a number of studies across the Southeast, the herd sex ratio and buck age structure has been implicated as a major influence on the timing of the rut. Very heavy male harvests with limited doe harvests leads to young male age structure and sex ratio skewed toward females. In areas where a significant portion of the buck harvest occurs early, sex ratios may be even more skewed at the time of the rut. These herd conditions can affect the rut in two possible ways. First, the fewer the bucks to go around, the greater the chances that a female will not conceive during her first estrous cycle. If that happens, she must wait through another complete cycle (about 26-28 days) before coming into estrus again.

In addition, we’ve found that simply the presence of mature males can have an effect on the timing of estrus in females. In a study that we conducted at the Smithsonian Institution, we found that simply the scent of urine from males can have a stimulating effect on the reproductive physiology of females.

Nevertheless, although age structure and sex ratio can have an effect on the timing of the rut on local areas, it still does little to explain why rutting seasons vary broadly across the Southeast.

Thus far, none of the mechanisms that have been proposed (as discussed above) seem to provide a plausible explanation of why rutting times differ. Which leads me to my opinion – deer herds differ in the timing of breeding simply because they can! Let me explain what I mean. We know that changing photoperiod is the primary triggering mechanism responsible for timing the breeding season. However, there may be some small differences in how different deer herds time their reproduction based on photoperiod. Or, stated differently, deer herds differ in how their ‘reproductive alarm clock’ is set. Some may go off in response to photoperiod length typical of October, whereas others may require more hours of darkness (i.e. longer melatonin secretion) before the alarm goes off. However, the timing of the alarm is not set by genetic cues, but rather this timing can be physiologically ingrained in the herd, and passed on from mother to daughter. Studies have demonstrated that there are melatonin receptors in the developing fetus that respond to melatonin levels in the mother. Therefore, it is possible that the melatonin cue may be set in a female while still a fetus. Thus a daughter would be expected to breed at roughly the same time as her mother. In this manner, the timing of reproduction could be passed from mother through successive generations.

Unlike northern herds, environmental conditions are less likely to weed out those individuals that breed at a different time. The possibility of winter mortality is not a significant factor in the Southeast, and therefore does not limit breeding to one specific optimal time. So, deer in Alabama may breed in December or January simply because there is no overriding factor such as winter weather that forces them to breed earlier. And, once this reproductive timing becomes ingrained in the deer herd, there may be little reason to change. Fawns born earlier or later that the ‘normal’ fawning season may be at increased risk for predation or other mortality, so the timing persists.

Whatever the reason for the different rutting periods across the Southeast, there likely is little that we can do to change them. Proper deer herd management may have some minor impacts on the timing and intensity of the rut. But perhaps the best thing we can do is to enjoy the diverse breeding seasons and be thankful that there are still a lot of mysteries about this creature that we don’t yet understand.

[Bighornangler]

I have also come accross some fresh scrapes in the last two days. I don't recall seeing scrapes this early in October. I don't know if this will change anything such as the rut. I doubt it, but it does look like we are getting some earlier than usual activity and that's great with me.

[Zbone]

Mojostick - Good info, and agree with the northern info, but personally haven't enough experience to comment on the southern variety. Thanx for sharing...

[TradBrewSC]

I havent seen andy brawls as of yet but have seen 4 different bucks chasing as of far here in central SC. A friend killed a mature 8 point that was chasing sunday night.

[Littlejake]

Had a young buck come passed me on Tuesday evening grunting, guess he thought it was the first week of November.

[Mojostick]

Zbone,

When I owned my sporting goods store, the local deer farmers told me that they controlled doe estrus time, in order to bottle "doe in heat" in August to sell in October, by controlling daylight to mimic later Fall. Makes sense.

At least here in the north, the rut is a pretty predictable bell curve, dictated by the sun. Typically, someone will report the odd buck chasing a doe in early October or even early January, but the bulk of the chasing seen (which hunters are concerned with vs lockdown) occurs from roughly Oct. 20-the end of November in the northern zone. However, ever bell curve has it's outlie fringes. There's always that 5% of the odd rut behavior.

And the reason for that is mother nature controls fawn drop dates. Biologists can tell when most breeding occurs by the fawn drop the next Spring. If fawns in the north drop too early, they die in the March cold, if they drop too late, they die in Jan-Feb. because they can't survive Winter, at least a Michigan Winter. And nature wants lots of fawn drops in a short period so predators can only get so many.

There's been a ton of research done on northern fawn drop dates. They show that, warm Fall or cold Fall, the peak breeding dates are all withing days of each other, year in and out. Now, if it's a warm temp rut, we as hunters may not see much daylight chasing activity, but that's a bias we build ourselves if we don't think there's much rutting activity, at least in the north. Our rut up here is literally like clockwork, albeit a sundial as the clock.

[pukwana]

[East Coast archer]

Just saw 2 nice bucks having a nock down drag out fight from my back deck!  They were really going at it.  Unfortunately I can't hunt for another couple of weeks due to a recent surgery.  These deer are driving me crazy.  My wife and daughter got to see and hear it for their first time.  They were impressed with how loud and violent it was.

[JazsDad]

Last night driving to my son's hockey game, we passed two bucks sparring on the side of Rt 15 and Libertytown Rd... was surprised to see that in town...