My hunting partner killed a buck last week of october cruising (walking with his nose to the ground where a group of does walked earlier). I killed a buck Nov 6th cruising, he was the 3rd buck I called in within an hour, I heard all 3 grunting before I saw or called to them. This is 250 yards as the crow flies from where my uncle killed his deer, and he came from the same thicket, just the opposite side. I did not see another hint of a rut until the first week of December, I watched bucks chase does for 4 straight days. Some of the best action I have ever seen, saw everything except a doe get bred. This was 150 from the first deer killed and 350 or so from my buck, all on the same little piece of land we hunt. We had a flood and the property was under water for most of sept and oct. The guys where I killed my deer saw no activity and the guys on the other side reported the same. They hunt ALOT, all own there own business and hunt almost all of November. I took the first week off and my uncle lives right by the property and hunts most days. Last year I was in the stand of all the chasing (different sit) and he was where he killed his buck...he saw 26 does and 1 spike during that sit and I saw 0 deer. Alot of it IMO has to do with the correlation between where the deer are "rutting" and where you are sitting.Another odd thing, I have enjoyed a fair amount of success on full moons, seams the deer in S Alabama really move on them. They also rut at the end of January on into febuary too so maybe they are just weird.
Only speaking for the areas I hunt in Oklahoma, the new moon seems to more of a "trigger" than the full moon. That's based on a log I've been keeping since 1996. I've tried to make Mr. Alshiemer's full moon theory work, even rescheduled a guided hunt based on his data, and it just has never worked. In 2008 the full moon was around Nov. 15 so that's when he said the chasing would really ramp up but two of my buddies both killed mature bucks the last week of October (new moon was on Halloween). Those bucks had very swollen necks were in all-out rut mode chasing does like mad. The middle of November that year was deader than I've ever seen. In 2009 the full moon was early so it was supposed to be an early rut. I saw the majority of chasing around November 15 and killed a nice buck on Thanksgiving, he was horning in on a hot doe that a bigger buck was tending. Like NEW said, this year's moon is very close to 2002 and according to my log, we saw alot of big bucks on their feet during the last week of October and first of November so I put in my vacation this year for the first week of November.
The last couple years here in S.E. Iowa, doe chasing has been a bit earlier than most predictions (around the end of Oct. ) ... expecting to be early again this year due to early harvest and low temps.
