I don't think "picking the rut" is that difficult. The deer are going to rut when they rut every year. Simple as that. There may be a slight variation in activity level within a few days but it certainly won't change by a great extent. If the temperatures are really high the daytime activity will be reduced and they will be more active at night; but they are still going to rut. As far as the moon phase goes, I believe there is something to it but it isn't the only thing to be considered. I read Charles Alsheimer's material a few years ago and started looking at what I had observed on my own hunts and cameras. What I noticed was that during the full moon or bright moon phases during the rut, deer move more in mid-day that when it isn't bright. I haven't seen them head out and start feeding in an open field but they do move around in cover and small clearings, and many of my encounters during the bright moon occurred mid-day. During those times I see fewer deer at first light in my area. Alsheimer makes it clear that once day time temps hit 45 degrees or higher, the activity decreases tremendously I have found this also to be the case but have still seen deer moving mid-day when it is warm out..Even during the off season, I pay attention to deer movement during the full moon and have seen it increase in mid-day in all 12 months. I wrote about a couple of my experiences in another thread a couple of weeks ago and have copied it below if anyone is interested in reading it. I'm no deer expert but am sharing from my own observations. I started paying attention to hunting a full moon about six or seven years ago after reading a few articles. I was checking a trail camera and hung a stand in early October that was a mile and a half off the road. I came to the edge of an old pipeline that I used to access the hunting area, and noticed six deer feeding at 10:30 am. They were actually two groups of three and were 200 yards apart from each other. They had all come out to feed on the pipeline that had green grass growing on it. I had walked about 20 minutes on the pipeline and was a half mile from my truck when I cautiously came over a hill and looking down into the shade on the pipeline below me, there was a 125-130" buck feeding in a low spot that had green grass in it. He eventually left and as I walked back to my truck I thought it would be a good idea to return the next day and hang a stand where the buck had been feeding. It's a 100 mile drive one way but I felt it would be worth it. I hung a stand at 8:30 am the next day and at 10:15 the buck showed up to eat but swirling winds gave me away. Twenty minutes later two does and a fawn showed up to eat in the same place. This really got me thinking about hunting midday on full moons. Since that time, I have rattled in several bucks between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm and seen numerous deer walking through the woods during that time of day. Because my closest tree stand is over a hundred miles away from my home, I usually sit all day when I hunt and I hunt a lot on full moon days because I see enough deer to keep me alert. This past January I was going to hunt on a full moon on the next to the last day of the season but decided against it. The long drive, no rut activity, no crops where I hunt (food sources is the entire woods) and just being burned out on sitting in trees and seeing no deer kept me home. A couple of weeks later I went in and took down my stand and checked the one camera I had in front of my stand. I was only a little surprised, but greatly disappointed that I didn't hunt that day. Two bucks appeared on the camera in front of my stand that day. One at 9:24 am and the other at 2:00 pm, both shooters. One memorable hunt in on Oct 24, 2012 really drove home the point that I should pay attention to moon phases and possibly how they relate to the rut. It was the first day of Charles Alsheimer's rut prediction calendar that was supposed to be a good day to hunt the rut based on the moon phase. I had just started reading his material and we were going to have a cooler day than usual so I decided to hunt. It was five days before the full moon and I talked two friends into taking off on a Wednesday and hunting all day. At 11:00 a doe walked right under my stand. Twenty minutes later a fork horn walked 10 yards from me. At 1:00 pm I rattled and had a 125" buck coming within 30 seconds of touching the antlers together. I shot right under him at 25 yards and a few minutes later got a text from one of my buddies who had just shot a nice 10 point that was cruising through the woods. It was a group text to all three of us and 15 minutes after that the other buddy sent a text that he had just taken a small buck, his first ever. All four of these bucks were cruising midday.
First you have to separate the chase from the rut. Here the chase begins late Oct, the rut begins nov 11-18. You can tell the rut by dropped fawns. Moon phases effect daylight deer activity, and how much we see them. https://www.qdma.com/no-link-moon-phase-rut-peak/ Sent from my iPad using Bowhunting.com Forums
http://wiredtohunt.com/2017/05/30/2017-rut-predictions-an-earlier-more-intense-rut-than-last-year/ Solid article
