RT_8

#TheHuntingPages Rut Meter is pegged if your not in the Whitetail woods you should be! Rut-On!! Wildlife Research Center, inc. Stealth Cam #DS4K

Posted by Hunting on Thursday, November 16, 2017

 

# Rut Tracker

 

Rut Meter: 99%

If you have been paying attention to our rut meter, you might be asking, “How can the rut be 99% on”, well, that one is simple, conditions in the deer woods are never 99% predictable. That said, when you get a 99% rut reading, it’s safe to assume it either has, or is pretty close to happening on your back 40.

If you are not deer hunting this week (or next) you had better take up bowling or golf or some other past time, chances are there are deer breeding all over your property as you read this rut report. In the last week or so we have had reports of all kinds of nice bucks being killed, they have been chasing does all over the woods and savvy hunters have been out there and after them.

If your woods were quiet last week, chances are they are exploding this week, if they were alive last week they could have gone quiet this week breeding deer typically don’t cover a lot of ground (they cover the ground before breeding), instead of moving about a buck and doe will find an inviting spot and spend a couple of days following Nature’s call to reproduce. This rut related behavior is often called “lockdown”.

As far as “unpredictable”, last week we hunted one of our key properties and saw few bucks, the rut was little more than last year’s memory. We shifted locations by a few dozen miles and showed up right in the middle of “rut central” deer were everywhere and moving constantly—same week, different location. Chances are the “quiet” location is exploding as you read this.

We are telling you the rut is 99% on, but it is important to remember that nothing is 100% when it comes to deer. 99% could mean deer running all over your woods or the only breeding pair of deer on your property “locked down” in 8 acres of brush, it just depends on what is happening on any given hour, on any given day. That buck can decide to go look for a new doe at any time, (once the job is done, it’s done) anything can happen in the deer woods and often does.

If you are serious about your deer hunting, you need to be in the woods, now, and next week, and the week after that! The rut meter will not stay at 99% indefinitely, as more and more does return to being unreceptive, the bucks will slowly abandon the “urge to breed” in favor of the “urge to feed”.