Full Moon & the Rut.

[CC Hurl]

I have seen post on here before about hunting when there is a full moon and have taken some of it to heart. I remember something about the Rut following the last full moon in October or something like that as well. I am a firm believer of getting out there when ever you can or want to for that matter.

OK, My question is...Since it is said that deer move more at night when the moon is full,will the full moon we are in now affect day time activity when the rut is so near? Or should I expect more daytime activity once the full moon is on it's way out, say like early next week?

I am hoping the Rut will keep the bucks chasing and keeping the day time activity going regardless of the moon phase.

Meats in the freezer, I have next week off so I thought about maybe getting some opinions on next week, the rut and moon phase.

[96trigger]

Many people claim that the midday movement will be much better with a full moon, whereas morning and evenings will not be as good. The deer run all night then get up midday and move. I think during the rut, they are going 24 hours a day, so it doesn't really matter. You need to be out there to see them.

[james_walleye]

I can tell you I sat from 630-10 am...and then 2- dark today and didn't see a deer. The first 2 times in the 2 years I've hunted this property that this has happened. Unfortunately I had stuff to do midday and wasn't able to sit the whole day....so I don't know if there was midday movement. Very disappointing week off of work.

[Scott K]

I seen all kinds of deer this evening. To bad I wasnt sitting in stand, and was driving down the road.

[archerystud]

I saw 11 deer tonight from the stand and 7 on the drive back in tonight.

[james_walleye]

I would have felt better if u guys would have said you didn't see jack either......

[Bear55]

I would have felt better if u guys would have said you didn't see jack either......

I didn't see jack the past two nights, cold and lots of wind. Has to get better Saturday and Sunday.

[Sproguy]

I will throw my two cents in. I took this week off of work to bow hunt so I'm banking that day time movement will be high. That being said, before I took this week off I looked back at my logs from the past several years and noticed that there were hot days and cold days and some were during the full moon and some were not. I have gone more to the idea of the calendar and hope the weather helps you out.

The weather is an important factor. Last year it was rather warm and very windy during this week according to my log. Saw next to nothing and it had nothing to do with a full moon because it was during new moon. Couple years ago, the full moon fell during this stretch and I had a couple of the best days of my life deer hunting, it was cold with no wind. So I tend to lean that way. Bottom line to me, go hunting and hunt as hard as you are willing to.

Good luck, I will be out there and hoping daytime movement is at an all time high!

[CC Hurl]

Thanks for the replies, Nice info Sproguy and much appreciated. To hear you still had a great year with a full moon landing on the rut phase is encouraging.

By the looks of the weather for the next 7 day's, I would have to think were up for some good times in the woods.

Trigger, have you been seeing much rut activity the last couple day's? I hunt just north of Red Wing so thought your rut info would be accurate for me. Had nice rubs the last two weekends down there but few scrapes. Hopefully the T.cams have some day time activity starting.

Looking forward to the next week off and some much needed tree time in the woods.

Thanks again for the replies. Neat to see others opinions on this topic.

[96trigger]

Hurl, I hunt by wabasha, the rut activity is heating up, but the deer apear to still be very nocturnal. Every deer I see during daylight hours are does, every deer I see on the way home is a buck. Deer movement is minnimal right now but I fully expect it to get better every day. I will be in the stand all day Tuesday and most of the evenings this week. Lots of rubs and scrape action in the last week.

[Sproguy]

CC,

So Saturday was amazing with bucks chasing and seeing plenty during the day, granted the best buck on Saturday was a nice 9 just before dark but I saw 8 bucks during day light hours on Saturday. I saw two on Sunday but my day got cut short on Sunday at 5pm, see pic. The moon does make them do a lot of rutting at night but if those does are up so are they! He came in with a doe and I could have done a dance in the tree stand and he wouldn't have looked at me.

This is a buck we nick named Lefty because of his screwy left side. I don't have a daylight pic of him since June. He was nocturnal for the past month and I have several from just the past couple of days. Keep in the woods! Weather is right and they are on their feet! Good luck!

[CrewJones]

great looking buck

[DonBo]

Great deer Spro, WTG!

[mainbutter]

Jeez sounds like I missed the action by two days.

I saw two of this year's fawns during a 6:30AM-1PM sit today. Eating a few burgers, then hunting a different spot..

[nbadger23]

Great buck Spro! I am hunting SE MN and there has been a definite change in the last 3 days for me. The bigger bucks are showing up on the camera during daylight hours and I have seen shooters the last two sits, one last night and one this morning. Unfortunately my jacket got caught up with my arrow and sent it off course on the one this a.m. but that's huntung. We look to have very consistent weather this week as well which will be great. I am hoping for a cloudy night to cut the brightness of the moon.

[goblueM]

I'm in a quandry for what to expect for deer movement here in VA this week.

25-40 MPH winds all week, with sporadic mixed precip, and full moon and the rut approaching

Been seeing some new bucks turn up on the trail cam this week, but all nocturnal except for one little fork

[MUSKY18]

Sunday I sat in the afternoon from 3 til dark. 330 I have a buck and doe walk up from behind me, and as I peek around the tree at the buck, the doe busts me. Yesterday I sat from 0630 until 11, ate lunch and was back from 1 til dark. Didn't see a single deer the entire time. Took the time to shine a couple of fields on the way home to see if the usual deer were feeding and every field was empty. Only thing I can think of is the full moon has them moving a bit later and the winds were still blowing fairly well.

[CrewJones]

I have tons of sign but have seen only 1 deer in the last 4 days, i have lots of woods surrounded by empty fields, I thought i was going to be all over them this year, boy was i wrong. I know there around because of the scrapes and rubs but my camera has no pics and my morning and evening hunts turn up nothing.

people walking around and building stands, shooting last weekend did not help but thats hunting in a woods were people live all around.

[GatorBait]

From my experience this year, it seemed rut activity jumped about 75% this past week leading up to the full moon. This weekend and up to last night, I was seeing does in person and on cam at all times of the day which is unusual. All my bucks on cam were at night working scrapes and chasing, usual. Last night I seen my first buck of the night at 5:30pm chasin a doe which he is now hanging in the garage. Overall, the full moon has an effect on the rut, movement wise it's hard to tell, deer were movin all day. Either way, somehow a buck landed in my lap that I haven't seen all year, even though I knew everything about him except when he was moving during shooting hours. Maybe the full moon started an early chasing day for him, either way it costed him everything.

[Bear55]

I am noticing a lot of feast or famine rut reports happening right now. This generally happens when a few does start coming into heat early, if you have a hot doe you might have 5-10 bucks in the area trying to score a date. If you don't have that hot doe well then you must be hunting where I have the past couple weeks.

The action should start spreading out and picking up soon. Then of course rifle will open and put the deer on high alert.

[Cheetah]

Bear, that's what I was thinking too. One of my usual good spots has some good scrape activity but they didn't look like they had been hit for almost a week. I could see two river bottoms from my stand and never saw or heard a deer that morning. I figured the bucks usually in the area were off chasing the few does that had already come in heat. Hopefully they come back this coming weekend, the forecast is showing the ideal wind direction for that spot...

[Bellasdad]

Deer & Deer Hunting released Charles Alsheimer's 2012 Rut Forecast in the September 2012 issue. I find Alsheimer's work to be very interesting and I follow it anxiously each year. For those of you who think that 16 years of study merits some consideration, here it is.

To set the stage, the "Rutting Moon" is considered to be the second full moon after the Autumnal Equinox (09/22/12). Not since 2004 has the first full moon after the Autumnal Equinox occurred in September (09/30/12). This means the "Rutting Moon" (second full moon) will be in October this year (10/29/12) and not November. This has happened only 4 times in the last 17 years (1995-2011)!

Therefore the "estimated" dates for the three main phases of the rut are:

Seeking 10/29/12-11/05/12

Chasing 11/02/12-11/09/12

Breeding 11/09/12-11/16/12

The phases always overlap somewhat as shown above. The first new moon after the rutting moon (11/13/12) always occurs during peak breeding as shown above.

Alsheimer says the "sweet spot" will be 11/03/12 to 11/12/12. The sweet spot is the magic week when deer activity is greatest. Most importantly he considers this year's rut to be a synchronized rut which means it will be an intense rut with peak breeding taking place before 11/15/12. So no trickle rut, which is good news for you rut hunters.

[bigbucks]

A doe ran by me last night just out of range. She appeared be in flight from a pursuer. I thought I heard another deer, but the buck never materialized. Saw 5 deer on the way home, which is about 20 miles. All were crossing or about to cross the road, two were buck. For the most part I think they're loving after dark, but not all the time.

[Musky Buck]

The rut interruptus is from Nov.3rd on lol. I bet these bucks love 13 hours of darkness every night, that's the peak of the rut.

[CC Hurl]

It has been a bit since I got on here. Last week went well for me as I did drop the string on my personal best buck. He is an eight point that will be a skull mount. The rut activity was not real hot but I did see a couple buck chasing does.

It was awsome as the guy I shot was 80 yards and going away from me. I let the can call go once and he stopped. I let it go two times in a row and sure enough he was on his way towards me. I had set a scent line down before climbing into my stand. He kept coming towards the sound of the can call and then he picked up on my scent line. Once he got on the scent he went right to the rag I had doe pee on. He took a strong wiff and did a 180 and ran about 20 feet and stopped. At this point I was at full draw and needed him to get out from behind some brush. He came walking out and I was able to stop him with a quick blaa sound and had a sweat flying arrow to do the rest. He went about twenty yards and bailed into some dead fall tree's. Very exciting to say the least. One buck and a doe in area 341 means I am done hunting down there now. Just wanted to share my story and some time I will learn to post pics so I can show some good times as well. Good luck out there and be safe.