Hunters will see post-Thanksgiving rutting action – Hornell Evening Tribune

By Oak Duke | The Evening Tribune

Year-in and year-out, photos of dandy bucks pop up on our phones at the tail end of the deer season.

Many of them wear tags because a lucky hunter, persistent and driven, happened to walk through the right clump of goldenrod in the middle of a field.

Or another big racker jumped into rifle range because a landowner decided to cut out a few Christmas trees behind the old barn.

Or then again, a woodcutter pulls out a seasoned top to cut and split for the woodpile ... buck jumps … and so on.

By the end of November many of these late season survivors have pretty much "gone nocturnal."

But this year is different.

Some will be caught away from their beds and sanctuaries because even though they know better, they cant help it because they are struck with another case of procreation fever.

Like the other waypoints along the whitetail rut timeline, this final rut spike doesnt happen every year at the same time on our calendars.

Though it's the same time on natures timepiece.

We say were having a late Thanksgiving.

Deer researchers attribute this late season diurnal (daytime) buck movement to a phase in the whitetail rut timeline typically called the "Post Rut."

The Post Rut is a bit of a misnomer, because deer are actually rutting then, but weeks after the first high point of the whitetail's breeding season.

Doeunable to conceivecycle again, along with about 30 percent of the doe fawns in this secondary rut window.

Bucks in a way "cycle" too.

A whitetail bucks' testosterone/pheromone production goes and comes in waves and troughs throughout the weeks of the rut.

According to science, whitetails, along with other related animals (Ungulates) are chained to photoperiodism.

Photoperiodism is a big word that conveys a basic concept. Light drives hormone/ pheromone flow and behavior - especially breeding.

How's that happen?

The whitetails pineal gland, behind the eyeball in their brain processes light. It's kind of like a timer. The shortening days of fall set the timer for does to ovulate. Buck testosterone levels increase too. And we all know it "takes two to tango."

Melatonin is identified as another key hormone too.

As the Full Moon waxes, and moonlight increases, a proportionate spike in melatonin ramps up in the whitetail. Then as the Full Moon wanes towards the dark of the moon or New Moon, testosterone- powered behavior comes to the fore.

Researchers have artificially skewed the breeding cycles of both bucks and does with injections of melatonin, taking a cue from livestock farmers who time breeding (short day breeders) such as goats and sheep with melatonin implants.

Deer do not decide when to breed.

They respond to changing light.

We all know that the "running time" or rut of the whitetail peaks every year in November in New York State, throughout the Northeast, and the Midwest.

But sometimes it peaks in the beginning of the month and sometimes almost at the end, and once in a while in the middle.

One could say that the moon fine-tunes the rut.

Nature doesn't like to put all its eggs in one basket.

So a few doecycle in October. And some bucks are ready to go then too. We call that the Pre-Rut or Silent Estrus.

We see scrapes and rubs appearing almost overnight and we excitedly call it the beginning of the rut.

And in that magical window of time is the ethereal moment we dream about, even though it differs from one hollow one day, to another ridge on maybe the following day.

Peak rut lasts about two weeks, this year under the rare Blue moon.

Quickly, and just a few weeks later, after a mid-November lull, the cycle repeats one more time - and that's second prong of the rut, this year the key waypoint is around Thanksgiving.

Next year, during the beginning of our archery season we will perhaps take note of a spotted fawn.

Fawns typically hit the ground in May and by fall, have already lost their spots.

These tiny spotted fawns in October next year during archery season will be born four to six weeks later than the rest of their age class.

Mid-June and early July fawns are the products and proof of this final rut peak we are hunting, late November, this year, around Thanksgiving week.

Oak Duke writes a weekly column appearing on the Outdoors page.

More here:
Hunters will see post-Thanksgiving rutting action - Hornell Evening Tribune