2009 Rut Survey-Info and Details!!!

[TheMiz54]

Myself and rh16kid have worked out the details of how are proposed rut poll/survey will work. We will start our own thread when the survey will start (October 1, 20009) where each person participating in the survey will log their info from that days hunting observations. Then on a weekly basis we will put all data on a spread sheet and post it for members to view. This will be helpful in seeing truly what stage of the rut we are in and how deer movement is being effected by other factors such as barometer and moon phase. The survey will be very simple to participate in. There are 5 categories of buck rutting behavior we will go by. Rubbing, scraping, seeking, chasing, and actual breeding. Each one of these behaviors will be logged by a minor and major description. You will also need to record date,moon phase and whether the barometer was rising falling or stable. Last you will post how many bucks and does you saw that day. Here would be a sample of a perfect post: Oct. 31,2009-full moon-falling barom.- major scraping and major seeking. 3 bucks/7 does. THATS IT!!! very simple. There are a few guidelines that we want to follow. 1. We only are looking to have people submit info who are hunting north of the 37th latitude. You can easily find out on the web if you fall into this category. If not you are more than welcome to copy our idea and do your own survey for the south. Because we live in the Northeast we are only interested comparing info to those above the 37th lat. 2. Please be honest in your postings. 3. Try to post your observations each day. This will make collecting and sorting the info easy for Me. Thats really it guys-this is purely for fun and for members and our own comparison. I think it will be great to see how my observations compare to another members in Wisconsin. This will give definitive info. on exactly where the rut is at. Each week we can look and see how sightings and buck activity change as autumn moves forward. Please reply here and let us know if you would like to get in on this and if you have any questions please feel free to ask. The more guys we can get into this the better the feedback will be. Again this will not start until Oct. 1st.

[TheMiz54]

Ok everyone were getting close to opening day. How many will have their seasons open on Oct 1st??? I have to wait three more weeks till the 17th but I hope we can start getting some data next weekend. Be sure to post your results on here or PM me. I will do a weekly update of the activity from all the people that turn in posts.

This is a sample of what it will look like for posts.

Date Moon Phase Barometer (Rise/Fall)

Activity (Major/Minor) Rubbing Scraping Seeking Chasing Breeding

Count (Buck/Doe)



Fill in the date, the moon phase, wheather the barometer was rising of falling, under the activity if you saw any rubbing put minor or major under scrapping and so on, and then the count how many bucks how many does. Simple let me know if you guys have any questions.


Mirza

[fshafly2]

Miz
An alternative approach to learning about the rut in your area is to collect the ages of fetuses from harvested and road-killed does. The fetus age can be used to determine dates of conception. We've been doing this in MD, and find that breeding occurs over a period of several weeks, with the average date of peak breeding (peak rut) around 15 Nov.

Here is a plot for an article I wrote on the MD rut with data from does harvested in So MD over a number of years:



Not too hard to pick out that early rut behavior can occur in late Sept, and that there is a weak "second rut" in Dec. This past year, the MD QDMA State Chapter collected data from several hundred harvested does, and their "rut results" were similar - average peak breeding occured around 15 Nov (Predictions that the 2008 rut would be delayed due to the moon phase last year were not evident in the data).

This type of data bypasses a lot of the bias inherent with collecting observations of rutting behavior.

Good luck with your endeavor.

-fsh