Guys, I read all your posts and I don't think the will probably peak in Nov. but it will start the end of this month. Last year I hunted at least 3 days a week and didn't see much activity until the last week of archery which was the first week in Nov. The rut doesn't go by calendar dates but by the full moon see below. Last year it was Nov 5th. This year however, looking at the moon phases from last year to this year I am guessing that it will peak right aroundOct 26th. I could be wrong - but I will be out there right up until I leave for my elk hunt in WY onOct. 30th.
I guess this little buck is trying to get a little action early but by the looks of that doe, she didn't want anything to do with him.
From the PA Game Comm: To date, the study results show more than 90 percent of our adult female deer were pregnant, and bred between late October and early December, prior to the start of the statewide rifle season. Pennsylvania deer breeding, overall, peaked in mid-November, in the closing days of the archery season and into Thanksgiving week. Most first-year females - fawns born in the spring of the same year - were bred in early December when they reach sexual maturity.
Charlie Alsheimer: A Northern doe's estrogen level peaks around November 1 as does a buck's sperm count. With both sexes poised to breed, it stands to reason a mechanism must be in place if the doe is to enter estrus and be bred under the darker phases of the moon, which are the third through first quarters. That mechanism in the North (north of about the 35th latitude) is usually the second full moon after the autumnal equinox, which I call the rutting moon.