Right now,you can go out at last light and see deer everywhere, whereyou hunt. Not just your stands, but your property in general.But say, rut kicks in and the deer disappear, what could be learned from this?

Timing.

Timing is everything to a property. Some properties are great for only 2 weeks of the year. Some are only good with snow.. some are hot in September and October.. and others are only good at morning.

Like in life.. timing is everything with whitetail.

Know your land.. and hunt it hard and smart when the deer are there. Cause when they are not there it kinda sucks.

Thats about as true of a statement as ive heard in a while.

Usually when the deer 'disappear' as you said, the dreaded breeding phase is taking its effect. Thus the mature bucks are holed up with their does and the woods is literally a dead zone concerning deer movement.

What can be learned? By assuming that the breeding phase is causing the sudden screech in deer movement (and the majority of times it is) you can count 28 days before and after these days to determine when your the first and last wave of estrous does came in and will come into heat. Also- if you believe the moon strongly effects the rut as much as I do, you can determine how long after the rutting moon the breeding phase is, thus telling you how long the seek and chase phase is as well.

Again, assuming the breeding stage of the rut is caused the lack of deer movement you can learn a lot of the buck to doe ratio of your herd as well. With an unbalanced buck to doe ratio the rut is going to be lonnng... and... drawnn.. out, less frenzied and simply not as fun to hunt. However, with a balanced buck to doe ratio the rut becomes more predictable (with reference to the three stages) and you can again better gauge the rut according to the rutting moon in the years to come.

Aaron:

Starting 11/4....I hunted 22 more times in '06. I saw double-digit deer in 13 of those sits.

Starting 11/2 and running through 11/6/07....my sightings were 26, 35, 13, 10 and 16.

Combined '06 and '07....I had a total of 6 hunts with double-digit sightings (outside those dates).

I know where I'll be siiting first week of Nov.

Nothing else needs to be said folks! Duke nailed it.

Makes sense to me. Thanks guys.