I read an article last yr on moon phases and it said that the rut does not come in full untill the second full moon of the last quarter. Right now is the second full moon, so I would say the rut will be good here in a few days! The best is yet to come. Hope this helps.

Where I live, the rut doesn't come into play until the end of December. The bucks are just starting to make a few scrapes.

Where I hunt in the northwest mountains of Virginia, the bucks started chasing does a couple of weeks ago, but the does seem to be having none of it. My friend killed a buck the weekend of 11/13 (rifle) and the weekend before (11/6) (muzzle-loading). Neither of them had swollen necks at all, So I’d say that, as of mid-November, the full rut hadn’t taken hold. That said, the chasing phase can be very productive for hunting (tho not for me yet), if not for making more deer.

I can’t get out in the field again until the first weekend in December, so I’m hoping the rut is still going strong then. My understanding is that the first primary rut lasts a couple weeks, then dies down, then picks up again a couple of weeks later, though not as strong as the primary rut. My understanding is that all of this depends on the buck-to-doe ratio, since does only come into estrous again in 4 weeks if they don’t get bred the first cycle.