Penn State Deer-Forest Study

We’re on the downhill side of the rut. More than half of females are now pregnant. The Rut Tracker is updated through November 19.

Several readers have asked if the warm weather, or some other factor, has influenced breeding behavior this year as males seem to be moving less, and females more, compared to the long-term average.

I don’t think so. When the season is over I’ll make a plot of each year’s average and we can look to see how unusual this year was compared to past years.

I hope you have enjoyed the beautiful fall weather this October and November. Every day was a treat in my tree stand.

Except maybe when it did this to me (see below): 26 degrees and the fog rolled in! Or my last opportunity when it decided to rain for only the last (best) hunting hour of the day.

The latest data from our deer have been uploaded to our Rut Tracker page. Check it out (and if the page doesn’t look updated try clicking the ‘refresh’ button on your web browser).

2024 Deer-Forest Study Rut Tracker

Please follow and share:

13 comments on “Over the Hump”

Loved following along.
Wonderful and interesting data.
Keep up the great work.

Interesting. This year has been different than past bowhunting seasons from my perspective. I discovered an active scrape with a lick branch the first week of September. I placed a camera on the scrape for the duration of bow season. I replace the SD Card once a week. Peak rut activity was the first week of October with 124 photos. By the first week of November, I had 48 photos with no activity on the scrape. Are deer getting conditioned more to travel less on private property than public ground? What other factors effect deer travel during the rut?

Duane Diefenbach says:

November 21, 2024 at 8:14 pm

We’ll have a blog post about your questions. Stay tuned!
Gabe Phillips says:

November 21, 2024 at 9:02 pm

In my experience, bucks tend to frequent scrapes during pre rut, and stop visiting scrapes during the peak of the rut.

Curious choice of words in this title.😊

Barry Musser says:

November 21, 2024 at 12:32 pm

i thought the same thing !!!

Yes, I’m seeing less rut activity this week compared to the last week of archery last year. I did see one of my target bucks on Monday but still at a distance.

Here in southern York County on my area very different year for me. No scrapes and just this week finally a few rubs. The biggest one is 20 yards from my basement door.

Any chance you can break this down further into daylight movements? I’ve spent dozens of hours in a stand over the past 3 weeks and have seen very little rut activity in the northern study areas.

I only started hunting archery in the past 3 years. What I have seen in the past 3 years Very little bucks and activity this year and a Big difference between bucks and deer in general from the 2 areas I hunt 5c. and 2g. Bucks I have seen don’t respond to any calls. Maybe they will stop but that all.

I love the view from your tree stand.

Hi,
Question that has been in my mind for a while: Does your research indicate that bucks move more during pre-rut and chasing stages, and less during “lockdown”. I’m thinking the does are still moving during this latter stage, and the bucks are following, but not traveling near as much. Is this something you can track?

Northern York co here. Was able to grunt a medium size buck in yesterday.12/3/24. My buddy has about 10 acres he doesn’t hunt has been watching bucks still actively chasing does this week. Very little shooting around here for the opening of rifle season.

Comments are closed.