what is your opinion about what sets off the deer rut in the fall.

I have heard several opinions they include:

1) it is set off by the length of day
2) It is set off by temperature
3) happens at the same time every year regardless of 1 and/or 2

what is your opinion?

[ 12-24-2002, 23:09: Message edited by: rockhead ]

I beleive that the rut is set off by the length of the day but is effected by the weather and other variables. I would rather hunt a good frosty morning or downright cold afternoon during the rut than warm or rainy conditions. Seems to me that mature deer are just more active during the day in cold weather and ofcourse that will make for a moore exciting and or productive hunt.

I've heard all kinds of things as to what triggers off the rut. Temperature for one, what I think it is, is something that is a constant, never changing phenonenon. The postion of the sun.
Paul B.

All the above. Seems that in Wis it starts end of Oct thru november into dec.

Bioligists have been able to set off a false rut on whitetails by controling the amount of light in a 24 hour period. Moon cycle and weather/temperature can affect the level of activity during the rut but the rut is like clockwork.

Light of day sets the time but other factors such as temperature do contribute to the amount of activity that occurs during the rut.

The Rut baffles me. In forty years I've yet to feel like I was hunting mule deer during the rut. I've never seen them altering their pattern from one year to the next.

Whitetail is different. I've watched whitetail bucks going nuts; nose to the ground; run right into a stand or a feeder.

Elk let you know when it's on.

Some of the best game-watching I've done was on a pronghorn hunt near Alpine, Texas. The rut was in full swing. We spent hours from a high rocky outcrop watching bachelor bucks team up on a buck with does and carve them out some does then battle each other. By the end of the show, when you were too tired to keep holding your binoculars up, the original buck might have caught his second wind and recovered some of the ladies. All the bucks were worn to a frazzle except the biggest who seemed never to get challenged. The does just kept feeding along letting the guys make fools of themselves. Sound familiar?

What triggers it? I haven't a clue.