Get Ready Now For The Deer Rut: Coming Soon To You

At high noon on a spectacular November afternoon a generation ago, I found myself facing the most glorious of nimrod feelings and the utter depths of hunting despair, all at the same exact moment.

That precarious emotional perch came after I had spent a number of fruitless hours on a special draw bowhunt, seeing little activity despite my previous scouting and intelligence gathering prior to the hunt. When the hunt’s halfway point arrived, it was now the proverbial fish-or-cut-bait time, so I went looking for stand option B because stand option A was clearly running out of gas. 

After checking another nearby location and discovering a spot awash with fresh sign where three deer trails converged, I had my Plan B in place and hustled back to my truck, where I left my bow and grabbed a new treestand, quickly moving back into the woods to go hang up the new hunter’s perch (long before saddle hunting came into play) in the late morning hours. Then I went to my previous location to take that stand down because I could only have one stand hanging at a time.

Trying to complete the stand swap out, I quietly strode past the entry point into the patch of prairie woods that held my newly hung and soon-to-be-occupied deer stand. With any luck, I was probably 15 minutes away from dropping my old stand, grabbing my bow once again, and marching back to the fresh treestand where I would stake my big buck hopes for the remainder of the hunt.

And that’s when I heard a soft rustling sound in the slight breeze, looked up, and froze in deer hunting terror, staring down with great awe the largest whitetail buck I will ever lay eyes upon, a 12-point typical monster that my scorer’s instinct (Editor’s Note: I’m an official measurer with both the Pope & Young Club and the Boone and Crockett Club) told me was in the 180s, maybe even nearing the magical 190-inch mark that would have likely made it a new archery state record.

And with my bow less than 200 yards away in my pickup truck, all I could do was watch, which I did for a full 15 to 20 seconds as the buck—crazed on testosterone and not having the wind in his favor—tried to decipher exactly what he was staring at. 

Finally, with his nostrils flaring, he stomped his foot, snorted loudly and whirled about, rushing back into the woods. As I trembled and he disappeared, I soon had a crushing realization. Because as the buck fled from sight, he passed—for the second time in as many minutes—the exact spot where my newly hung treestand sat silently waiting for my camouflaged presence.

Ah yes, the deer hunter’s thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, all courtesy of the glories of the rut when bucks—including state record contenders—throw caution to the wind and cause deer hunters to burn up every remaining vacation day at work and remaining time off for good behavior at home.

Stories like this are why we kind of live for the rut around here at Game & Fish magazine and why we will once again focus on this for our readers over the next several weeks with the 2025 version of the Regional Rut Update, a series of exclusive bi-weekly reports from the field detailing the wonders of the rut, and all by the best whitetail hunting outdoor writers in the land.

Along the way, in addition to the weekly Regional Rut Update and its report highlighting local rut conditions, future expectations, current big buck stories, a sprinkling of new gear reviews and how to put it all together, a deer hunter can also use the RRU to find a PhD level completion of Rutology 101, the science of punching your unused deer tag between the colorful days of late October to the early and mid-November breeding frenzy to the quiet days around Thanksgiving and beyond when the deer woods slow down and begin to turn church mouse quiet again.

Between late October’s starting point and late November’s finish line, we aim to help you do things like get out of the blocks quickly and track down a trophy in the pre-rut phase of the rut, deciphering pre-rut sign laid down by local whitetails, and even how to tag out in plenty of time before going out trick-or-treating with the kids or grandkids on Halloween night.

As the rut begins to arrive, runs its crazy course and peaks in early to mid-November, we’ll lay out sound advice that will help rut hunters use hunting pressure to their advantage, handle the frustration of lockdown as the full-blown rut starts to approach, and hunting successfully from dawn-till-dusk when the peak rutting magic arrives and wallhanger bucks are cruising the woods looking for a winsome doe. 

We might even throw in a few gear-oriented stories—from bows to game cameras to binoculars to boots—to help you find that last-minute item that might help tip the hunting odds into your favor as Mr. Big comes sauntering by.

And when the post-rut rolls around near Turkey Day, we’re not done just yet because savvy big buck hunters know some of the biggest bucks fall to a well-placed bullet or broadhead speeding downrange as the whitetail breeding circus packs up and prepares to leave town for another year. From using antler rattling techniques to ground blind placement to hunting the buzzer, we’re in it to the bitter end to try and help hunters cash in their remaining deer-season chips during the post-rut hunting phase.

Speaking of the bitter end, how did that sad big buck tale that I mentioned at this story’s outset finally turn out? Well, I never laid eyes on that public-land buck again, and to my knowledge, no other hunter ever tagged that big bruiser either, because he was a real showstopper that would have made deer-hunting headlines everywhere.

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