Whitetail rut prediction for 2022: What to expect while hunting this fall

Back in 1984 I was hunting deer with a bamboo longbow, and homemade gobbler-fletched arrows.

I remember well that year’s nine-point buck and the blood trail splashed vividly on sugar maple leaves across a steep-side hill.

My hunting buddy on that trail was a medical doctor who gave insights into exactly what I was pulling out and handling while dressing that buck, 38 years ago.

Leap forward 19 years to 2003.

A rutting, grunting lockdown buck, a dominant six-pointer near the end of the archery season, followed a doe under my perch, the big White Pine stand.

Two bow kills, 19 years apart.

And this year, in 2022, 19 years later, the rut should roll out the same, light patterns mirror come November.

What is the big deal about 19 year spans?

The significance is that the moon follows a 19-year cycle so that every 19 years, the moon is full on the same date as well as all the other phases identically duplicating the prior sequence, leading up and following.

And 19 years from 2022, the same pattern as this year will occur again.

A buck hits the overhanging branch at the highpoint of the rut.
A buck hits the overhanging branch at the highpoint of the rut.

There is a name for this astronomical phenomenon, the Metonic cycle or Enneadecaeteris (Greek for 19.)

Whitetails evidence parallel behavior every 19 years too, since their biorhythms are tuned by photoperiodic light, that is solar light directly from the sun and lunar light, reflected from the sun, bouncing off the moon.

The conclusion that whitetail breeding rhythms mirror the Metonic cycle lines up with my Excel spreadsheet, a synopsis timeline chronicling anecdotal whitetail behavior and kills and observations through each rut since the 1970s from myself and others.

One phase of a moon does not a rut make.

The slow unfolding of changes and timing in light through each different season tunes whitetails and of course all other short-day breeders, from sheep to migrating sea turtles, all through their internal clocks.

We observe and anticipate the outward changes of the whitetail; the shedding of velvet, the exchange of the red summer coat for the thick grayish brown hairs, fighting, the crafting of scrapes and the annual appearance of scarred saplings.

That’s just the surface.

Inside, below the hide, great changes are occurring that actually create the outer shells of what we perceive.

Hormones, pheromones, those internal biochemical powerhouses dynamically ramp up in the fall, changing behavior and set up the perpetuation of the species, mainly tuned through the pineal gland by light.

This upcoming season will unfold a classic rut, finally, after a few seasons of two-pronged ruts.

What is a classic rut compared to others?

Some years breeding peaks, or high points of intensity, are spread out in waves with doe coming into estrus usually about three weeks apart. We have developed names for these less than stellar ruts, such as a two-pronged rut, a trickle rut, or even a non-existent rut.

But once in a while we get a great, intense rut. And this year will be one of that specie.

Bow hunters during the first week of November will see the high point of scrape visitation, along with our trail cam SIM cards and downloads chock full of bucks at the licking branches of community scrapes.

And from the middle of the month through Thanksgiving, bucks will be hooked up with does, on Lockdown, entering, reentering, and running their weight down as the rut reaches its climax.

It will be perfect for the New York State Southern Zone gun season which starts Nov. 19, 2022 and runs 23 days through the following Thursday, Nov. 24 Thanksgiving and finishing December 11. (Won’t be until 2024’s calendar shift when we will have a full week and another weekend plus a few days before Thanksgiving.)

OAK DUKE
OAK DUKE

Those hunting seasons when we have had a regular rut often live most vividly in our minds. Not a guarantee for a filled tag, but highest chances for adrenaline and success.

Over and over we have expected that next year in our whitetail woods the rut will roll out exactly the same way. Nope. Disappointments, questions, and second-guessing are most common, popping up like mushrooms after a summer rain.

When the rut comes early, bucks, many running the ridges and woodlots since late October, often demand rest by late-November, spent from a long, drawn out breeding season.

Consequently, we do not enjoy as much deer movement as when we have a good old regular rut.

And it’s been a few years since we’ve had a solid rut.

So strap yourself into that early November tree stand or ground blind this year and get ready for the ride!

Oak Duke writes a weekly column appearing on the Outdoors page of The Spectator.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Whitetail rut prediction for 2022: What to expect hunting this fall