Here’s another area that I think likely had some native deer left with a Dec rut ……



I’ve talked to a Houston Co hunter who told me about native deer that were left there along the river and Dec was their rut date……You can see it still represented by the grey area in Houston Co on the state produced rut map….



I think it was just more pockets of the same natives that gives you the grey area represented in Barbour and Russell…..it probably should keep going on up into Lee……A lot of this area I circled ^^^^, especially the bottom 2/3’s, has your typical Jan rut as you would expect…… but if you look at the fetal samples that were taken from the area you have early outlier Dec does showing up all over the area…..

Allison Grant Property 6 samples….Dec 11 earliest conception
Alan Lane Property 7 samples…..Dec 25…..
Indian Creek 20 samples …..Dec 10……
Enon……8 samples….. Dec 27……..
Bickerstaff Plantation…. 43 samples Dec 18……
Rutherford….5 samples……Dec 5……
Mead……45 samples….Dec 10
Dudley…..5 samples……Dec 5

as well as others…..and its likely with Enon and the Alan Lane property that if you just did more sampling you would pick up some earlier Dec activity than what they are showing……I could put stars on the map above for the location where these samples were taken and it would basically fill up the circle……..Again, the earliest outlier out of all Clarke Co deer sampled where pretty much all of the restocking releases came from is Jan 12…….Those Dec outliers are not the Clarke Co does that were released in the surrounding areas……..

It seems like there’s some pockets in there where these native deer likely still existed when restocking occurred that still have a little higher concentration of them than other properties that just see a few stray anomalies…… It seems most pronounced in the northern end where I suspect the best pocket of native deer still existed……That seems to be a primary rut in that area…..Other areas like around Midway have a Jan rut but the hunters say “Oh yeah, we see a little chasing around Christmas sometimes too”…..

I’ve hunted several properties within this circle as well and have seen it first hand……It was like “Hey, I know our rut isnt until later in Jan but what’s up with that doe Ralphie seen getting chased on Dec 25th??”……I think those are descendants of native does that were left…..This is basically the same concept repeated as the one we talked about in Jackson Co and why I feel pretty confident that those deer are native descendants too…….

To take it a step further…..I think a lot of the “brown” area on the state rut map covering the southeastern counties like Bullock, Barbour, Pike, south Macon and probably on down into Dale and Henry…..is actually a little misleading……That area is dominated by Clarke Co does with a mid to late Jan rut but when you mix in Dec outliers into the numbers it brings the “average” down so its represented as brown when it probably really isnt.

You actually don’t start getting into the true early Jan “brown” area until you get into northern Macon above the interstate and on up toward Lake Martin where those Sumter and Marengo releases occurred……There were some Clarke Co releases in that area as well but the early Jan rut seems more pronounced as you move up into areas like Northern Elmore Co around Eclectic and Central etc...……Either last year or year before I got a whole wad of calls all in a row from that same area in early Jan with bucks chasing…..It’s likely that this area to the north of the interstate has early and late Jan does mixed and does are coming into heat all month long……just with a higher percentage on the front end of Jan……You really don’t see that same early Jan rut activity south of the interstate where only Clarke Co does were released

Eddie is that you in a CNC costume?

😂

A big chunk of chilton cnty has the dec 25-Jan 8 rut but it’s shown as Jan 9 on. I can tell you for a fact the map has holes in it.

Id love to to know where they pulled the samples in elmore. I know its got to be pretty close to me .

The holes are where data has never been collected.

I’m in SE AL, 3.5 miles from Columbia/Chattahoochee. Fawns start dropping here around July 4th. Bigger bucks are on camera searching right now. Smaller bucks still together. I’ve always said the rut happens the last 2 weeks of December with does being cleaned up through January

According to the restocking map Chilton Co didn’t have any release sites……There’s actually a pretty good size hole there extending into multiple counties around Chilton where no restocking occurred……It may have been that there was native deer left around the Coosa River as well……I think there was likely a reason why the folks who did the restocking chose the areas they did and didn’t……. and the places where there are big holes or gaps without restocking sources are probably your most likely places where some native deer could have still existed

I bet back when there were native deer across the whole landscape the only area with a true late Jan rut was just the southwest corner……If you wanted to make a map of what the rut probably looked like for native deer then around that southwest corner you would have had a brown strip that was “X” amount of miles wide that arced around the southwest corner from northern Sumpter/Perry through about Autauga/Lowndes or so around and down to Coffee/Geneva area….then everything east and north of that the rut moved back into late Dec and kept gradually moving back until by the time you got to 2dogs in Jackson Co with the native river deer it was mid Dec……

Those folks down there in the extreme southwestern counties like Baldwin and Mobile had a legitimate gripe about their rut not peaking until early Feb after the old season closed…….You probably really need to add one more layer to the states rut map down there where the peak of the rut is the first week of Feb

Send a PM to Whildbill......I think he may have sampled those.....

Most of that green area is where the deer and turkey rut at the same freaking time. Mostly after deer season and mostly before turkey season. The ultimate you’re screwed area

I agree I think Chilton county West of I 65 and north of hwy 82 have the December 25 - Jan 8th rut.

last i could find out the person didnt want his name known . hell i dont want his name i just want to know when the does bred . i understand MOST bred in Feb , but how many is most . lol

Several thoughts about this:

CNC, your posts on this topic all have a baseline assumption that does only inherit their estrous dates from their mother, with no influence from the father's genetics. I'd love to see a university do a study on what happens to a female fawn's future estrous date when a buck from a January rut area breeds a doe genetically inclined to mate in December. My guess is the new date tends to be an average of the two. Also curious to know the influence of other does in the herd on an outlier doe. If a December doe groups up with 10 January does will the December doe adapt to breed closer to the January herd around it as a social or survival instinct?

I'm also curious why native deer in the northern half of Alabama mate in December instead of the more consistent November dates you see in native whitetail herds almost everywhere else. The theory on January dates in the southern AL river bottoms is that it was a fawn survival adaptation to the seasonal flooding. Why would a native Jefferson county deer need to mate earlier than a native Tennessee or northern GA deer in similar terrain?

Also curious if a native deer in the northern half of the state has any higher antler or body weight genetic potential than a transplant from SW Alabama. In theory, I would think it is slightly better.

Some very good thoughts on this topic I must say. ALclearcut as well as CNC have some good points that have some validity.

Here comes the pipe dream on how we can try and resolve the issue. Shoot all these dang pine goats. I mean eradicate them.

And then go to Lee and Tiffany's farms (Iowa) and buy some breeding stock to fix this trashy mess.

Remember I said it was a dream. Ya'll have a good day.

If that were the case then nobody would have a defined bell curve or peak……It just doesn’t happen that way…..Bucks disperse miles as yearlings and then travel for miles during the rut…..The only way you can have estrous dates remain isolated from one another and the way we see it is for it to purely travel with the females…….




As for the second part of your response…….The breeding dates in southwest Alabama have nothing to do with flooding…..The natural smooth transition you in the southwest corner that goes from late Jan in Clarke to early Jan in Sumpter to late Dec in Pickens is a result of the differences in the timing of spring green up…..That’s what causes the smooth transition as you move north and into higher elevations……Spring begins later and puts the vegetation on a different time frames…..It probably hinged around when optimal nutrition occurred for the mama doe or the optimal vegetative state for fawn drop....Its something to do with the differences in the "seasons"

Perhaps my logic is off, but if the timing of spring green up is the cause of various estrous date timing in native herds, wouldn't does in Southwest Alabama get bred earliest, rather than latest, since spring comes early there? The hot climate coastal areas everywhere else have extremely early ruts. And wouldn't you keep seeing a steady progression in timing the further north you go all the way into Canada? Rather than practically everywhere else having a consistent November rut, no matter how far north, like this:

Your map is using the restocked rut dates and it isnt even very accurate…..That’s not a representative map of what it would have looked like naturally……The root of the timing is seasonally based…..When I said in my prior post that “I didn’t have this part figured out yet”…..This is what I was referring to……Its changing with the environmental variable of the difference in the seasons but exactly what that impacts in the next link in the chain that causes the direct influence I’m not sure about…..It would only make sense that its tied to the vegetation……That’s the only way you’re going to see a gradual smooth transition across the landscape like you do in the natural areas…..If it were based on anything else you wouldn’t get that….Remember that elevation has an influence as well and not just simply a matter of south to north.....Southwest Alabama is lower is elevation that places to the east at the same latitude for example and part of why spring occurs there the earliest in the state

Here's an elevation map for Alabama just for reference..........Spring green up is a function of both latitude and elevation

But you don't see a natural smooth transition in the natural areas. The northern half of the country has vast areas that were not restocked or were restocked primarily with fairly local deer, and all of it has a November rut. A smooth transition tied to spring green up would have Missouri with an earlier rut than Iowa, which is earlier than Minnesota, then earlier than Canada, etc. The spring and early summer flooding in SW AL has been the predominant theory of its outlier late rut for quite some time. And the rest of the state, unfortunately, got restocked with that.

Well…..maybe when you reach a certain latitude to the north a different overriding variable takes control than what is occurring in the southeast……Maybe something like low temperatures becomes much more of a controlling factor……Its the environmental climate differences that are in control

Look at it this way……if it were things like “flooding” and minor landscape differences then you would see a crazy mosaic of natural ruts across the whole country…..The only way it transitions smoothly across “space” is with changes in “climate”

Here’s a question I have as it relates to what we’re talking about here with the rut and what’s driving the optimal estrous time frame……

When a doe conceives, how is the number of fawns determined??......Does she typically start off with 2-3 fetuses and lose them or keep them based on her “health” through the pregnancy …..or does here health at the time of conception determine the number of fetuses??.....I would think it would be the second option although I guess it could be both

CNC, there’s a WORLD of information out there addressing the questions you bring up.

He did get fired (Eddie) from the other place too 🤣🤣🤣

The hellusay

I speak from experience. I live in Houston County. I could hunt four different ruts down here...and have over the years. There is a top secret location down here where the rut happens Nov. 15th-25th. My old lease in Baker Hill, the deer were in heavy rut Jan. 10th-20th. My old lease NW of Ozark just inside the Coffee County line, rut was Jan.25th-First week of Feb. And now I hunt near Cottonwood. These deer are going into rut right now and will do so until the end of the month. I have the bucks on my wall to prove it. lol...

Just go huntin'.

What i say .

Probably a big buck from 3 miles away standing 15 yards from the climber right now lol