Arctic Blast to Fire Up The Rut!

Quiet timber exploded into thunderous clatter of leaves crushing and branches breaking.

Between Nov. 8th and Nov. 17th expect some great rut hunting action.

Two does ran by so fast there wasn't even time to stand up before they had passed. Moments later the leaves betrayed a wide 8 point buck following nose to the ground. Shortly before noon on a cold mid-November day the arrow hit its mark and a lucky hunter's quest for an archery buck was over.




Scenes like this will be playing out all over the Midwest this weekend as the Whitetail rut ramps up. Seeking and chasing is becoming more prevalent during the daylight. Giant bucks are standing proud in open fields guarding does that are nearly ready to breed.

This buck took advantage of the soaking storm November 5th and freshened
a scrape on his mid-afternoon stroll.

In Iowa scrapes and rubs are furiously scratched every minute around the clock as bucks cruise the loop looking for their next girlfriend. Now is the time to be on stand and the action will get even hotter with a huge cool-down slated for the middle of the month.

In November, there's two types of predominate wind; warm and cold. The prevailing warm wind is a due southerly and the corresponding cold wind is a northwesterly.  Set your stands for these for success in November.

Temperature is second only to human pressure on reducing daylight rut behavior for a deer herd. Warm readings typically keeps the herd bedded down until it cools off at night and much of the activity becomes nocturnal. Human pressure is the premier rut inhibitor and can dramatically reduce the predictability of the herd your hunting. Other factors that influence the amount of rut activity you'll see are buck to do ratios and land use practices. Habitat that doesn't promote sanctuary may only see sporadic activity at best.

Arctic cold may drop single digits into the Midwest Tue/Wed. Yowzaa.

Veteran's Day 2013 through November 13th will feature a polar plunge as Arctic high pressure builds into the central Plains. In just over 24 hours the temperatures will drop 30-40 degrees sending the Iowa outdoors into winter mode and sending the Rut into overdrive. Modifying temps may limit activity somewhat heading into the weekend of the 16th/17th but yet another temperature cliff may be on the horizon ready to spark more great rut hunting weather.

Get out and enjoy this weekend, it will be warm but activity will be up from last weekend and it shouldn't disappoint!