Charles Alsheimer’s Pick of the Day: 2015 Whitetail Lunar Calendar

 

Charles Alsheimer bow buck

My journey with the Deer & Deer Hunting Lunar Calendar pre-dates its existence. The data the calendar contains is a result of nearly 20 years of data collection by Wayne Laroche and me, collected from a variety technologies and human sources, from across North America.

The history of our study is well chronicled by Deer and Deer Hunting. Though nothing in nature is 100 percent accurate the study has clearly shown that the northern whitetail’s peak breeding is not always a mid-November event. Due to a host of factors, driven primarily by shortening day length and the timing of the second full moon after the autumnal equinox, peak breeding can occur from early November to as late as Nov. 20-25.

Our findings may not be beneficial for biologists, but they have been important to time-strapped hunters who must schedule vacation time or work around other commitments.

The buck in the photo above, like so many I’ve killed in the last 15-plus years, was killed by being in the right place at the right time. It’s a buck I bow killed here on our farm seven days after the rutting moon as he worked a scrape eight yards from my stand. He was definitely on the march.

Interestingly I passed up this buck five times the year before when it was a 110-inch 8-pointer. It scores 141 Pope and Young, quite typical of what can take place when you let a young buck walk.  Because it is critical that I photograph the majority of the time in autumn I have to pick and choose the “right” times to hunt. Consequently I rely heavily on Wayne’s and my data.

Get the 2015 DDH Lunar Calendar for your home and camp here … 

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