Dr. Stephen Ditchkoff has studied whitetails since 1992 and has spent the last 26 years as a professor at Auburn University, where his team runs a 430-acre deer research facility built to follow which bucks actually breed, which does they breed, and how that changes over a deer's life. We sat down with him for the second time to talk about the rut: why the peak is the worst time to hunt, why the Southern rut runs longer, what does are looking for in a buck, and how mature bucks change the whole breeding season.

Our first episode with Dr. Ditchkoff - https://youtu.be/QZncXOxHpfI

In this episode:

- Why the peak of the rut is the worst time to hunt

- 26 years at Auburn and the 430-acre deer research facility

- Are antlers an honest signal of a buck's quality?

- How many does one buck can breed in a season

- Why Boone and Crockett symmetry isn't what a deer sees

- Do does choose which buck breeds them?

- Why bucks may be choosy too

- Do mature bucks get harder to kill in the rut?

- The windows on either side of the peak

- "They're running" days vs. actual peak breeding

- Why the Southern rut is longer and bucks can't run as hard

- Late-born fawns: once behind, always behind

- The age bucks breed most successfully

- Good mothers vs. bad mothers: a third of does raise most of the fawns

- What a doe wants from a buck: immune system genetics

- The white T-shirt study

- How deer learn: 8,760 hours a year in the classroom

- How a grandmother's condition shows up in her grandfawns

- What last year's acorn crop means for bucks 4–5 years from now

- How mature bucks shorten the rut and move it earlier

- Post-rut mortality

- Why culling "management bucks" doesn't work

- Listener question: where did all the mature bucks go?

- What solunar charts actually show

- Counting deer with thermal drones

- Flying drones over hunters to see how deer react

- The buck that walked within 50 yards of a hunter, unseen

- The new research he can't talk about yet

Join our Circle Community here - https://linkly.link/2o0Sn

Grab some Southern Outdoorsmen merch here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aK

Join Woodsman Wire - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1u4aR

Use code "SOUTHERN" for a discount on Whitetail Hill food plot seed & trees - https://linkly.link/2myBP

Use the promo code "southern" for a discount on your OnX Hunt membership here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tyfm

Check out Latitude Outdoors for your mobile hunting gear - https://2ly.link/1zVDI

Use code TSOP15 for a discount on Mossy Oak - https://linkly.link/2ERb8

Use code SOUTHERN20 for a discount on all Vortex apparel, including eyewear