Ryan Rothstein: Ready or not, the ‘grind’ of the rut is here

Despite this fall being incredibly warm and overall deer activity being mostly sluggish as a result, the heart of the whitetail rut is staring down the barrel at us. No matter how insistently the weather clings to balmy temperatures, whitetails are going to start breeding, and soon.
Along with that will come all the classic rutting behaviors that we dream about – a parade of bucks dogging a single, harried doe; a pair of brutes locking antlers in a battle for breeding rights; and, above all, that buck we’ve spent months obsessing about doing something he absolutely shouldn’t do and heading right for our stand in broad daylight.