Alabama's five rut bands
Alabama Wildlife & Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) publishes its rut timing as a single raster map image, built from spatial interpolation of doe reproductive data collected 1995–2019. The peer-reviewed sample behind that same program: 2,386 does across 282 sites in 66 counties (Turner et al. 2019).
| Region | Peak breeding | Peak movement (hunt this) | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast outlier (Calhoun Co.) | Nov 24 – Dec 8 | Nov 10 – Dec 1 | C |
| North / northeast ridge counties | Dec 9 – Dec 24 | Nov 25 – Dec 17 | C |
| Tennessee Valley / west-central | Dec 25 – Jan 8 | Dec 11 – Jan 1 | C |
| Black Belt / east-central / southeast | Jan 9 – Jan 24 | Dec 26 – Jan 17 | C |
| Southwest Alabama | Jan 25 – Feb 8 | Jan 11 – Feb 1 | C |
Correction: the latest rut is the SOUTHWEST corner
The version of Alabama's rut map that circulates in hunting content puts the latest breeding in west-central Alabama. That's wrong. Our reading of WFF's 2022 map puts the latest band in the southwest corner — Clarke, Monroe, Washington, Conecuh, Escambia, Baldwin, Mobile, Wilcox, Butler, and Marengo counties, running into February. The map floor is Nov 10 (northeast outlier), not mid-December.
Counties → band lookup
| Band | Counties |
|---|---|
| Northeast outlier (Calhoun Co.) | Calhoun |
| North / northeast ridge counties | Cherokee, Cleburne, Lawrence, Limestone, Winston |
| Tennessee Valley / west-central | Bibb, Cullman, DeKalb, Etowah, Greene, Hale, Houston, Lamar, Lauderdale, Morgan, Pickens, Russell, Tuscaloosa, Walker |
| Black Belt / east-central / southeast | Autauga, Barbour, Bullock, Chilton, Coffee, Coosa, Covington, Dale, Dallas, Elmore, Geneva, Jefferson, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Madison, Montgomery, Perry, Pike, Shelby, Sumter, Talladega, Tallapoosa |
| Southwest Alabama | Baldwin, Butler, Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia, Marengo, Mobile, Monroe, Washington, Wilcox |
Methodology and confidence
Confidence C for every county assignment on this page. Alabama does not publish a table of county rut dates — WFF publishes a single continuous-surface raster image with a legend. Every county-to-band assignment above is our own reading of that image, classified against its legend, not a figure WFF states directly. The one place WFF does publish a number outright is the Dallas County site average (Jan 21 – Feb 4, average Jan 25) from the underlying peer-reviewed program — everything else on this page is our reconstruction.
FAQ
When is the rut in Alabama?
Depends on the county — Alabama runs from Nov 24 in a small northeast outlier to Feb 8 in the southwest corner. Look up your county in the table above; there is no single statewide date.
What county in Alabama has the latest rut?
The southwest corner: Clarke, Monroe, Washington, Conecuh, Escambia, Baldwin, Mobile, Wilcox, Butler, and Marengo counties, running Jan 25 – Feb 8. This corrects the commonly repeated claim that west-central Alabama is latest.
Is Alabama's rut map an official state table?
No. Alabama WFF publishes a single raster map image with a legend, not a machine-readable county table. Every county assignment on this page is our own reading of that image against its legend — confidence C, not a number WFF states directly.