Read this before you use the numbers
Georgia is the only state we have found that publishes when deer move rather than when they breed. The map is titled Peak Deer Movement in Georgia, and it is built from deer-vehicle collisions — not from fetal aging. Georgia publishes no conception dates at all. Almost every site that reprints these county weeks relabels them “breeding dates,” which is not what the agency says they are.
That distinction is not a technicality in your favour or against it — it is arguably better for planning a sit. A movement date measures the behaviour you are trying to be present for. A conception date measures the biology behind it.
Every Georgia county, by peak-movement week
All 159 counties, exactly as Georgia DNR publishes them. These are charted figures — the agency's own numbers, reproduced without adjustment. We have added nothing and estimated nothing.
| Peak movement | Counties | Which ones |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 13 – Oct 19 | 7 | Ben Hill, Camden, Candler, Glynn, Jenkins, McIntosh, Telfair |
| Oct 20 – Oct 26 | 22 | Atkinson, Brantley, Bryan, Bulloch, Burke, Charlton, Chatham, Clay, Clinch, Coffee, Columbia, Effingham, Emanuel, Evans, Glascock, Jefferson, Liberty, Long, McDuffie, Richmond, Screven, Ware |
| Oct 27 – Nov 2 | 14 | Bacon, Baldwin, Echols, Hart, Jasper, Lanier, Lincoln, Monroe, Putnam, Schley, Taylor, Warren, Washington, Wilkinson |
| Nov 3 – Nov 9 | 53 | Appling, Bartow, Berrien, Bibb, Bleckley, Butts, Chattooga, Clayton, Cobb, Crawford, DeKalb, Dodge, Dooly, Elbert, Floyd, Gordon, Greene, Hancock, Haralson, Henry, Houston, Jeff Davis, Johnson, Jones, Lamar, Laurens, Lowndes, Macon, Marion, Meriwether, Montgomery, Morgan, Newton, Oglethorpe, Paulding, Peach, Pierce, Pike, Polk, Pulaski, Rockdale, Spalding, Taliaferro, Tattnall, Toombs, Treutlen, Twiggs, Upson, Walker, Walton, Wayne, Wheeler, Wilkes |
| Nov 10 – Nov 16 | 30 | Barrow, Carroll, Catoosa, Chattahoochee, Cherokee, Clarke, Coweta, Dade, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Franklin, Fulton, Gilmer, Gwinnett, Hall, Harris, Heard, Jackson, Madison, Murray, Muscogee, Oconee, Pickens, Sumter, Talbot, Troup, Turner, Whitfield, Wilcox |
| Nov 17 – Nov 23 | 13 | Brooks, Colquitt, Cook, Crisp, Dawson, Fannin, Lee, Randolph, Stewart, Tift, Towns, Union, Worth |
| Nov 24 – Nov 30 | 14 | Baker, Banks, Calhoun, Dougherty, Habersham, Irwin, Lumpkin, Mitchell, Rabun, Stephens, Terrell, Thomas, Webster, White |
| Dec 1 – Dec 7 | 1 | Quitman |
| Dec 8 – Dec 14 | 2 | Decatur, Grady |
| Dec 15 – Dec 21 | 2 | Early, Miller |
| Dec 22 – Dec 28 | 1 | Seminole |
What the spread actually tells you
Georgia is not a one-date state, and the tails are long:
- 53 of 159 counties peak in the single week of Nov 3–9 — a third of the state, and the reason “early November” is the usual shorthand.
- The earliest counties are Oct 13–19: Ben Hill, Camden, Candler, Glynn, Jenkins, McIntosh and Telfair.
- The latest is Seminole, Dec 22–28 — ten weeks after the earliest counties, in the corner where Georgia meets Alabama and Florida. Early and Miller follow at Dec 15–21, Decatur and Grady at Dec 8–14, Quitman at Dec 1–7.
If you hunt the southwest corner, a statewide “Georgia rut is early November” article is not slightly off for you. It is off by more than a month.
Where the numbers come from
45,811 deer-vehicle collisions recorded across Georgia between 2005 and 2012, supplied by the Georgia Department of Transportation. Researchers at the University of Georgia and biologists with the Wildlife Resources Division found what they describe as a strong correlation between peak collision timing, deer conception dates, and the hourly movement rates of GPS-collared deer.
The validation is worth knowing in detail, because it is what makes a road-kill dataset trustworthy for this: the collision peaks were checked against conception data from three Georgia counties, against GPS-instrumented male and female deer in Harris County, and against the state's older rut map built from fetal data and hunter observations. The authors report high concurrence among peak conception, peak rut movement and peak collisions.
Published as Stickles, Evans, Killmaster, Osborn, Stone, Miller and Warren (2015), Using Deer-vehicle Collisions to Map White-tailed Deer Breeding Activity in Georgia, Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, volume 2, pages 202–207.
The caveat Georgia states but does not let you apply
The map's own footnote reads: “Counties marked with an asterisk (*) had fewer than 100 deer-vehicle collisions for the sample period, too few to determine meaningful results. Accuracy of the dates shown for these counties will be low.”
We could not find an asterisk on any county in the published table. So the agency tells you some of these numbers are unreliable, and then does not tell you which. Until that is published, the sensible reading is to weight a thinly-populated rural county's single week less heavily than a busy suburban one's — collisions require traffic, and a county with few roads and few cars generates a thinner sample regardless of how many deer live there.
Confidence
Confidence B. The dates themselves are charted — published by the agency as a machine-readable county table, which is better sourcing than most states manage, and the method is peer-reviewed. The grade is held at B rather than A for two reasons: the collision data ends in 2012, and the agency's own reliability caveat cannot be applied because the affected counties are unmarked.
We publish no conception dates for Georgia, because Georgia publishes none and we are not going to invent them.
FAQ
When is the rut in Georgia?
It depends on your county. Georgia's published peak-movement dates run from Oct 13-19 in a handful of coastal and south-central counties to Dec 22-28 in Seminole County on the Alabama-Florida line. The single most common band is Nov 3-9, which covers 53 of the 159 counties.
Are Georgia's rut map dates breeding dates?
No. The map is titled 'Peak Deer Movement in Georgia' and is built from deer-vehicle collision data, not from fetal aging. Georgia does not publish conception dates at all. The University of Georgia researchers behind it did validate the collision peaks against conception data from three counties and against GPS-collared deer in Harris County, and reported high concurrence in timing - so the dates are a sound proxy for when the rut is happening. They are still movement dates, and most sites that reprint them silently relabel them as breeding dates.
Why is southwest Georgia so late?
The southwest corner is genuinely the state's late rut. Seminole peaks Dec 22-28, Early and Miller Dec 15-21, Decatur and Grady Dec 8-14, and Quitman Dec 1-7. That is roughly ten weeks after the earliest coastal counties. A statewide 'Georgia rut is early November' claim is wrong for that whole corner.
How reliable are the dates for small counties?
Georgia's own footnote says counties with fewer than 100 deer-vehicle collisions over the sample period had too few to determine meaningful results, and that accuracy for those counties will be low. The published county table does not mark which counties those are - we could not find an asterisk on any county in it. Treat a thinly-populated rural county's single week with more caution than a busy one's.
What data is the Georgia rut map built from?
45,811 deer-vehicle collisions recorded across Georgia between 2005 and 2012, supplied by the Georgia Department of Transportation, published in Stickles et al. 2015, Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, volume 2, pages 202-207.
Does peak movement mean the best time to hunt?
It is the closest thing any state publishes to that question. Deer-vehicle collisions spike when deer move, and deer move most during the rut - which is why the collision peak tracks the breeding peak. For planning a sit, a movement date is more directly useful than a conception date, because it is measuring the behaviour you are trying to be present for rather than the biology behind it.