You can't pin point when it will happen. I do not follow what the experts say. I go by what I witness in the woods every year. Thing is if the rut does hit early say late October then Nov 4th week they could go on lockdown mode. If you are taking off work for a week IMO I would take the week before Nov 4th and focus on a pre rut hunt. I saw more bucks this year pre rut than rut time. If you do this then I would most definitely put a mock scrape or two.