DilleyTech is correct. MS tag gets you archery and Muzzy seasons and the Modern Firearm season that all MF tag holders hunt (mid-oct - Haloween) plus 4 days in mid-November. Multiseason tag also allows you to hunt the late season by archery or ML depending on the unit and the dates. You must to have a "quality" hunt tag or similar to hunt the first two weeks of November. Technically, the peak of the rut is somewhere around the 10th of Nov with some variation every year. Peak of the rut though biologically means the point-in-time when the majority of the doe are receptive to and actually doing the nasty. If you read scientific papers regarding the issue, this is the time they are referring to when they state "peak of the rut".
Hunter's here and everywhere from what I 've observed, consider the rut to be when the bucks are chasing the doe hardest up until the time that they are not leaving the doe they are with until they breed her. They will stand near or besider her in a stupor and follow the doe wherever she goes (most cases. Bigger cagier bucks may push them to a hidden/safe place) Bucks are very vulnerable between the time chasing starts and peak of the rut occurs. Once the peak occurs, they are not moving much at all till their current doe has been bred. Anyways, your best dates translate to the last week maybe, and last four days, for sure of October. Those are the best dates to be in the woods. The next best days are the four days in Late Buck that occurs in mid-Nov.
Enough of that noise.... regarding your questions, apples are a great draw for all deer in the early season. Bucks tend to stick to their nocturnal behaviors until they start to chase and often even late - these bucks will only hit the apples at night (IMHO). You could train a deer with apples to come in during the day but without daily feedings over a long period of time, the chances that a buck older than a year or so will come into feed on apples in the middle of the day is almost nil unless they are already comfortable being around humans. Repetative baiting of doe with apples could potentially have them coming in to eat apples during daylight, and if the timing is right (late October with an interested buck on her tail), you might catch a buck following a doe in during daylight. Not a high quality bet in my mind. Years and years of game camming deer in my back yard, where I have five apple trees,I have has only captured daylight bucks between the 8th and 20th of November. Thousands of videos. Very few bucks - maybe five or six. Again, in my mind, this is a low percentage hunt.
So the question is, considering you have access to a spot,, how do you hunt it. Deer are creatures that live on edges. If there is a brush row or significant patch of brush anywhere on the property, then expect bucks will use that to stay as hidden as possible as they travel just inside the break between brush and open space. They are like vampires. They want nothing to do with being exposed in their environment. Darkness is preferred. So anyways, if the property is all grass with some apple trees or no real hiding or travel area for deer during daylight houts, I'd hunt somewhere else. You need to hunt where the deer are, which is in the shadows.
Rattling and grunting are great tactics to use in the woods, or at least along an edge where two distinctly different terrain or flora types meet - Alder/fir. forest/meadow, cliffs/lowlands. Can you use it to call a buck into a spot where he would not normally go....? Naaa, except for the rare occurance where the unexpected happens. You don't want to base you hunt plans on luck bringing bucks to you.
Hope that helps. Good luck!
