getting ready to hit it hard this week and then our late archery season will be starting right after Christmas. my confusion is whether to hunt my spots from our archery season that just finished or move to wintering areas from years past. problem is that we are still in a fall trend. we aren't even close to having the deer group up for winter patterns. I'm used to be out hunting in a foot of snow this time of year so now I'm out of whack on where to hunt. any ideas would be appreciated. thanks in advance.
I'm in the same out of whack you are. Heading for upper 60's this week here. I doubt I hunt this week at all with it being that warm.
same here brother, warm weather, no acorns, lots of browsing I guess. Heck I don't know where to start.
Had them all grouped up last week after a couple snow falls put a decent covering on the ground. Now the temp got up into the 40's over the weekend and pretty much all this week melting all the snow again so I have no idea what they are going to do.
Had 6 doe and fawn come in to my back yard the other night. I usually only see like 2. Seems they herded a little around me Western wi
well I did some thinking about this. I went out last night to the safety zone where I do all my late season hunting just to see whats happening. only had 45 minutes to hunt so I jumped into a strip of goldenrod that juts out into the middle of the field so I could look back towards the sanctuary. wasn't even there 20 minutes and had 3 does come out of the crp behind me and were heading to the clover field. 15 minutes after that 3 more does were coming out of the crp with the same idea. none of them came into the clover due to the wind I was hunting. I will be hunting out in a stand looking over that field with a bow and rifle tonight. my thought is deer have their internal calendar. maybe nothing matters except the time of year. the field I was overlooking last night was absolutely destroyed. so I know they are feeding heavy there. so maybe this is just somewhere they go about this time of year no matter what. regardless I will be there trying to fill my tags. like river bottom said " something green "
In the late season if you find the main food source, you should be in great shape. Blessings..........Pastorjim
I've seen large groups of does and fawns browsing on grass in the middle of the day near the forest preserves (local park/woodland areas where no hunting is allowed) in my area for the past week or so. No bucks though. So it looks like slick tops are in winter patterns, but not bucks. Was going to try to fill my last tag this weekend but with forecasted rain and temps in the 60s...yeesh.
I tried the "green" Sunday evening. No luck. Did see a button buck across the creek on the neighbors place. Didn't see anything in our green field. There are 10 different things growing in that field. There is over an acre of it. Hopefully it will draw them in before the season is over. We do live in an agricultural area but all the crops that were planted this year have been disced under or were planted in radishes for the winter due to the field not getting planted during the season. We have 2 acres of standing beans and over an acre of "green". Now, at the in-laws, the "green" field is being hit fairly hard. But, there isn't much other than locust pods and hedge apples to eat there. There aren't any crops of any kind within a mile. The ones that were there were beans and they are to the east through the houses. Not saying they aren't eating there, there just isn't much cover there or in between. We'll see.
I had five doe 20 yards from me last night. My husband had eight doe and a buck. Sadly - here everything is grouping up. But, I think it'll be a good last week for gun season!
Soo...yeah. On my way home from work today I went by the same FP at 4:30 and there's an easy 170"+ BEAST just browsing away on the nice green grass next to 3-4 does and maybe another 2-3 yearlings. !@&%*+€£!!! unhuntable Cook County Forest Preserves. I'm sure some well-connected "sharpshooter" will get a chance at him sooner or later.
Without snow and fridged temperatures it doesn't feel like late season. I have 2 cameras on public land deep in the thick stuff hopefully I find something. The doe hunt this weekend doesn't help me. Have another 6 days then I'll be off of work for the rest of year. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk
I didn't see any last night but I know they will show themselves again. our pumpkin party is still in session so things aren't really predictable yet. all I do know is that the grass field is destroyed from deer. when the do come back i'll be waiting. later in the season is when I really thrive to be on stand. the field I'm hunting has a lot of clover and mixed grasses. there are a lot of weeds mixed in and sometime I think the deer prefer the weeds.
