I know late season means different things to different folks depending on the state you live in. PA's late season doesn't start until December 26 and runs through mid January in most places. Here, its archery and flintlock muzzloaders only. I have begun to absolutely love this time of year to hunt, maybe as much as the rut in November to be honest. I used to think it was basically hunting the dead sea as most deer were run off into parts unknown and or shot during the two week rifle season that starts right after Thanksgiving. All of that changed one winter when I had an insane encounter with a stud buck that I'd been trying to catch up with for two years. It was 10 degrees and I chickened out from hunting out of a tree. I opted to sit in a ground blind one afternoon and the only thing that saved his life that day was a creaking blind chair when I tried to move for the shot. The cold makes things LOUD. lol. Throughout the years of hunting harder in late season, I've learned a few things and thought I'd share. I would love others to add to this post and share your tips or knowledge. I'm always learning and evolving! Food, Food, Food. I know this is the most common thing anyone says about late season hunting but it really is paramount. But, where I hunt, I don't have the luxury of endless ag fields that deer pile into by the dozens as you see on the Outdoor Channel. Food sources here are much more nuanced. Here, I've found that they not only have to be preferred, but also must have plenty of thick cover. Red Oaks that drop later in the fall and have lots of acorns still laying around, tucked into thicker cover is a good spot to start. If you can find a spot that has this setup, with a bedding point or ridge that a buck may favor, you could be in the money. But, bucks in particular, especially the older ones will not hesitate to travel further at dark to get to the food if they have to do so in open timber. They simply value their security far more than easy access to food. South facing slopes. yes its a thing in the winter months. However, I don't think its as big of a deal as what most tell you it is. If you live in any of the northern latitudes, cold is not all equal to a deer. Teens is not cold for a deer during the winter. Sure they may bed up for a few hours to catch the suns warmth in the mornings on the south side of a hill, but I don't put much faith in that being the end all be all of where the buck will be. Now, get into the single digits and add some wind, I look for thermal cover spots, leeward sides of hills, etc. Cold winds mean northerly winds and they will favor a south slope. Add some thick pines, etc in there and thats a hot spot, literally. One thing I have noticed about extreme cold temps in that deer really move well mid day. If memory serves me correctly, the thought is that they do so to feed, etc during the warmest parts of the day, then hole up in thermal cover areas at night when its bone chilling cold. The buck I mentioned earlier, I caught up with at 2pm in the afternoon, 30 minutes after getting in the blind. It was 10 degrees at the time, and was way below that in the morning and at night. Staying warm out there is obviously an issue during this time of year. Not always, but it can be downright brutal. One the coldest days, I'll only sit the afternoons. I figure if I can't hack a morning until at least 10-10:30, I'd be doing more harm than good having to get out of the tree at 9am. I'm especially excited this year with wearing my new found battery heated clothing gear. This one is my most important item. I treat late season almost exactly like I treat early season. Bed to food patterns are king. The only real difference, not all the time, is the location in which you find deer. They often shift a bit to winter food sources. In my area where ag is limited, its acorns and preferred browse in thick cover. I find bucks in particular are way easier to pattern in late season, but sometimes harder to find. After being shot at or chased for three months, they can get really reclusive. You don't get those huge pattern swings like you do in early fall when they transition from food sources to rut areas. If you find a good buck this time of year, he's pretty routine and killable. Sit back at a distance and wait for the perfect conditions/time and move in for the kill. Sorry, if this post is dumb to most. I get almost as jazzed up about this time of year as I do early November. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts or things you've learned along the way.
If you aren't able to hunt near the food, most if not all of hunts will be highly unproductive. I love December bc people quit hunting, but my ability to find highly quality food where I hunt is hard. Has always been for me.
Having "endless" ag fields to hunt isn't all it's cracked up to be - especially when you need to get within bow range for a shot. Sure, seeing a lot of deer is fun, but killing them is another story. Point being, you can't just post up on a cut corn or bean field and think you'll be successful. Much like your point about finding the preferred food source near good bedding cover, you also have to do the same with agricultural food sources. Deer will prefer one area of a field over another for a variety of reasons - whether it's the amount of food left in that location, or the fact that it's hidden away from homes and roads. They will also change food sources, in my experience, depending on the weather conditions. If you get a warm spell in December or January, they seem to feed on green more than when it's cold. Speaking of which, I find on really warm days during the late season the deer activity is amazing. Everyone is always hoping for super cold, windy, snowy, nasty conditions, but a good warm front in late December will absolutely put deer on their feet. I think they enjoy it as much as we do. Trail cameras can be great tools this time of year. This weekend I hope to transition most of my cameras off scrapes and travel corridors and on to food and some select late-season bedding areas I know are favored by some of my target bucks. Glassing in the evenings is another old school tool that is often overlooked. I'm hearing more and more successful hunters talk about scouting more than you hunt, and late season is the perfect time for that. As you mentioned, late season is a lot like early season. Deer can be visible and killable, and will often start using the same areas on a regular basis. You can cover a lot more area with your eyes than you can with any amount of trail cameras. As always, boots on the ground can be king, especially if you get some snow cover. There is no better or faster way to find hot food than when there's snow on the ground.
Good stuff Justin. I think the ag situation is a lot more advantageous than not when comparing that to big woods and or mountain land. In the appalachians out this way, you're literally trying to find a needle in a very big haystack. Id much rather find a buck in a field some place and figure out where he's coming out into the fields and move in on him when its right. At least I'd be knowingly in the game! lol. The temp thing is an interesting one. I've found that the bucks in particular here are far more active when its bitter cold. Its as if they don't want to leave bedding security anymore than they have to, but the cold forces their hand. Does, like you said, really can get going in those 50 degree days, like they're enjoying the nice break in the cold as much as we are. I prefer it to be cold cold because it just seems like the movement can be really intense and focused from about 2pm until dark. I can hack it for 3-4 hours before my hair goes numb. The scout more/hunt less thing is something I am really trying hard to do more. Its just so hard when time is limited to hunt and just being in the tree is better than not. But when I think about it more. I have limited time, why not try to make the most of the limited time by making high quality sits rather than wasting time in various spots "just to see what happens"?
Up here in central Minnesota the corn is cut and baled and plowed under too after the manure, not much left on the ag fields.
To add to this post. I had a good afternoon yesterday to be able to go grab some camera cards from some cams that are in areas I'm interested in hunting after the holidays. I figured I'd do it about a week after the rifle season ended here to give the deer a little time to settle down, plus it gives me a bit of a buffer before I get in there after Christmas. The interesting thing from these pulls is what definitely appears like quite a lot of rut activity in the past week. Every buck I have was either chasing a doe by a camera or following right behind one. Don't overlook this. It does pretty much line up with the first rut phase in that its approx 30 days after the bulk of the does have their first cycle. It also reminds me of a sit I had years ago, in early January where I was two large rack bucks harassing a doe as intensely as I've ever witnessed. They were just out of bow range thank goodness as I wasn't even remotely prepared for that situation to unfold underneath me. lol. It was the coolest thing. There was 10-12" of fresh snow on the ground, all the trees were covered... winter wonderland kind of day. These two bucks found a doe that smelled pretty good and were chasing and cornering her, fighting each other off like it was Nov 7. The other thing from this location was that all of the movement, with the exception of a couple of straggler does, was in the morning, much of it right at daylight or a bit before. This particular spot is going to be difficult, if not impossible to get in there for a morning sit without blowing it out. So, I will sit back and monitor it in hopes it settles down and a buck starts showing in daylight for the evening. Otherwise, I believe I'll write this spot off.
I'm in Ontario Canada and it's basically a game of whoever has the best groceries wins pretty typical practice around here for farmers to plow under the fields and not planting any winter coverage so food plots and bait piles are the game
We typically have a mix of picked, still standing and plowed under fields here by after christmas. That being said, its very hard to get access to anything close to crops because most if private land. The public stuff is all mountain ground, far removed from ag, but just close enough that the deer tend to transition into these areas by this time and are completely inaccessible to hunt. It sure seems to leave a lot of mountain ground devoid of deer.
This year i’ve been hunting public land open to bowhunting only. Not are bowhunters rare, most of them seem to drop off by December. Fine by me! I love late season hunting, the early sunset kind of stinks but I don’t mind the cooler temps! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Resurrecting this post. I've hunted fairly hard the last week or so. The first week of our late season, the weather was terrible. 50's and wet most of the week. Then a bout of high winds as a cold front came in. I has a spot in mind that I wanted to check as soon as conditions and wind directions were right. It paid off and I got eyes on a shooter the first sit that evening. I through a couple of sits in various spots around here over the course of a few days, but he never did show back up. Interestingly, he was trailing two does as if it was November 5th. This particular spot was a very old clearcut that sits on top of a slight ridge and has several drainages that pour out of it to the east and north. I have access to quite a bit of land across from my house. The side of the mountain is THICK and provides quite a few bedding opportunities. Its hard to hunt and near impossible to throw observation sits as you can't see much further than 50-60 yards in there. There's ag at the base of the mountain. I routinely walk my dogs over there along the fields. Yesterday, after we had 8" of snow the day before, I took the opportunity to walk the dogs and see what sort of tracks I could pick up. Low and behold, I found a large set of tracks, probably close to 5" in length to the dew claws, in the snow and followed him around a little in the fields. There is something over there that may have my attention..... This morning, as I came home taking my son to school, a big buck crossed the road in front of me in wide open fields about 200 yards below my house. Broad daylight, picked corn and bean fields... I'm wondering if this is the deer that made the tracks the night before that I found. Screw these deer.... lol.
My daughter brought hers and foster dog up for a run Sat., seasons over. She asked if I was ready to hung up my weapons and hunt clothes for good after this season. Why? On the 38 acre section we walked the deer trails were everywhere and looked like cow runs to a barn. You guys hit most of the things I've observed over the years. Though the south side hill in cold NW winds is a thing as well as the wood edge south facing beds in cold weather... big here. Swamps, swampy areas stay warmer in our cold weather and they will pile into those areas big time. FOOD so that's a thing and the close of season activity I know proves that, with another speculation I had this season...hhhmmmm
