End of season is best, provided you don't have knee deep snow and subzero temps as we did and still have this year. Right now, any messing around I might do in a yarding area will just stress out the deer even more than they already are being stressed. And much of the other sign besides rubs is buried. This year I will wait til spring.
Yup, we can get beat like that in our region... My favorite years are when we get the clippers blowing threw every two or three days... On a typical year the deer in my area don't go to yard until around the first of the year. I never mess with them when their in the yards either.