bowdoc1

I think a lot of the big buck go nocturnal and you got to hunt close to bedding areas to get a daylight shot for a little time tell the second rut starts or the traffic in the wood slow down. Hunting pressure will make big bucks go nocturnal. You will alway see doe and young deer out and around.

StealthyOne

I am seeing bucks at my "swamp stand"and no does whatsoever.

The bucks are coming in not long before dark to my foodplots which are planted in the middle of a funnel area which borders a nasty swamp. They hardly touched them all summer.

I missed a big bruiser (prolly 180" plus) on the 17th. His rack was thick, wide and stuck out past his nose by at least 8 inches. There were at tleast 5 points on his right side. He came out at 4:20 or so and it was dark at 5. I think this is "HIS" area.

A small 6 point (small rack, big body) came in last weekend when I was on stand and was very nervous and constantly looking into the woods (where the big boy comes from). He fed for 15 minutes and snuck back out the way he came in.

Do you guys think the does will come in there soon? My dilemma is that I have an agreement with my buddy not to shoot a buck unless his antlers are outside of his ears (or frekishly tall). So, I can't shoot the small buck and am not seeing does in there and I already missed the big boy at about 10 yards...right over his back.

The big boy didn't get scared - he took two bounds into the woods, then made his way through the woods at a normal pace.

Both bucks bed within 100 yards of these plots...
What to do - I hate tag soup, but I want another crack at the bruisert

Brknarrow1970

Decemeber has generally been a productive time for me, just not for mature bucks - I seem to be able to find all of the does and youngsters without a lot of issues but keying in on Mr. Big has proved difficult in the late season for me, I typically hunt near the cutovers and around oak flats - I think GREGH had the post for the late season I and I have read it several times since it was posted - the key is moving in close to the bedding areas

jmbuckhunter

All of the crops are picked where I hunt too. But the farmer plants wheat in the ditches and highly erodable areas in some fields, just to keep it from washing. It has been my little secret for the past couple of years. The deer pile into these little areas in the evenings. You just gotta pick the right ditch to sit on and hope the wind is good for that nights sit.

I guess I let the secret out now. But I don't think the other guys that hunt there are on HNI. Another of my secrets.

Also this is the time of year to pay attention to heavily used trails. They will point you in the derection of the food source of choice. There aren't as many options this time of year and all of the deer might be using the same ones. And after the leaves have all fallen trails are easy to spot.

Another good spot is around Honey Locust Trees. The ones with the long skinny seed pods hanging on them. The deer love these things, and a lot of times they hang on until late in the season. If you have any in your area, you need to check them out NOW.

Ben / PA

It can be a frusterating time. The one thing that usually helps here in PA is some snow for Xmas. The first decent snow of the year, wether it be in November or December, I am out finding primary food source routes, seeing if there are any good tracks, and if patterns have changed. It takes some hoofing but you may just find a secret pathway in an unusal place.

NY Bowhunter

Well I've had a few things work in the past for me.

First like most people have said hunt the food sources. Good way to take "a" late season deer but maybe not "the" late season deer. Those big mature bucks that have been pressured all year aren't coming out until the security of darkness.

Bedding areas is where I like to go. I get right on top of them during the late season hoping to catch them coming back or just getting up to venture to one of those food sources. Yes you risk bumping them out of their bedroom and leaving your scent around, but I think that's the best chance for a late season bruiser.

Get lucky with the 2nd or 3rd rut and have a buck following a hot doe that hasn't been bred?[:-] Sounds good in theory, but I don't put too much faith in the 2nd or 3rd rut.

Get a good wet windy day to still hunt. Put the wind in your face and still hunt an area you think is holding deer. Very cool way to take a whitetail by the way.

Last ... I have 600 acres that I save for occasions like this. I don't step foot in their untill "late season" comes around and the deer around my main areas are pressured like crazy. I slip into this little oasis and it's like opening week of bow season again [8D]. The neighbors around this piece of property (my brothers) don't hunt and nobody hunts around it that I know of. So these deer see very little pressure.

If all else fails get one of those hunting games for playstation 2. You can't miss with that.

passthrough24

I ussually do quite a bit of late season hunting in Northern Wisconsin on public land, I have found that if the weather gets severe enough the mature bucks will come out to eat in daylight hours, even in high pressured areas food seems to be more important than safety(if that makes any sense).

I know that the food source is going to be different depending on where in the country you hunt, but up north if you can find some fresh logging (not pines) you are almost certain to find a good population of deer...

I have also seen a lot of deer with the "two man push"the problem i have found with that isit is very difficult to get in position where deer actually come in bow range, and I am also not a fan of taking running shots with archery gear, so allthough I have seen many deer on these small pushes I have never harvested one this way.

Overall I love late season hunting, if you find a food source you are going to see a lot of deer, it can be hard to find a mature buck, but seeing deer is allways fun!!!

shed33

It's a little different ball game in mountain/foresthabitat. No crops or reminants of crops to speak of. The predominate and preferred feed is Red Stemmed Ceanothus. It grows wild and it grows everywhere. It stands about 6-10 feet tall and thrives as "the" major underbrush in Doug fir, Hemlock, Ponderosa Pine and Cedar stands here in N. Idaho. There is no centralized food source, instead it is everywhere and thick, serving both as feed and bedding cover.

Old bucks here do not need to move more than100 ft in a day to browse..bed and browse in the same spot. Sure they will move a bit more if they choose too or have a stimuli to force them too, ie predators, hunters or snow levels exceeding 18 inches or more. Water is everywhere this time of year.

So how do you hunt an old mature buck in late season here in the mountians. You have to know him and his core bedding areas.

you can play the late rut wild card too, hoping for a young doe to come into heat before the close of the season. Dec 23rd. I keep an eye on the local doe family groups in my area in Dec, looking for the fawns that come into estrus late, if I see a young doe being pursued by a buck then I hunt those does, but outside of that, I hunt bedding areas. The same bedding areas I find hvy concentrations of sheds in and or where I have found "a" bucks previous sheds.

One last thing I do... During my Dec 2 to Dec 9break in the seasons here... (no whitetail hunting for those days) I hike and scout the snow as much as I can to locate big buck tracks in and around big thickets of Ceanothus. Usually these areas make up 50-100 acres or more. Bucks core areas in the winter here seem to be about 150-300 acres. If I find a big track, I will backtrack, never track it, I dont want to bump him off his normal late season post rut routine. These tracks often read like a book and give great insight to his Dec millings and movements. Yup I chance bumping them but I can't kill them if I am not set up very close. Its a tricky time of the year. I've arrowed a couple really nice bucks past Dec 10th. One was checkingon a hot young doe, the other living and feeding in his bedding area.

Temps here are usually between 5 to 30 degrees in late season, the snow is usually about a foot deep ...give or take a few and its really crunchy... getting in and out of any spot without every critter ona mountain hearing youis a chore, windy days or fresh snowfallhelp this time of year.

Rick James

Awesome post Troy, this is the kind of info I was looking for.

My area I unfortunately haven't been in long enough to know those late season bedding areas for bucks from previous experience/sheds. Do you see these bedding areas in similar places that they were in the early season, before the rut, or do they typically move to another core area?

shed33

Rick, if the snow levels are less than 18 inches, especially down around 1 foot of snow, I almost always see bucks hanging and staying with their past "late season core areas" which almost always are their"pre-rut core areas", too!

Isay 18 inchesbecause for what ever reason, that seems to be the depth that starts moving deer out of my areas once the snow gets deeper than that.

Most bucks here do not have to travel too far to escape the deep snow in the Norths though, so even if I get deep snow..... The southern slopes are just over the mountain ridges or down a ridge etc....almost always they have 50% less snow than the norths or more. Eastern and Western facing slopes fall in the middle ground somewhere and bucks will camp out on the west and eastern faces too until snow boots them. The Ceanothus is everywhere.. even in the norths..so they have so many options..

Many bucks that I target and hunt in Sept and Oct live right were they do in Dec. Especially old mature bucks that have established a safe haven if you will. I see this all the time, time and time again in big woods country. Only unusual snow depths in Dec will drive them out. This is why I tend to find the same bucks sheds year to year on the same mountainside.

Now on another note...the bucks I have backtracked during the rut, for example I watched a big 5x5 cross a clearcut one evening years ago and he went out of sight into the timber. I hiked up to his tracks marked them in the snow and then came back the next day, (this was late november) I walked that bucks tracks all day the next day. I promise you he took me on a ten mile jaunt. I found a total of three spots he bedded down over that juant. Was he in or around his core area at all???? I have no idea and couldnt tell you because he was out running his rutting routes..But what he told me is that he was willing to really travel...He would travel from doe group to doe group....into several doe laiden (tracks) areas. I saw several does that day on that walk and walked up on 3 other bucks.

All this to say, I dont even get excited about a buck coming back to his core area untilthe secondweekof Deconce our rut starts to slow. Some bucks have all they need right in and around their core areas in this big country, some dont. I do believe the older bucks tend to stay at "home" more and are very selective in their daytime wandering even during the rut versus the 2.5s and 3.5's even the 4.5's

Most of the bucks I have found in the summer... end up right back in the same area in mid to late Dec... Bucks here in this habitat....the old bucks.. 4.5 and older almost always establish a core area by that agethat they can live in year around, even if it means moving shop over the mountain to a southern exposure in the winter months.. its still the general area..and the ceanothus combined with many other vegetations.... is plentiful!

Old bucks are like old men, they don't waste a lot of energy or time on stuff they dont need to do. Younger bucks are much more random and less calculated in their movements. They like to bachelor up and hang out with buddies.. Most of the bucks I hunt these days are always alone ... so the hunts are one on one in an area say 150-300 acreas..

I have snow now, I will learn a lot about a few bucks ...scouting them the first week of Dec. I may even bump them, but thats what it takes sometimes to find them..

I've puposely left a specificbuck completely alone this entire season...that I have the onebig shed from...I believe due to his age and the sheds of his found in there....by a couple of my friends (they dont bowhunt him in late season)...if hes still alive he will be right back in that area...in 2 weeks. Time will tell..

edit..add in... "area" it can still be like finding a needle in the haystack..and they the old ones will be on guard from two months of rifle season...just ending..

edit #two after thinking on this sub a little more.. I always feel like I have a chance onceI narrow a core area down to say 50 acres of where I feel he's spending most of his time bedding feeding...the nice thing is..if I dont get a crack athim inDec and if he makes the winter, I can usually count on him living in the same general area come early archery the next season...