Let's talk late season.........
 

Well it's quickly approaching. I have 2 doe tags left in PA right now and am pretty sure I know how to fill those, but I also have a buck tag and either sex tag in NY that I would like to start focusing on. In NY I have weekends from this upcoming weekend, until 12/16 and can squeeze one more 3 day weekend in there as well, most likely the weekend of 12/7.

I know obviously food sources in the evenings, however I have seen VERY little movement in those areas during late season by bucks in the last few years, Dan's place gets a bit more pressure than mine and they have usually smartened up a bit.

So what do you guys think?

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

Don't know what to tell you. Those late season hunts on previously pressured deer sure are tough. I've never done well around here. Night time movement and hiding all day.

I'd be interested in hearing what others do on pressured deer.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

So glad you posted this, Matt. I'm wondering exactly what the food source IS, about now????

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

BEANS, BEANS, and MORE BEANS. At least when it gets colder. We are going to want to focus on late season food sources, and places that have not received much pressure. This is the one time of the year when you will find the mature bucks running with the rest of the crowd. This is my take for late-season, I dont think we are there yet, but we will be in about 3 weeks!!

Stay warm and hunt high!

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

That is tough Matt, is their any standing corn in the area? Around here the corn is still standing (which is going to seriously hinder the rifle hunters out along with the crappy weather). Food sources are always the key, but more importantly is finding the areas where the deer feel a little comfortable and secluded at these food sources. With all the pressure from the rifle hunters the deer aren't going to just poke out into open fields to eat. I would look for little "hidden corners" around any standing corn fields as they may be hot spots.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

There's no question, late season hunting for deer that have been pressured hard all year is tough business. The bigger bucks don't like to make their way onto the food sources until after dark, and usually aren't bedded far enough away to be able to sneak in and catch them staging without bumping them first.

I don't have any experience with late season success on any bucks to speak of, so I can't really provide any great insights. The best I can tell you is to hit it as hard as you can and hope that one of them makes a mistake and shows up early one night. Or take some chances and try to get in as tight to their bedding areas as possible. If you can get lucky enough to have an evening hunt right before a big front moves in the deer should be on their feet early, hopefully increasing your odds for success.

Personally, I'm going to see what I can do to get right on top of the bedding areas early in the mornings to catch them coming back in, and likewise get as close as I possible can in the evenings to catch them coming out to food. The fun part is when you do get a buck to show up, usually you have to deal with a line of does first meaning there's a lot more eyes, ears, and noses to fool before you get a shot off. Good stuff!

Any way you look at it, late season is brutal and takes a lot of hard work to tough it out and come out successful. But when you do, the success is oh so sweet (or so I've heard :D)

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

Here in NE the gun season end a week ago. I shot a average 8 point yesterday. It was 20 degrees when i got up windy and cold as all get out. Got to my stand late was starting to get light. I climb up the tree in my chimer pulled my bow up put a arrow in it and than put it in my bow holder. I put my head net on and looked around and a buck was coming trough the timber headed right to me. He got about 30 yards from me and stopped. I wasn't going to shoot him he hasn't that big, but it's cold out side and the riffle season had just ended and it hard hunting after it. I drawed my bow back and he turned a little away from be, but was still standing. I shot he run about 60 yards and went head over heals. I took my binoculars out and I could see the bloody arrow stuck in the ground. As I was getting down there was 3 doe right be hided me and I was haft way down the tree. It was a short and sweet hunt that morning took about 20 mins. Not the kind of buck I wanted, but I have lot's of deer in the freezer now with two deer this year

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

I've had the most late season success doing small 2 man pushes through bedding areas with funnels. One sitter, one pusher, the pusher basically slowly still hunts along, not trying to scare deer out, more so just nudging them out into the funnel areas.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

Read this:


http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=2467770&mpage=1&key=&#246777 0

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

That is a great thread and there are tactics there that can be used anywhere, but that thread is geared more towards the midwest, where this one is more about pressured late season deer back here in the east, unless Im reading Rick James post incorrectly.

The best advise I've seen here so far for pressured deer is the slow two man push.

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RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

The acorns are still falling here in Eastern NC and the oak tree are hot spots. Movement to the oaks is a little closer to dark so you have to set up on the bedding/approach side of the trees which reduces options for wind/tree selection. The oaks are the place to be right now, right here.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

Hunt the thick nasty cover, and food! The only thing that is going to be on their minds (The Deer). Safety/Security & Food/Water. This time of year/Late Season...Acorns & harvested field edges with thick cover very nearby. Hope this helps...Good luck to you.;)

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

What if all the crops are picked, all the acorns are already gone, and pretty much all you are left with is random browse and a multitude of bedding places?

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

same scenario here Rybo

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

I would imagine that despite the fact that the browse seems to be "random", the deer would always have one or two "preferred" choices, no? The same for bedding areas. While they may like to bed in a variety of locations, there has to be some that are better and thus more preferred than others. And if those would stand to be true, I think you're going to find what your'e looking for.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

Well since the farmer loves me, I have 25 acre wheat field, I can tell you, I it surrounded with stands for every wind:D

I have never shot a buckpast Nov 14, I have come very close twice;)

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

I'm sure we have some acorns still on the ground, here. But to identify them as THE food source, right now.....I couldn't do that. I admit I have NO IDEA what the deer I'm hunting are utilizing for their MAIN food source, right now. It's a shortcoming I wish I didn't have to admit to.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

When you put in the food plot we have discussed for next season, you will know where they will be............that's for sure. I'd feel pretty confident in my ability to tag a buck at my place in PA right now..........I just don't have a tag there. The last night I was in PA I counted 5 deer on the plot in front of my camp including one stud of a buck, and 7 more deer in the plot across the road from there.

Dan's place in NY does have lots of plots, but no brassica or other cold weather plots that were large enough to produce forage this late unfortunately. This is where I am looking for ideas, their clover plots seem to be getting a little browse after dark but other than that the movement during daylight is limited at best. Dan's place also gets a LOT more gun pressure than my place (my place has only been gun hunted 2x in the last 3 years), so the deer there are educated well by now.

The drive seems like a great idea but honestly I'd rather eat tags than push the sanctuaries we have worked so hard to create.

I'd love to hear what GregH, or Troy, or Buckeye has to say........hopefully one of they will pop in and share some words of wisdom.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

Although all of the crops are picked, beans and corn fields will hold deer through the end of Jan. They eat the stalks and missed/spilled grain as well. Plus it seems that they like these open fields to socialize as well.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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.;)

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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!!!

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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.

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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?

RE: Let's talk late season.........
 

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...