Todd Amenrud
Those who know me well recognize my passion for managing wildlife, especially whitetails. But they also know my enthusiasm for hunting, especially whitetails. For many, if not most of us gamekeepers, our enthusiasm for managing whitetails was born out of hunting them. Deer hunters and gamekeepers know the challenges that hunters face in the late season. Savvy hunters can harvest a mature buck long after the rut. The following are three late season deer hunting tips you can use to put meat in the freezer or antlers on the wall.
1. Slaves to Their Stomach
I’ve always loved late season bow hunting. Specifically, it's the challenge of bow hunting after the rut that appeals to me. I used to enjoy getting on a fresh track and moving in close enough for a shot with my recurve. In Minnesota, after we’ve had a good tracking snow and our gun season has finished, whitetails have always generally shifted back into some sort of predictable pattern. Back during the late ’70s and early ’80s, I would settle for any deer I could stalk close enough for a shot with my recurve. Since then, my physical capabilities have changed, and I’m no longer athletic enough to sneak like a ninja. Nevertheless, I still love late season deer hunting, though now for a different reason.
“Wintry Whitetails?” “Bucks at the Buzzer?” “Bitter Cold Bucks?” What do you entitle an article about hunting late season whitetails when the term "late season" is relative to your geographical location?
In Minnesota, late season has generally begun in late November and extended through December 30. For my friends in the Deep South, it’s more like December through February. Some states in the transitional zone, like West Virginia, are extending their seasons. West Virginia has even added a new season for primitive weapons. Late season is relative to your region. It is also based on when your state chooses to convene their designated seasonal dates. I know you’re thinking: “Sure Todd, you work for a company that makes food plot seeds. You have to say something about it.” But this is fact! One of my mentors always said, “Bucks become slaves to their stomachs during late season.” I’ve heard him repeat it so many times. It’s the same way I describe it.
All whitetails need to “bank” fat and nutrients if they are to make it through the winter, especially in Northern climates. Also, consider that bucks lose a great portion of their banked energy during the rut with some losing 25 percent or more of their body weight. During this time, in areas along my latitude in the good ol’ USA, we go from breeding season directly into winter.
If we have snow, I’ll bet on whitetails feeding on brassicas, corn and sometimes dried soybeans or sorghum. Obviously, with snow, the food supply must first be accessible. However, with no snow or if we have less than six inches, the deer may feed on cereals, acorns, browse or other numerous options. When cold temperatures arrive, carbohydrates are more important because they enable the deer to generate heat.
Deer do not have a wide variety of food sources to choose from in the late season. In many areas, food supplies become limited after the rut is over. Knowing what deer in your area prefer when you have snow versus what they prefer when you don’t have snow is vital. This can be the information you need to identify late season buck patterns and to ultimately harvest a mature buck.
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2. Is It Real or Just a Great Deception?
What makes a situation seem real to you? For humans, our most convincing confirmation comes through sight. After all, we say, “You’ve got to see it to believe it!” Whitetails, as you may have guessed, trust their sense of smell more than any other sense. However, for any species, the more senses you satisfy, the faster the circumstances become reality. I love using scent, calling, decoys and other seemingly off-the-wall tactics from time to time. Using a variety of whitetail hunting strategies keeps the experience exciting. Moreover, once you learn a tactic, you can add it to your bag of tricks at the end of the season. Sometimes, as a last hurrah, I like to open that bag.
Some of my favorite strategies include calling and rattling, using decoys and other visual tricks and using commercial deer scent. While combining these strategies, I also reduce foreign odor to minimal trace levels that even mature bucks will tolerate in close proximity.
Each of the tactics mentioned above will work when used individually; however, when used together, each can “feed” the scenario. Let’s say a buck hears your rattling and pops out of cover across a large food plot. But when he gets there, he sees your small buck decoy, so he lays his ears back and proceeds to do an aggressive, stiff-legged walk across the plot toward your decoy. The decoy was a definite motivation for the buck to close the distance. However, when he gets close, he becomes unsure. So, he swings downwind to scent-check the situation. At that point, he smells the scent you placed out crosswind from you. Obviously, you must use a scent that confirms the specific scenario you’re trying to portray, but each element adds an additional level of confirmation.
I mentioned off-the-wall tactics. I’ve had success because of the types of gloves I used to wear. It gets cold here, so I used to wear wool gloves — not mitts — that have a light color that closely resembles the color of a deer’s tail. Once I harvested a doe that I lured to me by hiding my body behind a tree and swishing my wool gloves like a deer's tail. A tail wag means so much more in the whitetail world than most hunters realize. Using this "off-the-wall" strategy was fun, but the closer for my glove highlight reel would be a situation that occurred when I was approaching my tree stand.
A doe and fawn spotted me about 75 yards out while they were positioned directly under my tree stand. Once they sounded the alarm, I saw the buck, which was a perfect 154-inch 5x5 with less than two inches of deductions, stand up about 200 yards away. While cautiously ducking behind a tree, I began to loudly make a snorting sound back at the doe. Then, I flicked my hand out from behind the tree, swished it three times and pulled my hand back. I repeated this gesture several times. The sound and the motions calmed the other deer back down so the doe and fawn resumed feeding. The buck looked like he'd walked a small circle and bedded back down close to where he was. The deer must have thought the sounds and movements I made had been coming from the deer that originally sounded the alarm. Meanwhile, I waited for the doe and fawn to move off, snuck into my tree stand and at approximately sundown, I arrowed the buck at 28 yards.
After the rut, you often have to employ an out-of-the-box approach to take a mature buck. This time of the year, your strategy may combine several tried-and-true hunting tactics, especially when you combine tactics that you have used successfully. Incorporating multiple cold weather hunting tactics into a single strategy over a food plot can deceive even the wariest of whitetails.
3. Pushin’ Bush
What I’m going to pick as my last go-to tactic may surprise. This will especially surprise those who know me well and understand my extreme caution in preventing ANY disturbance to the whitetails on my property during the hunting season. I’ve heard deer drives referred to by different names over the years: bumpin’ bucks, flushing flags and steering deer. But my favorite is an expression I learned many years ago from my friends in Manitoba, Canada. There, they don’t call it the woods, forest or timber — it’s “the bush.” And they call deer drives, pushin’ bush. I still chuckle at that.
While I do not begrudge people who make deer drives, I’m not a big fan of the “scare them out the other end” type of drive. However, as long as people abide by local laws, I believe in letting them have at it. My form is not meant to get the deer up and running out of the timber at 30 mph. We just want to nudge them in the direction of an occupied ambush location. You want them walking past one of your hunters, looking over their backs for what may or may not be following them. Especially with archery gear, the last thing you want is to have to attempt a fast-moving shot as the weight of carrying winter deer hunting gear can impede your speed and agility.
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When I first began hunting, one of my grandfathers was a fan of the “blowing whistles, banging pots and pans” type drive. He would say, “You’ve got to get ’em up and moving!” But more often than not, the deer hear you, smell you or see you and either hunker down and wait for you to walk by, sneak out the side or circle around you. Sure, some get killed, but if you do a few things correctly, your success rate can skyrocket.
You could call this a still-hunt-style push. We’re not trying to scare the animals out of their hides. We just want to get them up and moving during legal hunting light and to have a chance at a high-quality opportunity. In fact, sometimes the people doing the drive actually get the shooting (I mean with archery, but it really doesn’t matter). I typically use this tactic at the end of the season if other options have failed or in situations where it may be tough to hunt — like in standing corn, swamps, some scrub areas, etc.
You must scrutinize an aerial view of the intended area. Funnels are the first thing to look for because they help create high-quality shot opportunities. In a bottleneck situation, most of the time you can find an ambush point that will put you downwind of where the animals will pass. Anywhere you can restrict their movement to a smaller zone first, typically, more animals will pass by the location. However, it’s also easier to position yourself within that zone because the animals' movements are limited.
Watch for patterns when scouting late season bucks. If you make the push once, document the conditions and watch which escape routes the animals use. When you have the same conditions, expect them to use the same escape path. It worked before. The first time or two you make the push, use your cameras to view possible escape ways you can’t physically cover.
Please don’t overdo it! Keep in mind that a mature buck has already endured hunting pressure in the late season. Too much stress and a mature buck may relocate. He probably won’t be too far away, but he’ll change something to avoid making contact with you. We typically limit it to two to four times during the season per area, and some areas are always off-limits.
You’ll often notice that post-rut deer behavior may differ in these situations. The job of the mature doe is to protect the herd. They will snort, stomp the ground and bounce away with their “flags” raised to announce “Danger! Danger!” to the rest of the herd. Some bucks may also act this way, but his job is simple — he just needs to protect himself. You’ll often see females and young bucks go bouncing away with their tails waving goodbye while mature bucks tuck tail and sneak out the back way or duck down and smell for you to pass by.
Most often, you simply won’t be able to cover all of the escape routes. Again, use your cameras to cover alternate flight paths. If you need to block a route, take a light handkerchief or ribbon and tie it in an obvious blocking location about five feet off the ground. Then, take one of your regular jackets and hang it nearby about body height on a branch or fence post. And I’m not talking about your hunting coat that you washed and treated with Scent Killer. I’m talking about the one you wore to the restaurant last night. You want these shams to prevent deer from traveling here, and if they don’t see it, they’ll likely smell this blockade.
My father was somehow especially good at making these still-hunt-style pushes, particularly if we had snow and he could follow a track. Sometimes, he would bring his bow — sometimes not. He just liked to see me have the opportunity. He steered so many deer past me while I was posting that I could never recount them all, most of them walking slowly, stopping to test the wind and checking their back-trail — perfect harvest opportunities
Late season deer hunting is more challenging than hunting the rut, especially when hunting late in the archery season. Don’t be afraid to hunt over a food plot or bedding areas during late season. Mature bucks will be searching for green food sources for deer in winter. Don’t be afraid to think out of the box when trying to lure a big buck within bow range. It may take a decoy, deer scent and a rattling bag to pull a whitetail within bow range. Lastly, don’t be afraid to push bush. The late season is an excellent time to conduct a still-hunt-style push. These three tactics are proven to put a late season deer in the freezer and antlers on the wall.
