Late Season Strategies
Posted By
Aaron Warbritton
at
12/7/2011 12:00:00 AM
South
December 7th
Hit List Buck Profile
Southern Missouri does not generate as many big racked or big bodied deer as northern Missouri. This is a fact, but it shouldn’t discourage people that hunt this region of the state from letting deer reach maturity, if they choose to. Southern Missouri can and does produce quality deer. The buck I want to talk about specifically is a deer I call Popeye. Popeye is a deer I started getting pictures of as a two year old in a food plot I started to maintain on my farm in 2006. Below is a picture of this deer in 2009 as a two year old.
I continued to get pictures of Popeye in the same food plot in the summer of 2009 and again in the summer of 2010 when he was a three year old. He didn’t make a tremendous jump in antler or body size from 2009 to 2010 due to a lack of food in the fall and winter of 2009. Our farms saw a drastic decline in mast production in 2009 and I was not able to add enough food plots to sustain the amount of deer I had using our family farm. Here is a picture of the same deer in December of 2010.
I didn’t know what to expect from this deer in 2011 but I knew he would be a 4 – ½ year old deer. Both in 2009 and 2010 he had brow tines that curved back towards his main beam and I hoped he would maintain some of this character in 2011 so I would be able to identify him if he was still alive. I ran a trail camera on the same food plot that I had pictures of him from the previous two years and did not have any luck getting pictures of him, or any other mature buck, all summer. I got a big surprise in October.
This picture is of Popeye working a scrape in October on a ridge near one of my favorite rut stands, not very far from the food plot I have pictures of him in from years past. The deer probably grew an additional 20” of horn between 3 – ½ and 4 – ½. Although this deer may have expressed more of his potential in other parts of the state I consider him to be a quality deer. I didn’t see him at all during bow or rifle season but I hope to encounter him during the late season. He has traditionally been close to the same food plot for 3 years in a row so I hope I can share more of the story of Popeye later this season!!
~Darren Beck~
Central
December 8th, 2011
Late season is always a difficult time of year to hunt, but for us, it may not be the most difficult. In fact, the 2011 firearm season passed without a single Wolfe prostaff firing a shot. With that kind of track record, it's easy to get discouraged, but with a high density of mature deer and plenty of food to last until spring, the late season could prove to be the most productive. Between food plots and commercial ag fields, we have an abundance of winter wheat to focus on this year. We are also lucky enough to have a neighbor that wasn't able to get his corn out yet (his loss is our gain) and we have two major travel corridors that lead to his 20 acre standing gold mine.
Just as important as the food plots themselves, we also have some very thick bedding cover that was created by a recent Timber Stand Improvement (TSI). This TSI not only creates great bedding cover, but also essential winter browse that is very important for every whitetail's digestive system. These TSI areas are absolute magnets in the late season and many of my clients from my business (Antlers and More) have also noticed a big difference in the number of deer their properties are able to hold throughout the year thanks to the addition of quality bed and browse.
Right now we are in the process of taking inventory of our current deer herd. We have placed our cameras in our food plots and ag fields that historically receive the most late season activity. This way we are not only getting a good idea of what deer we have left to hunt (as they all need food this time of year), but when that next big cold front moves in, we know which stands to concentrate our efforts on.
~Korey Wolfe~
Northwest
December 9th
The season is winding down, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some opportunities to put a buck down before Jan 15th. Our late season plans solely revolve around the food. This can be one of your best chances to wrap your tag around a mature buck, sometimes even better than the rut. Deer should really be piling into feeding areas at all times of the day this time of year. The main thing is to try and remain undetected as best you can. That may be easier said than done depending on the property you have access to hunt. I know on my dad’s farm it is extremely difficult. The deer really move in to our property this time of year from all the neighboring farms. It makes it difficult to even get to the stand undetected, let alone trying to sneak out after dark. The deer bed close to the food sources so sometimes even trying to hunt them coming or going to these spots will to lead to minimal sightings and a cold uneventful evening on stand. On top of that the deer are usually on high alert and stand a much better chance of picking you off in the barren tree tops.
With the acorn crop we had this fall the food plots still have a lot of feed left in them. Scouting, glassing fields and running trail cameras really will tell you where and when the deer are feeding this time of year. We moved all our trail cameras off transition areas and scrapes and placed them over the food sources on time lapse so we can find out where they are concentrating now. They seem to feed in one plot until it is wiped out before moving to another plot. We set up two ground blinds over a couple plots for muzzleloader and the late youth season.
My dad and I are after one deer, the #2 buck on our hit list called Little Ten. We have been watching this deer for 3.5 years now and had only a single daylight photo of him out of thousands of images during the hunting
|
Bring on the snow, bitter temps and lots of hungry bucks!
~Andy Yost~
