Winter is Here!
Posted By
Tim Filiowich
at
12/4/2009 12:00:00 AM
Well, winter has officially arrived. Last night after work while driving home in a cold car watching the flurries blow around I couldn't help but think to myself, what if we had this weather exactly one month ago! Imagine where we would be right now if that were the case. Instead I did all day sits during the rut in 40 - 60 degree weather. What a bust! But that was then and this is now and now its time to focus back in on these deer. The rifle season is done and gone and just over a week left of the muzzleloader season left. The deer should be calming down a bit and focusing in on food.
I spoke with one of the Minnesota Pro Staff guys Scott West today and he said that in the last 24 hours he has seen more deer than he has in the last week. The cold has got these deer moving. Last night (Dec. 3) he had an encounter with a shooter buck but was not able to close the deal. He decided to turn and head in a different direction out of his control. That is more action than Scott has had since the rut and I credit the weather to the action he is seeing.
I the next few weeks the key to harvesting deer is going to be focusing in on food. The best time to do this is going to be in the evenings but can vary greatly depending on where you hunt and what is going on in your area. A tip that may help is setting up off the field 50 - 100 yards of where they may be feeding to key in on the bigger deer. If you sit the field edges you may see more deer but they may not be the right ones. This can be the case anytime of year. I used to spend a lot of time every summer in a ground blind watching deer feed. I sat in an area where I could see the deer coming from a long ways away and I saw the same thing every night. The fawns, yearling and small does would come in anytime really but they would be the first to come in during the evening. The larger does would usually accompany them but hang back and make a slower approach. In the distance I would always see the same thing. The bucks and bigger deer would hang back and start approaching as we approached the end of civil light. They would never make it to the area that I was watching by shooting light which is so true for a large chunk of the year. Really this is Deer Hunting 101 stuff and you've probably read it and heard it a million times but sometimes it takes a million times to get through to even me so i'll say it again.
In the next few weeks I know we here in Minnesota will be following the food and moving away from our rut hot spots. I will be hunting a bedding area as well. The plan is to get in early and hope I can beat the deer. I consider this an aggressive tactic as this is an area that I usually leave alone. In last weeks article I also talked about putting out trail cameras again in some key areas. I did that but only found a lot of does. Hopefully next week there will be better results. Early next week I will try and get an update from the rest of the pro staff here in Minnesota and pass along what they have been seeing and doing. In the meantime I can point you in the direction of a great on-line forum that you may find some updates about the season from around the state. Just CLICK HERE to visit the forum to maybe see whats happening in your backyard!
Good luck.... Time is running out!
Tim
