The Last Days of Whitetail Season

Travis and I cornered a 90-degree turn on the local hard road that halved our hunting property at the time. It was a cold, wet, blustery mid-January weekend, and the stand hunt that morning did not pay off. The rut had ended in November, and the rubs and scrapes were stale. So, as we headed back to the fire to dry off and warm up, I was astonished to see a spike lingering around a myrtle bush a few dozen yards off the road.

We parked his Chevy a hundred yards down the road and crept back onto our property and stalked up to the buck. He wasn’t alone. With him were another couple spikes and a young four. The eight-point that popped up after T had shot the four-point was the best buck I’d taken so late into the year – an unexpected treat. These bucks were far from any stands or anywhere we’d even considered placing a stand. They were basically camped out here in the far corner of the land, away from our intrusions – though, apparently, vehicles didn’t seem to bother them. Too bad for them I still have an eye for antler at 45MPH.

These are difficult days for deer hunters. The crops have been harvested, the hunting pressure has mounted, the rut is over (in most places), the underbrush and browse has largely dried up and fallen away, and the deer just don’t move as much or have gone nocturnal. Late-season deer hunting is a trying exercise. But - unless you are especially cruel on your deer herd - there is still game left and, staring at the calendar, the fall is a long ways off.

Late-season deer hunting is not without its merits. It’s always a fine time to round out your freezer with a doe, or a younger buck, if the spirit moves you. Possibly even a wall-hanger. The weather is tolerable for scouting. And it gives you the opportunity to try other hunting methods you wouldn’t normally attempt during the prime times.

So let’s take a look at a few ways you may be able to bag that last deer of the year, or at the very least, improve your knowledge of the property and woodsmanship.

1. Deer Drives and Still-Hunting – When the season starts and I’m hanging from a tree, I’m very timid about hunting pressure. I want fresh fish and not stink up the area or unnecessarily spook my quarry. When there’s nothing left to lose, why not switch up tactics? In places where it’s possible – namely smaller blocks of pines or hardwoods or dry swamps – it’s common practice to organize a deer drive.

It’s not like you need to hand out pots and pans and raise a holy racket to drive deer. Stage two or three pushers – in blaze orange, is a good idea - upwind of the area you are driving and sit a couple blockers downwind. Space everyone out and slowly slip the pushers through the woods. Often time the pusher will get a shot – and the blockers benefit by the jostled game.

Likewise, if you’re hunting alone, still-hunting from the downwind side can often produce. The gist is to get otherwise bedded and holed-up deer on their hooves and moving towards a barrel. By the time next season comes around, your stink will be long gone. Unless you really smell, dirtball.

2. Scouting – While you’re walking around doing either of the above activities, it’s likely you’ll notice things about the property you’ve missed before. As I said, the underbrush is gone and game trails become more obvious. You can locate hidden rublines or a lone oak or persimmon or honey locust in the middle of everything that’ll produce feed for hidden deer in autumn.

I can’t tell you the number of times – no matter what state I’m hunting - I’ve slapped my forehead and thought, “Damn, I should have been hunting in here back in October.” It’s highly unlikely you’ll find, or want to seek out, such places in the heat of the summer.

3. Hunt the Weather – Those gray days of winter get depressing, for sure. Still, the leading line of the foul weather that accompanies cold fronts will have deer and other game animals up foraging before the bottom falls out and they hunker down to wait out the storm.

I wouldn’t suggest sitting on the borders of an open field, but trails inside wooden edges of fields that head in and out of bedding areas are solid bets. And any place that serves up munchies such as wet areas that still support green grasses or cold-hardy vegetation. Or corn feeders.

4. Discover the Secondary Rut – This phenomenon is tough to get a bead on. In the South, the rut is often so stretched out that it’s hard to define when a secondary rut occurs. In northern states, I’m told, it’s a little easier as the rut is condensed to just a couple weeks during the fall. Then, the secondary rut comes in about a month later when unbred does go back into estrous. Many of the same strategies that are employed during the rut, but after a month of cracking rifles, the deer are a bit touchier and hunting areas discussed above is prudent.

5. Hunt Places with a Rut – Sections of Texas, Alabama, SW Georgia, NW Florida and stretches of Central Florida all have late ruts that run through January and into February, in some instances.

I try to be a Rut Groupie. In the past, I’ve traveled different states trying to hit the prime times. These are typically clustered around October and November, but I know it’s not worth a late December North Carolina hunt when the Georgia lease is still host to rutting bucks. When January rolls around, Central Florida still has a rut. (In fact, you could hunt the rut almost every month from August to February just traveling through Florida.)

Deer hunting, by and large, just isn’t a productive in January as it is when the leaves are still falling. Yet, the deer are still there. It just takes a little more planning, a switch-up in strategy, and more than a little luck.

Footnotes to the North Carolina Hunt

I tried to keep my story about this year’s North Carolina hunt short; I wanted to focus on deer success, for a change. If you follow this blog regularly, you know a lot of posts are dominated by hunts that bear no fruit. I do this not just to chronicle trips, but to also highlight lessons and circumstances that lead to an empty cooler. It’s not exciting, for sure, and folks tire of reading such tales – heck, anyone can Not shoot game. But I enjoy the reflection lest fall into the perils of an unexamined life.

Even with a successful hunt, there is still dissection of information to process. With that, I want to run through a list of addendums to this last hunt.

- Always check your rifle’s zero, especially if you suspect something may have knocked it off. The boy who missed the Big 8 did not. His rifle had taken a pretty heavy hit, sliding out of his back seat and landing on the scope. He didn’t figure it’d be a problem. Not only did he miss the buck, he also whiffed on a doe during the same sit. The next day he took it to the range. The bullet was off the mark by 6 inches. Of course, no one was with him when he re-zeroed...but I’ll take him on his word this time.

- Novice hunters are often shocked that deer don’t always drop when shot, especially with magnums. The biggest doe I plugged took off and left a feint bloodtrail. The distance was close, and I was shooting a .300 Win Mag with 180-grain Winchester XP3’s. The bullet zipped on through without much energy transfer. Plus, I hit no bone which would have grounded her. Probably. Always check carefully after a shot. Each game animal reacts differently given distance, bullet, shot placement, temperament, whatever.

- On that note, when following up, take your time. I knew the shot was good by the bright pink spoor. But she took off into some God-awful country. She didn’t dash fifty yards, but she did a figure-eight, more or less. Her trail switched back several times, and the path we figured she’d take was way off. As I said above, even with a great shot, the spoor was limited. With two others with me and our noses to the ground, we found her, but not without some CSI sleuthing along the way. One person would mark the last known sign while the other two spread from there. Don’t just assume a deer will run in a straight line. Don’t assume anything.

- I made a horrible shot on my first deer – but I have an excuse. Another hunter had placed a homemade blind around the top of the stand and secured the netting with zip ties around the rail. I couldn’t shoulder the rifle without the barrel catching the netting. The one small hole cut in for shooting was poorly suited for covering the trail the deer typically use, much less the bait pile. It was well-intended, but not conducive for beanfield hunting. We corrected the problem after my first hunt, but the blind still encumbered a steady rest. In the past, I’ve used a rectangular seat cushion strapped to the rail for those long shots. Anyway, the blind kept me from doing this. At 150-175 yards, I aimed for the doe’s shoulder but never could get comfortable, sprawling out in the stand trying to steady the bouncing crosshairs. I cleanly got her in the neck, but it certainly wasn’t where I aimed. Don’t go out of your way to conceal your stand if your efforts hamper the ability to make a rested shot, especially if shot distances get into triple figures.

- Not all spikes are bucks that’ll never grow large antlers. It’s amazing to me how rampant this train of thought is, even today. Some won’t, many others can grow. A wide variety of factors affect antler growth. Unless you have trophy management experience on large tracts of land over a considerable length of time, you probably don’t know. Best to let them walk if you’re goal is more trophy bucks.

- I didn’t realize how attractive sweet potatoes are to deer. They often ignored the corn and soybeans. These spikes I saw would stand in the pile, pick up a tuber, and fumble it in its mouth like an old man playing with his dentures. Or they’d stick a paw on the tater and rip it apart. They prefer them fresh. After a few nights in the woods, the potatoes will start to rot away and the deer will abandon them.

- And finally, with nothing to do with hunting - normally the Georgia Highway Patrol is stiff resistance on I-95. And they were out in full force, for sure. But South Carolina took the cake this trip. One member of camp got a speeding ticket riding home through the Palmetto state. The offense? 73 in a 70mph zone. That’s low rent officiating.

Other People's Bucks

I had an exciting muzzleloader hunt at Duette Park in Manatee County on Saturday. The weather was fantastic; it was prime rut time, and the game moving. Saw 11 hogs and 3 deer – two does and a button buck. Not too shabby. Since these weren’t legal deer, no shots. The buck quota was met that day, so hunting was out Sunday. It’s hard to do bucks – especially trophy bucks - in a day.

Somehow and out of nowhere, I’ve re-developed the antler craze. Maybe it’s because I’ve not shot a buck of note in three years. Maybe it’s because I’ve been trapped inside with the babies for the better part of this season. It came from somewhere deep, though, because I’ve not really cared too much about chasing bone over the course of the last several years, merrily shooting does and letting young bucks walk.

This has vanished. Quoth Adele, who’d probably never guess in a million years her lyrics would be cited in a deer hunting post, “There’s a fire starting my heart, reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark.”

The antler rule at Duette is four-points or better. I would have whacked a 40-pounder with forked horns that fit between my thumb and forefinger given the chance – which was my last to do such a thing since the next several hunts I’m on have pretty severe antler rules.

Well, whether I can tag this season or not, I’m fairly impressed by the work of some campmates. Gonna have to largely live vicariously until these babies ease up and I can put the effort and hours in to finding Mr. Gnarly Head. Or maybe I’ll get lucky. None of these will make serious Midwest whitetail devotees swoon, but they are fine representations of the areas these guys hunt.

Mike busted this 9-point Scrub Buck at his camp near Cedar Key on Saturday with the wind blowing 20mph. I want – really, really want – one of these bucks for the wall. They do not grow enormous in body or antler, but these deer are so handsome with their deep sienna coats and Colgate White throat patches. I took a young 8-point there three years back, but he didn’t whiff trophy standards. Mike has killed bigger, but this is a nice representative buck.

Dirty J plowed this buck two weekends ago on his place near the Outer Banks, NC. Dirty is not one who typically trophy hunts – no spikes are safe around him. But he has the propensity for finding a nice buck or two no matter where he hunts. This is an excellent coastal buck, and, again, there’s a spot on the wall reserved for a North Carolina buck. I have taxidermy problems.

Finally, my boy Trace arrowed this wonderful Florida buck at the start of October on private land near Orlando. The buck speaks for himself. And it’s none too surprising. Trace is a Natural Born Killer.

All these guys do a tremendous amount of hunting. And that’s really the lesson to learn regarding shooting nice bucks. Time in the woods. A little private land never hurts, either.

Hopefully soon I will be able to share some trophy photos of my own. The fire, no matter what sparked it, has returned with full fury.

The Economics of Acorns on Deer Hunting

Acorns dictate deer movement in autumn. Even as the pre-rut and rut starts, does will be seeking acorns while bucks will be seeking does. They are a deer’s comfort food. When the mast is heavy, deer habitually abandon other crops, food plots and feeders. They love acorns that much. When the harvest is low – you’d better find what they are feeding on and quick. It’s all very frustrating, and when combined with vagaries of weather, hunting pressure, moon phases - well, it just makes you more thankful when you’ve succeeded in taking a nice buck.

I hit a wall the last two years hunting Florida. The oak hammock I bowhunted in Manatee County was devoid of deer activity, and I now believe the variances in the acorn crop to be the reason. While the hunts were disappointments, they have proved excellent case studies on boom and bust years for acorns.

Once upon a time, this particular strip of woods was a haven for game movement. Three nice bucks were harvested in consecutive years, and many more spikes and young deer passed through unharmed. Does and hogs were expected to be seen during each sit. They’d wander out of the swamp to feed on the water oak acorns in the evening before meandering into a palmetto flat for the night. The mornings were the reverse. It was essentially a buffet between rest and play. During these years, one could reasonably describe the acorn crop as normal.

The last two years? Something happened. The deer more or less vanished. Sure, there were tracks, and Dad did kill a young piebald in 2009 from my stand, but by and large this honeyhole lost its sweetness. I could run through the whole history of hunting excuses, but I find final fault in the weird acorn drops during these times.

Let’s start with 2009. It was hot - very hot - during September and October. But beyond this, the water oaks had very few acorns on the branches. Still, I believed the area would still hold deer thanks to the abundance of browse and intersection of trails. History was on my side, I thought.

In six hunts and dozens of hours in the stand, I saw one doe with a pair of yearlings who fed on shrubs and grasses. Occasionally I’d hear a splash of a large animal in the creek, but it could have easily been hogs. The only buck rubs I discovered were from the previous year. The deer had shifted out during hunting hours - as did the swine and turkey – and it took me too long to realize this. I had no plan to overcome it.

2010 was the exact opposite – except for my failure to identify an alternate location to set up. September and October were unseasonably cool – not cold, but with low enough humidity, Florida would call it cool. Acorns of all varieties fell early and kept falling through the hunts. They plunked in the creek at a constant rate. Honestly, I can’t recall a bumper crop quite like it, though 2007 came real close.

Once more, I had a single run-in with deer over six hunts – two does that fed under my stand until they were spooked by a gobbler. I convinced myself that since I was rolling over acorns like marbles on the way to the stand, eventually they’d come out to catch an arrow.

Both seasons were described by the local biologists as off years. The game harvest was dramatically down and staff reported fewer daytime sightings of deer. So it wasn’t just me suffering. I will atone to the fact that I didn’t do enough to make these successful years – had no tricks up my sleeve, no contingency plans, no ace in the hole. I placed one stand based on past experience fully expecting to cart more venison out of that hammock.

So what should I have done? This is all conjecture since there’s no way to go back in time to correct my mistakes and enforce my hypotheses. But it was a learning experience when I started researching acorns and deer movement. Several theories correlate with my woes.

Let’s start with the economics of the acorn crop. When they are plentiful, deer simply don’t have to travel far to eat. Deer hunters rely on deer movement for success whether bucks are chasing food or love. And if does aren’t moving far and wide seeking sustenance, a buck won’t be either.

It makes perfect sense. If fresh hot wings and Hooters Girls were dropped off at the Ol’ Bachelor Pad everyday, there’d be no reason to risk DUI’s and public embarrassment to run down to the local bar or club. Food and sex drive competition. In years with a normal acorn crop and a healthy deer – and hog – population, deer get on their hooves in a hurry to hit hammocks and other feeding stations.

Not so much when there’s a boom year. The pressure to compete for food and sex amongst deer directly leads to hunter success, whether it involves inspiring animals to travel further or leave their beds early during daylight hours. If an animal doesn’t have to move ten feet for a belly-full, hunters are in trouble.

The deer are somewhere, though. The quick answer is to hunt bedding areas. That’s going to be difficult in most parts of Florida and the South. The land – with its swamps and planted pines and cypress heads - is too thick to penetrate without making a holy racket getting in and out. Deer do it easily. It’s not impossible to kill a buck in these conditions, but not always the best strategy, either.

One thing I have started thinking about and focusing on is what kind of acorns deer prefer. This is a project in motion but worth merit to study, in my opinion. Florida is home to 19 species of oak tree, split into two main categories of red and white oaks. The water oaks I hunted are of the red variety. Red oak acorns are bitterer in taste than the whites, and I’ve long heard and read that deer prefer the whites when available. Advanced scouting and knowledge of different trees is really important. As the season progresses, different species of oaks will drop their seeds – it’s worth paying attention to what the game prefers.

In 2010, with the plethora of acorns available, the deer reportedly hung around live oaks – those majestic, moss-draped trees of the white variety. The deer had such an overwhelming variety of food they literally ignored water oaks and went with the sweeter brand.

This is mostly anecdotal evidence talking, but a plausible hypothesis that probably explains some of the dead air where I was. Dad reported more deer than I at his stand of live oaks. He wasn’t exactly trampled by whitetail, either, because - as told above - a ton of acorns inhibits deer movement regardless how much they like one species over another. But, it made his set-up more attractive to action. It’s not a perfect solution but something to consider in years of a massive acorn bumper crop.

2009 was a different problem. No acorns were anywhere. White or red. In Georgia and other southern states where you can focus early in the season on persimmons, crab apples, and honey locusts for deer activity, South Florida is loaded with different food sources and browse and little of the aforementioned plants.

Food plots and feeders mitigate this problem on private properties but is not even a consideration on public lands. Finding game trails is about the best you can do without having one active source to clue in on. The inside edge of that swamp I spoke of earlier was the place to be with its cover, water, and supply of large, broad-leafed, tender green plants. (It’s worth noting the importance of this water source in what is largely sandy, scrub habitat.) They will also feed on younger blackberry bushes and muscadine vines.

None of these sources, though, concentrate deer numbers like acorns. You’d think that with a shortage of acorns, that competition and traveling I espoused as so important in the beginning would come into play, but, for some reason, without at least an average harvest, they don’t even seem to entertain the game.

Without a time machine, it is impossible to say whether I would have tagged out with these adjustments. And an arborist, I am not. But after these last two seasons with limited time to hunt and failure to do well in the time allotted, it’ll be worth ironing out some wrinkles in my knowledge and learn more about the importance of acorns – and other food sources - on deer habits.

At least then I can stop completely blaming acorns if things go awry.

GUIDE TO FLORIDA'S OAK TREES