The late days of hunting season are a challenging time to fill deer tags. Deer are moving less as the rut becomes a memory. They’re wary and elusive after weeks of dodging hunters. Meanwhile, we are a little worn down by hunting effort, and the weather is getting colder and more harsh. Succeeding despite all this takes a unique strategy. Here’s some hunter-to-hunter advice from five of our staff members.
Nick Pinizzotto: Don’t Take Shortcuts
My advice is simple, but it’s one many hunters fail to do once winter sets in: don’t take shortcuts. Approach your hunts as if your odds are long. I learned long ago that post-rut hunting is one of the best times to get close to a mature buck if you’re willing to put forth a full effort and have the belief that something great could happen.
“If it wasn’t for staying committed and not taking shortcuts, this would be a story about the one that got away. Instead it was one of the most memorable hunts of my life.”
I spent most of the 2015 Ohio hunting season pursuing a mature 140-inch plus 8-point that had impressive brow tines and good mass throughout his rack. I got close to him on a couple occasions during the rut but never close enough to release an arrow. When winter set in and the calendar turned to 2016, the weather got nasty, my work schedule got congested, and suddenly I was down to one last opportunity to hunt.
I had a good idea where the buck was hanging out. In below-zero wind chills, I set two stands to account for various wind possibilities the day before my hunt. On the morning of January 15, I picked the stand most favorable and stuck it out until 10:15 a.m. when the buck came into range, lured in my direction by a yearling doe. If it wasn’t for staying committed and not taking shortcuts, this would be a story about the one that got away. Instead it was one of the most memorable hunts of my life.
–Nick Pinizzotto, NDA CEO & President
Elizabeth Kligge: Still-Hunt the Hardwoods
One of my favorite late-season strategies is to still hunt, especially if the preferred food source is unknown or very dispersed across the landscape, as is often the case with large tracts of oak forest on public land. Identifying possible bedding is a good place to start. For example, wetland thickets or timber cuts surrounded by oaks.
Rather than waiting and hoping to see something at dusk or dawn, move your feet and find the deer, even in the middle of the day. I’ve caught up with doe groups this way, even after bumping them. I find that if I can just quiet the mental chatter, move slowly, and enjoy the journey, I will eventually end up within range of deer and wondering why on earth they don’t know I’m there.
–Elizabeth Kligge, NDA Director of Hunter Recruitment
Kip Adams: Don’t Forget Cover
Post-rut bucks are hungry, but they’re also very weary. That’s especially true in high hunter density states like Pennsylvania. Our two-week rifle season starts after peak rut, so the woods are invaded by the “orange Army” exactly when post-rut bucks are chasing a few remaining estrous does and trying to regain some weight before winter. The drive to feed is strong, but mature bucks don’t get old being foolish. That means your hunting setup can include food, but it’s better if it also takes advantage of good cover.
The last Friday of Pennsylvania’s 2024 rifle season arrived with my young nephew, Cole, still holding his buck tag. I took him to a new stand setup we created the prior winter where we did a lot of Forest Stand Improvement work to create a bedding block 300 yards from a food plot. The idea was deer would bed in and move through the cover during daylight to the food plot, and that’s exactly what happened on December 13. Thirty minutes before shooting hours ended, a great 4½-year-old buck emerged from the bedding block heading toward the food plot. He wouldn’t have arrived at the food plot until after dark, but we weren’t sitting there. We were between the cover and food plot, and a perfect setup for pressured bucks allowed Cole to shoot the biggest buck of his life and me to have a front row seat to all the excitement.
–Kip Adams, NDA Chief Conservation Officer
Brian Grossman: Find the Late-Season Food
Since post-rut deer activity is all about refueling to prepare for winter, my best advice for this time of year is to burn some boot leather until you find the hot food sources that are actively being used. And since I mainly hunt public land where food plots are scarce, and the ones that exist have been pressured all season, I focus on native, or naturally occurring, sources.
Specifically this time of year, I’m looking for red oak trees that produced well and are still providing deer with an easy meal, as well as anything green and actively growing like greenbrier, honeysuckle, blackberry brambles, or anything else a white-tailed deer will eat. Deer also rely heavily on woody browse this time of year, so focusing on areas in or near young forest cover (like 2-5 year-old cutovers here in the South), can also produce.
But don’t just focus on finding any food source. You need to find the active food sources — ones that show fresh, obvious signs of use in the form of deer tracks, droppings, and signs of browsing.
This method has been very effective for me in years past for getting “one last” doe in the freezer. Two years in a row I was able to take does off a heavily hunted Georgia WMA the last weekend of the season by focusing on a big patch of greenbrier and honeysuckle in an otherwise sea of large, open loblolly pines. Most other hunters in the area were focused on the hardwoods or a nearby clearcut, but there were obvious signs deer were browsing the greenbriers and honeysuckles heavily, to the point where there were very few leaves left within a deer’s reach. Both times I went in for an evening sit – making sure the wind was in my favor – and was presented with a clean shot opportunity well before dark.
–Brian Grossman, NDA Director of Communications
Lindsay Thomas Jr.: Play the Pressure
In my experience, there’s no other factor more important than hunting pressure in the late season. Weeks or even months of hunting pressure have shaped the flow of deer movement on the landscape as they pattern hunters and avoid the consistently and repeatedly hunted stand sites. Many hunters say they’ve “gone nocturnal,” but the truth is they’ve just shifted their daylight activity somewhere else. This is not my opinion, it’s what the science teaches us.
Knowing this gives us an advantage in the late season. Break out the map and think about the locations that have been hunted most frequently and recently throughout the previous days and weeks – then avoid them. Removing these options leaves you with areas deer are probably using now because you haven’t been. If there are travel corridors, heavy cover or food sources in these lightly hunted zones, you have your late-season strategy. Go there if the wind direction allows. Take a climber, grab a saddle, or hang a new stand if you need to, but look at some fresh woods. This simple but science-based approach has worked for me many times. It has worked with mature post-rut bucks that are hungry and looking for food. It has worked to put does in the freezer.
Late last season, my dad needed a doe for his own freezer but was frustrated by lack of sightings at all of his favorite stands he’d been hunting all year. I arrived at our family land on January 10 to hunt with him for the last weekend of the season, needing a doe of my own. Thinking about the pressure map, I picked an out-of-the-way food plot that hadn’t been hunted by anyone all year. “Was that you?” Dad texted me that first afternoon when he heard my shot. I replied with “Doe down.”
–Lindsay Thomas Jr., NDA Chief Communications Officer
