Kids Outdoor Outpost – January 2022

Late-Season Whitetails

The technology available to today’s hunter has certainly changed the way we hunt. Want to know what time to be in your stand? Place a deer cam out on a well-used trail or area and have it set to send photos remotely to your phone. Some may set up an automatic spin feeder to go off early morning and at sunset and make sure they’re in the stand at those times. 

While some of the technology increases your opportunity to shoot a deer, and maybe even a decent buck, it seems like it’s taking away from some parts of hunting that we as hunters learn to develop over our time as hunters. I was brought up scouting for fresh rubs and scrapes and learning about bedding areas, travel corridors and mast food sources like white oaks, persimmon, crabapples and muscadines. 

In my personal hunting bag of tricks, I have included one piece of this technology, that being the trail camera. Well before the season I will often put some protein pellets in a feeder as a way to check out the herd. We identify some good shooter bucks in using this technique, and it makes us a little smarter in choosing what to put down on our hit list. We also identify deer to pass up in order to let them grow some more. But just because they may have been on the preseason cam shot doesn’t mean that they’ll be there during the season or during the different phases of the rut. 

On a general scale, mature whitetails typically have a home range and then a smaller core range where they hang out most of the year. Most of us might think of these ranges as a square block, but in reality, they can be very odd-shaped areas that are dependent on the keys to a whitetail’s existence, which are food, water and cover. The range and movements may ebb and flow like the tide according to time of day, time of year, food availability, breeding opportunities, weather, moon cycles, hunting pressure and predator pressure. 

We have seen deer that we have photographed on our trail cams during much of the year all of a sudden disappear during the hunting season. They will then appear on social media sites in other places, which of course makes us shake our heads and wonder how in the world (and why) did he travel so far? I try to put as many pieces of this puzzle together on my property, along with using good hunting practices, to increase the likelihood of keeping those older bucks around, but I also know that mature bucks don’t get mature by being dumb. These deer are older, wiser and have smelled and seen a few things. We all have to be on our A game for the shot at a good one. 

Pay attention to scent control, wind direction and reduce your movements in the stand, especially if you’re trying to kill a late-season buck. The leaves on most trees are gone and you’re going to stand out more so in a tree stand. Make sure to wear gloves and face covers and line up as many factors in your favor as possible. 

Good luck and stay safe in the field!