Borrowed Rifle Leads To Late Season Christmas Present Buck

We all know late season can be feast or famine for Georgia deer hunters. After several hard weeks of vigorous rutting activity in November, mature bucks that have managed to avoid hunters have a way of getting extremely scarce. As soon as the peak of rut has waned and no more receptive does can be found, older bucks often stay pretty close to their daytime beddings areas or sanctuaries.

Because of this curtailed movement during the post-rut period, daytime sightings by hunters usually go way down. However, hunters do have one thing going for them. All deer have to eat, big bucks included. If the weather is cold and nasty, mature buck sightings tend to go up. In fact, the nastier the weather, the better the hunting usually is. If it’s warm and clear, sightings go down. Something about bitter cold weather seems to make mature bucks head to the nearest food sources.

Back in the early 1980s, I worked as an elk hunting guide on Focus Ranch in northwestern Colorado. Elk season lasted from mid-September until mid-November, so I missed all of the November rut for whitetails at home in Georgia. Even though I knew that post-rut hunting would be a lot tougher in early December, I was anxious to get in the woods because I had not been able to hunt any whitetails that season. As soon as I got home around Thanksgiving, I started hunting with a vengeance to make up for lost time.

Around the middle of December, Leon Scott, a former high-school coach and cherished hunting companion, invited me to his club lease in Crawford County for a Saturday hunt. It just so happened that we had visited the property the previous August to do a little pre-season scouting, and we had found a potentially good area to hunt along a creek drainage where we had discovered several big rubs from the previous season along with several old scrapes. I knew that if the buck that had left that sign was still alive, he’d be a good one. However, since I was an invited guest on a property with a number of other club members to contend with, I also knew that I probably wouldn’t have much of a choice in where I’d get to hunt.

But luck was on my side that day! The property was a two-hour drive from home. We arrived at the gate about an hour before daylight on Saturday morning. Three or four days earlier a late-season storm had deposited several inches of sleet and snow across central Georgia. Most of the ice had melted, but the temperature had plummeted. On that cold Saturday morning, it was around 12 degrees above zero.

Prior to the memorable Saturday, I had been hunting on another tract in the ice all week long and things had not gone well. First, my climbing tree stand had been stolen. I had left it leaning against a tree in the woods late one week-day afternoon with the intention of using it the next morning. But a thief had seen my tracks in the mud and ice when I walked out to the road, and he had back-tracked my trail all the way to the stand. When I entered the woods the next morning before daylight, I saw his tracks on the logging road going in and out, and I knew immediately what had happened. Sure enough my stand was gone! To make matters worse, I had slipped on a patch of ice the day before I was supposed to meet Leon for our Saturday hunt, and my rifle had slammed onto the hard ground.

I was very concerned about my scope, but Leon said, “No problem! I’ve got a rifle you can use.”

So he loaned me his trusty Remington Model 700 .270, and off we went. When we arrived at the property, a number of other club members were camping for the weekend, as expected. But because of the bitter cold, not a single one of these men got up to hunt that morning. Leon and I had the whole place to ourselves! We owned the world that day! Leon directed me to a crude wooden platform about 12 feet off the ground not far from the creek bottom we had walked earlier in the summer. I climbed up. It was frigid! Because of Georgia’s usual high humidity, when it’s 12 degrees outside it feels like minus 20. It’s a wet cold that penetrates to your bones. However, I didn’t have to sit in that cold stand for long. Shortly after daylight, a magnificent 8-point buck came out of a nearby thicket. He had just crossed a large creek behind the thicket, and he loped right by my stand. It was an easy shot with Leon’s .270. My buck didn’t go far.

When I reached him, the first thing I noticed was that he had a solid coat of icicles clinging to the hair on his chest and underside due to the fact that he had just splashed across the water. He was probably 4 1/2 years old, and he had a beautiful set of antlers with long tines. He had a large frame, but he was gaunt from rutting activity. After missing most of the Georgia season, he was indeed a dream-come-true and a real blessing. We got him field-dressed, loaded in the truck and back to camp around 9:30 a.m. I was floating on clouds and Leon was elated at my good luck. The other club members were just beginning to stir. When they saw my buck, their collective moods were not what you would call very cheerful. Leon and I were greeted by some hostile looks and comments. Even though the club had a guest policy, and even though Leon was perfectly within his rights to invite me as a guest, he was in hot water with his fellow club members, and they were furious at me for killing one of “their” bucks. Apparently my buck had been seen several times earlier in the season. I took it with a grain of salt. No one was going to rain on my parade that day! But I felt terrible for Leon. He had to endure the brunt of their displeasure.

Using a borrowed Remington Model 700 .270, it was a frigid morning in late December when this 8-pointer loped by the author’s platform stand in Crawford County. The buck had lost considerable weight from weeks of heavy rutting activity.

In late season, the nastier the weather, the greater your chances of seeing a mature buck. It goes without saying that you have to dress warmly, and if possible, you should try to plan to hunt all day. You never know when a mature buck is going to be out and about, and I was very lucky to see such a fine buck so early in the morning.

Many hunters prefer to hunt directly over late-season food sources at this time of year. I prefer to set up in the woods on primary trails close to known bedding areas or sanctuaries. For one thing, if you set up on the edge of a food plot, you’re going to see a lot of does and family groups, and the chances of getting busted are very good.

Although you could see a good buck at any time during the day, in most cases older bucks don’t begin to move out of their daytime bedding areas until late afternoon or just before dark. Oftentimes, late in the day, mature bucks stay in the edge of the woods until shooting light is all but gone. By setting up on a trail inside the woods, you could increase your chances of seeing the buck you’re after. The key is to be able to get to your stand without being detected and that usually means getting there several hours before the deer start their afternoon feeding activities. If you can do this, get ready for some exciting action!