00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host, Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. Today's episode is all about the toughest time to arrow a deer for most of us, which is, of course, the late season. There's a lot of conventional, typical white tail hunting advice that makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Nothing causes that involuntary wretching quite like someone who manages a big chunk of primo private ground who says something like, we just have to hunt the food sources for those rut depleted bucks. For most of us, see in the late December buck. That's a huge win, let alone seeing a mature buck out in daylight with his nose to the ground in search of some calories. When you deal with pressure deer that might not happen in your entire life. Knowing that it's best to develop a realistic plan based on low, low, low standards, which is what I'm going to talk about right now. It happens almost every time someone at one of my deer hunting seminars will ask me how do you hunt late season bucks? The question, while not actually that specific, is really meant to get me to spill the beans on how do I kill big late season bucks? Now, I've disappointed a lot of people in my life, as your listeners are probably pretty well aware of by now. But nothing causes people to lose their faith in me quicker than when I answer that question with I don't. I don't really hunt late season bucks specifically, at least I almost never do, and I never ever ever target mature bucks in the late season. In fact, I'm not sure that in my twenty eight seasons of bull hunting white tails pretty hard, that I've ever seen a December buck that would crack one thirty that wasn't eating corn under a feeder in Texas. In my home state of Minnesota, I can't recall ever seeing a big buck in December while I was actually on stand. I've certainly never aarrowed one here or across the river in Wisconsin, where I spend the bulk of my late season time. In fact, I think that for most of us this might represent a challenge that is quite a bit harder than killing a bull elk in and over the counter unit in Colorado, which is saying something I know a lot of Western hunters would probably scoff at that, but to be fair, they probably don't know what the hell they're talking about either. Now, I also know that some of the folks listening to this are in the Deep South and really only getting into the good part of their season now, so understand that a lot of this advice in this podcast just needs to be pushed back or maybe move forward a little bit to fit into the world you live in. But the same general rules kind of apply. I shall also say this the late season food thing that every TV show host or Instagram influencer is pushing right now, that's a real strategy. If you have the spot, low pressure, good food, and yep, you can sit out there in the afternoon and shoot a deer, even a big buck. But as I've said before, if you have that kind of spot, you probably don't need to listen to some dude like me giving hunting advice. Deer hunting is a wildly variable pastime, and some folks have a great option to sit on a food plot or a cut cornfield and wait out the bucks that are down about twenty of their body weight in the last five or six weeks. Those hungry deer will come and life will be good for them. For the hunters, I mean, not the deer. For the rest of us, the first thing is to really understand the challenge of arrowing a late season buck on pressured ground after the general firearm season has blazed on through. For starters, you're probably dealing with about eighty percent of the deer you were just a few weeks ago. And those deer that are left, they're not much into making mistakes. They also understand that if they are going to get shot at, it's most likely going to happen during the hours when the sun is up. In some places, unscrupulous losers don't abide by that, but we can't factor them in, even if in some regions the deer probably have to. For most of us, we are just hunting deer that have been conditioned to be as cautious as possible. That, coupled with the northern hemisphere tipping a little farther away from the big nuclear generator in the sky every day, means that the amount of light in the deer woods doesn't leave us much to work with. And doesn't leave the deer with a huge sacrifice to stay bedded or at least deep in the cover when it's not dark out. That sucks, but it's a first world problem, and it's something we can sometimes overcome. Infomercial voice here, But wait, there's more. It gets worse. You're also dealing with open woods, real see through from one end of the other. Open woods and real cold snow can be a blessing to the late season hunter, but ice rarely is. If you've never crunched your way through the woods on icy leaves, or post hold your way through the snowpack that was topped off with the lid ice, let me tell you haven't lived. Those conditions will allow you to spook the already spooky deer right out of the county. All right, Have you had enough of the downer talk? Because I have. There are some positives to late season bow hunting. For starters. You might be the only one dumb enough to be out there. I've seen this on private land. I've seen it on public land, and while it's little consolation, it is something. Having an entire property to yourself at least gives you some options and another check in the plus column is that the conditions often allow you to easily scout. Snow is an obvious benefit here, but even if you live down farther south, where it's a rarity to wake up to a winter wonderland, you probably deal with wet lacas and conditions. When I'm looking for a place to arrow a last minute dear, as I've mentioned in many of these recent episodes, I simply look four tracks. The more, the merrier, and often the wintry conditions. Whether you're down south or up here up north, we'll quickly reveal where those spots probably are. That's a start, and it's not nothing, my friends. It's also something that helps you stay positive as a deer hunter through just believing you're around some deer activity. And while it's easy to glom onto the negatives and nearly invite failure with a piss poor attitude, this stuff all somewhat balances out, and looking at the positives as a gift surely helps. Now, the hunting is going to be tough, but the scouting has never been easier. That's something. And better than that even is that if there was ever a time to lower your standards and just hunt deer. It's right now. If anyone gives you shit about that, ask them how many late season public landb booners they've killed. I promise you the answer will be zero. And if you've got a buck tag, lower your standards to whatever would make you happy. If that's any buck spikes on up, target those deer and apologize to no one. If you've got a dough tag left, target all the deer that don't have antlers. That's what I usually do in the late season, and honestly, it makes the whole thing a lot fun, but it doesn't make it easy. It can if you're only in it for the does make it easier to find a private place to hunt. This happened to me last season on a farm near my house. Now, while the owner and his son are nuts over big bucks, they really couldn't care less about does. They're also, I'll put this delicately, not the most hardcore hunters I've ever met. If it doesn't happen for them during pock on season, it doesn't happen. They give up, and that leaves the farm and the does on it to anyone willing to ask him. Now, last year, that's what I did and while I did narrow a deer, I sure did have a lot of fun getting busted by several of them. Everywhere I went I saw does, and actually quite a few bucks. But the does were my only green lit deer, and as close as I got on several occasions, and never had a single one that didn't bust me drawing or maneuvering into shop position. It was a good reminder that the dumb deer are dead by December, and if they aren't, they're hanging around with deer who are not dumb. Now, if you want any deer or any dough, the late season might open up some doors for you. That's worth asking if you have an inkling that a landowner might let you in. This might be someone who manages for good bucks, or a farmer who doesn't particularly like white tails eating his crop, but who also gets together with his friends and relatives to hunt the gun season. But by the late season that farmer might not really care who makes a pass said his late season dear, why not let that be you? This strategy, I might add, can also get you into the good graces of a landowner who could become a real friend. At some point. The person who says it's only doze this year might also see you as a conscientious hunter who doesn't block his field drives or leave his gates open, and who really appreciates the gift that is hunting permission. It might lead you to full on hunting privileges, which has happened to me a few times in my life. And let me tell you something, it's awesome. And if it doesn't, the worst you've got is still a chance to hunt some deer, and maybe you'll get to hunt some turkeys in the spring or something. It's worth the ask. Now this time of year, you might also find something else that's pretty surprising and very welcome. You might find decent hunting on public land. Well ah scratch that you might find better than terrible hunting on public land. The secret to a lot of land that becomes public is that it's not harmable. It's not tillable, which means it's often covered in well cover. That's where late season dear will often congregate to find geo thermal cover. While it might seem like a ghost town the weekend after rifle season rages through, by the time a month has passed, you might see a different story out there. This happened to me a long time ago, and the lessons stuck. I was hunting public land in December in Minnesota while I was in high school. My goal then was to shoot any deer, and it was no small task to make that happen. With a fresh snowfall, a free afternoon, and no real plan, I set out along a dried up creek bed on some state land near the town of Lanesborough. After covering a couple hundred yards, I started to see deep trails etched in the snow and more tracks than I could hardly believe. One spot, kind of a little bowl, was covered in fresh deer sign It also featured a bunch of green, reedy like plants poking out of the snow that I'd later come to learn are scouring rush horsetail. This seasonal food source doesn't seem to be all that appealing in September to the deer, but it's like the only green game in town for some wintering deer, so they tend to pound it in the late season. I set up behind a tree on a bank overlooking that spot, and within a few minutes watched a fuzzy dophon walk down the trail. Her hair was all puffed up in the cold, and I managed to muster up a clean miss at eight yards. Tack that up to fawn fever, my friends, which is an embarrassing condition to have. Honestly, I won't ship my pants in a grocery store as an adult, and that was less humiliating than whipping on a fawn at a distance where I could have damn near petted her. Anyway. I never got another shot that night, but I saw a lot of deer and I realized something. I'd expected the hunting to be terrible, and it was actually pretty awesome, and it was on public land. Since then, I've randomly encountered enough winning cover and enough of the right conditions on public land to lead is some really fun late season hunting every once in a while. Now, mind you, it was never any good for giant bucks, but for fun hunting that at least promised and encounter with a freezer filler, it was pretty damn good. The key here is to go out and look around like I've been preaching all fall, Like I kind of preached all last summer. You might think that the public land down the road is worthless this late in the season. But do you really know that? If you don't, you can find out with a quick walk through there. Of course, if you find Dear, you've got to hunt them. You've got to hunt them. Well. Now, I'm going to cover this a lot in next week's episode, but i'll say a few teaser things now. First off, dead quiet conditions are your enemy. Late season. Dear will hear you draw, and they'll let you understand just how intolerant of mistakes they really are. This is why distance to your likely shot matters too close and too calm, and you'll watch lots of white tails bound off through the woods too far in your ability to make a good shot while you're all bundled up and out of practice. You'll be in trouble there too. Late season bow hunting is a real challenge if you're not sitting in a box, blind over a food plot with a heater running, sitting on the ground or in a saddle, or stand up in a tree. Now it is a really great way to find out how good you are at hiding yourself, how good you are at moving like a ninja, and how much you really operate in the fluid way versus clunky and loud and basically in a manner that gets you busted. Now you're probably thinking, I know how tough it is, man. I want you to tell me how to kill deer, not how to not kill deer. Fair enough, This is what I do. I look for fresh sign around, real cover. The open woods are not your friend right now. So anything that offers a little better, a little thicker cover, that's your friend. That's where the deer will bed, that's where the deer will stage, and that's where the deer will travel in the daylight hours. I do factor in food because that's where the deer are going eventually, but I rarely set up over it unless I find something similar to my opening night strategy, which means that once in a while you will find a corner of a bean field that didn't get picked, or a cut corn field that's tucked way back in below a hill and totally not visible to the road glasses and the hunters who won't get out and work for deer. You do find this occasionally, and when you do, it's pretty dangn cool. It's fun to sit there knowing the odds are really good that some deer going to show up, and if they do, you better make good on it because those spots are great places to spook deer when you leave. So you might only get two chances if you spread them out, or if the spot is really hot, hunt them back to back, but three or four times you'll probably really be pushing it. Now if you don't find this, or you do and you burn it to the ground right away and you still got a tag, you gotta get in that cover. Always get to the best cover. You might be thinking that you hunt, I don't know, the swamps or whatever, and finding cover really is and the problem. You might be a big woods hunter and go, well, let's cover everywhere, man, but very few tracks of timber or mono to the max. And what I mean by that is that there's a soft edge out there with better cover, or there's a patch of tamaracks or an old homestead, or there's something that offers the deer a better survival advantage. Over in the big Northwoods Wisconsin, I often find that the places where the grouse live now so to do the deer. Both animals are on the menu of a lot of the animals over there. So creek bottoms, the right age, clear cuts, or just certain hillsides that receive a little extra sun and aren't canopied out might just do it. All of this is a big question mark until you get in there and you start to look around. Now. Of course, just like every other point of the year, you can spot deer and food sources, or see obvious tracks and do some sleuthing. You can also make use of observation sits, which is a real option right now with a visibility as high as it will be all year. I'm always surprised how often I sit in December and I see deer filtering through woods that look pretty open, but absolutely swallows them up the moment they stopped. In fact, I probably eight years ago I shot a little buck in December after stumbling onto this fact. I had burned a small food plot right out and just went looking on the twenty nine acre property I was hunting. One dough on the edge of the wet land led me to a closer look, and I realized they were about four acres of swampy brushy willows and dogwood that looked to be a good spot for betting and browsing and staging. The first night that the wind was right, I came in along a busy highway and then hung a stand while the din of rush hour ramped up four hundred yards from me. Soon after the dark, figures of deer browsing caught my attention, and the first year to show up was a little buck that made a big mistake of getting about three yards from my stand a week earlier. And I'd have bet you money that there weren't more than a few deer on any given day they get within two yards of that property, let alone actually set hoof on it. But they were there, like they almost always are. I just wasn't looking in the right spots now that night, I had a strong north wind to cover my movement, and in every case where I've ever arrowed a late season white tail, I've had something conditionwise that gave me an advantage. I also had a little luck, some fresh intel, and a willingness to just hunt deer, which is the real crux of this episode. If you're in the true late part of your bow season and you're not sitting on primo ground, ask yourself what you really want to do, answer it honestly, and if you want to keep hunting and enjoying it, that might involve lowering your standards and accepting what little advantages this part of the season gives you, like concentrated deer, fewer hunters in the woods, and really the chance to keep hunting when everyone else has moved on. That's enough to keep going, but not enough to actually get it done, which is what next week is really all about. The fine details of a good set up and how to work through a shot opportunity so that it breaks your way and not the deers, which is easier said than done. That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson and this is the Wired Hunt Foundations podcast. If you're interested in more white tailed wisdom, please check out our Wired Hunt YouTube channel and visit the meat Eator dot com slash wired. As always, thank you so much for the support.