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Late Season Hunting Tips: Fooling the Confidence Deer
If conditions are right, late season hunting can be just as exciting and productive as the rut. The key to late season hunting near a food source is to fill the field with what I call “confidence” deer. Confidence deer are basically all the deer that enter a field before your shooter is willing to expose himself during daylight.
Some people are under the impression that a mature buck is more intelligent than a younger buck, but I attribute their success in eluding us more toward other deer than to the individual buck’s intelligence. How many times have you witnessed an adult doe sound the alarm call before a mature buck in the same field even realizes there is any danger? That old buck knows he doesn’t have to be on high alert if 10 other deer are doing just that in the field already.
When I hunt over a late season food source, I get in early to allow for the chain reaction of young to old deer fill the field. If the field clears, the chain reaction needs to start over from the beginning, and the speed at which it fills back up is directly related to weather. When it is below zero with 3 feet of snow in the ground, deer seem to have a bit of pep in their step when they are headed to an attractive food source. The most challenging part beyond hunting the correct wind is to stay warm enough to draw your bow once that shooter finally shows himself.Standing beans are better than standing corn because you can easily identify and shoot a deer in beans. With corn, however, you need them to step out in order to get a clear shot. Some states allow knocking down or bush hogging standing corn, which increases visual clarity.
As for when to hunt, afternoons seem to always outperform mornings in the late season. For one thing, getting to a tree stand near a food source in the morning without spooking deer is nearly impossible because the deer are already in the field eating. In the afternoon, you can slip in undetected while the deer are bedded in nearby cover.
We have had extremely warm temperatures across the Eastern half of the US up to this point, but as soon as that jet stream dips the cold temps will follow. Some parts of the Midwest have been hit with several rounds of heavy snow, but most of that has melted over the last week. Cold temps are in the forecast over the next 10 days, and the deer will be hitting the late season food plots heavily, so get out there and take advantage of the late season movement.
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