Late Season? How do you do it?

[Michael Arnette]

So guys, I did some volunteer work this fall and have missed the early season and rut in Oklahoma, I won't get back until later into December.

How do you hunt the late season differently than other times.
Be sure to include some late season harvest photos if you have them.

[ripforce56]

In Northern Mi dress warm, temps in the 20s and low 30s  Hunt before a snow event and after it is over! Set up where the food source is for me right now that is in  the Oak ridges deer are moving thru them digging up the acorns!

[bamacrazy]

Down here the rut is usually still on when the season ends. Usually though, the tried and true mathods work best. Find where they eat, find where they sleep, and set up between those two. If your hunting area includes any swamp land stalking the edges of those works well too.

[KSdan]

Food!

[Terry Lightle]

Well Michael we are almost neighbors as I live out on Keystone lake.I hunt food sources and trails leading to food sources.Late season is my favorite hunting

[Manitoba Stickflinger]

I haven't hunted much beyond Dec. but know that food is key. You find deer food.....you find deer! Still using that heavy limbed TT??

[smokin joe]

Hunt food sources. If there are acorns left, the deer will be eating them. Left over crops in fields can be good too. Intercept them between bedding areas and the food.

[bmfer]

Dress warm, hunt by the food. Deer are slaves to their stomachs.

[ishiwannabe]

Our late season happens to coincide with the secondary rut...I hunt food and call. Biggest deer I ever missed was during late season. Came right into a bleat can...

[ishiwannabe]

Sorry, posting from my cell.

[larry]

how do I do it? well generally I freeze my arse off and see little to nothing  :(

[longbowben]

Hunt food source and the worst weather is the best weather and i mean COLD WEATHER.

[Malery Oxendine]

I hunt thick areas with food sources close by.

[Michael Arnette]

Thanks for all the replies.
Yes, I still love my TT, I got an extra set of #69 limbs made with black glass for banging around in the woods this winter.

[LostNation_Larry]

Best of luck.  I've bagged deer in December but I've spent a lot of quiet hours watching squirrels find nuts.  Around here the deer movement is very different in December.  My October hot spots are worthless in December.  In a word, study.  You have to find out where they are eating and sleeping and how they get from one to the other.

[Jerry Jeffer]

I hunt the same all year. I move to where I have been seeing deer. I hunt the ground in some huge woods, so all year I change spots often to follow the deer.

[killinstuff]

From now til spring the deer here will be eating cedar and seldom leave the cedar swamps once the snow is deep. Heavy snow droops the branches down so they can eat, not much wind in there and no one messes with them so they don't move much. Downed cedar trees are deer magnets in da swamp.

[Roy Steele]

I bow hunt only mature bucks.But all bucks are thoughts are turning to food again.But remember buck woun't turn down a hot doe.So I contentue to call with only doe calls or tending grunts.I like to use only mouth blown call because bucks have heard doe in heat can calls so much and if they've been spooked by someone useing one mature bucks likely any buck will remember it.
  I get one trails leading to a major food scorce as close to the bedding areas has I can.They won't show up at the food scorce in the day light now.Unless you have totaly unpressured bucks.
 Hidden food scorces are great.And hear in WV honeysuckle thickets are high on my list.And most or they are in hiden spots.Trouble is bucks some times bed right in the honeysuckle.Where there water scorces are scarce.Exspecially stock tanks that don't stay frozzen are hot spots late season.So these the way you'd hunt food scorces.
  Let me say 3 things there's little pressure it's cood and loany not many people are willing to tuff it out.I save a tag just to hunt the late season I love it and do really well each year.

[Bowwild]

I hunt much less after the firearms season has ended. Where before the firearms season I might hunt 4-5 times/week, I might only hunt 1-2 times/week after.

A variety of reasons:
1. 200,000 deer are gone.
2. I have more trouble keeping warm.
3. I've usually killed all the deer I can eat

However, when I haven't filled the one buck tag allowed in KY (which I support whole-heartedly) as is the case right now, I should keep hunting hard. As one of my friends reminded me, the buck you want to kill next season is alive now (mature buck).

I hunted yesterday. Roy Steele, you'll get a kick out of this, four bucks came within 25-35 yards towards me and stopped -- and bedded down in a HONEYSUCKLE thicket!