If looking to do food plots, get a good paperback book or two on growing food plots. I have one by Ed Spinnazola from Michigan that is very good, because it discusses using hand tools and small plots (no till methods), quad runners and then actual farm equipment. A couple of things to consider, depending on where you're at and climate. First, if you're in need of keeping deer in the area, a larger plot is what you'll need because a small hunting size plot will get grazed over in a week. Two items that hold deer even after snow is sugar beets(hard to grow-need the right soil) and brassica's. Brassica's don't attract deer until the first frost turns the leaves sweet with starch. They'll eat it until it's gone even in snow. Make sure you're getting soil tests and fertilize according to the recommendations of the seed store (the soil test should include what your preferred seed(s) is to plant and they will recommend application amounts of fertilizer and lime. More is not better on seed or fertilizer.
As far as natural food and late season hunting, sometimes it requires boot work. One year we got some early December, light/fluffy snow of about a foot. My normal areas and travel had no deer. I took a many mile hike and found the deer were bedding in a block of thick pines that was about 1/4 mile from a hillside that had beech trees. Beechnuts don't occur every year, but when they do, they're a preferred source. When I walked up on the hillside (which typically doesn't have deer in the fall if no nuts because there's no undergrowth for cover with all the mature trees) it was like a barnyard. Everything was pawed up in a foot of snow. As I said, this doesn't happen every year, so some investigation is in order.
Finally, my best winter spots have good access to them and there's only a few spots I hunt on the family farm in the winter. Deer like to move as little as possible in the cold and when there's a foot to foot and a half of snow. We have a couple of apple orchards that are close to cedar/swamp bedding areas. No more than 200-300 yards. On the trails leading to and from I've got a couple corridors that I can use to sneak in and out of the travel area. You can't be on the food source and you can't be too close to the bedding because you'll spook them coming in or leaving and then they're even more nocturnal. I use ground blinds more in this time frame as well. I can slip out a lot quicker if I'm exiting a ground blind then I can lowering my bow to the ground and climbing down a tree and make much less noise doing so. Deer are super spooking in my neck of the woods right after gun season and with no foliage on the trees and still air of a winter night, sounds are magnified immensely. Also, being on the ground in a popup blind or in a blow down with some wind break is a whole lot warmer than being up in a bare tree with any amount of wind.
Here is one blind that was put into place in early November right at the end of a swale that leads to an apple orchard. I didn't hunt until one month later but it's on an annual exit route when snow flies.
Here's some deer in the evening in a transition zone. The beginning of a long narrow apple orchard is about 50 yards from here and wraps around a hill out of sight for a quarter mile. I can drop down out of an orchard plateau that's out of sight so my entry and exit only has about 50 yards of travel where I could alert deer visibly.
Here's my daughter walking out with me from the spot with the deer are on the camera. This is above the area where the deer are at and out of site. They don't venture up into this orchard because their is no food there in the winter.
Topic: What's a deers' favorite food source in December? (Read 609 times)
