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A Guide to Late Season Whitetail Hunting

5 Minute Read

By HuntWise  on 9/30/2023

Late season deer hunting efforts often include a mixed bag of opportunities for mature bucks. Whether you are hunting with a bow, muzzleloader, shotgun, or rifle, the rate of success can be extremely high.

 

Late season deer hunting efforts often include a mixed bag of opportunities for mature bucks. Whether you are hunting with a bow, muzzleloader, shotgun, or rifle, the rate of success can be extremely high. Hunters should not let the word ‘late’ make them feel pressured or lure them into predicting how their season or seasons might end. Late season deer hunting offers plenty of potential, namely for whitetails. Following are go-to tactics if you want to put meat in the freezer or antlers on the wall.


Bring your focus back to food


In the late season, if you can identify the food source getting visited the most, you’ll have a great shot at filling your freezer. During the rut, bucks may lose up to a quarter of their body weight. Therefore, bucks are in full recharge mode as they try to pack on weight before the harsh winter months.  Through December and beyond, deer aim to conserve energy by using the path of least resistance. Setup on main trails leading to and from food sources while keying in on high carb foods near bedding areas. Focus on highly palatable food sources such as corn, soybeans, acorns brassicas, and cereal grains. The trick is to find quality forage where deer feel secure. Whether on public or private lands, remote food and cover options that have been given the illusion of being unpressured by hunters all season long, can create a golden opportunity of hunting. 

 

 

Find solar and thermal bedding areas

 

Deer stick closer to their bedding areas as winter approaches because they are trying to conserve energy. Different types of bedding cover are important for deer. During the winter, patterns shift. On clear days, to detect bedding areas for deer without spooking them, search for south-facing slopes or any areas facing south, otherwise known as solar bedding areas. These slopes appeal to deer as they warm up faster by catching the sun’s rays for longer periods of time and block cold northern winds during winter months.  Thermal cover such as dense woods, thickets and patches of cedars can be extremely appealing to white-tailed deer during cold weather as well. During rain, snow, and overcast, deer will tuck into thick cover to escape cold winds and weather. Does tend to prefer these types of bedding areas in the wintertime, and where there are does, there are typically bucks.

 

 

The importance of tree cover

 

A major area of concern while winter hunting is tree selection. With the lack of foliage at this time of year, many early or mid-season trees are now less than optimal, for the simple reason that the cover in the woods is gone. When looking for trees to clear out for winter hunting, it is very important to find ones with background cover. This kind of cover can take the form of other trees behind you or branches on the tree you’re in, just as long as you don’t have open sky behind you, which will leave your silhouette easy to pick out. Good sources of background cover included large crotches, conifers, and oaks that have held onto their leaves.


 

Take advantage of afternoon sits

 

In the North, where snow and cold conditions are the norm, early morning deer sightings can be tough to come by. Like the early season, make sure to focus on afternoon food source movement opportunities. With the confidence that HuntCast will deliver the best days to be in the woods, take advantage of hungry whitetails in search of food sources to replace the energy reservist needed to survive the harsh winter months. Quality, unpressured whitetail habitat is not very common for this time of the season, so you can bet that if you locate the perfect combination of food and cover, you will have found the deer hunting version of whitetail gold!

 


 

Remember to scout

 

Late season is the perfect time to hit the whitetail woods to scout. At this time, hunting season signs are still clearly evident and critically important. Often, winter signs will reveal patterns that do not necessarily relate to hunting season signs. At the start of late season, whitetail stick to fall hunting season deer movements and eventually return to predictable patterns prior to the rut. However, as winter intensifies, patterns shift. If you wait too long in the late season to scout, it is easy to confuse winter deer patterns with important, fall hunting season deer movements.  

 

 

 

Wear the proper gear and dress warm

 

This is a good time to layer your clothes. Wait until putting on the outer layer until you are in the stand. By the time November and December roll around you can count on it being cold, snowy and downright miserable at times but achieving success favors those with tenacity in the woods. Quality late-season hunting outerwear is designed to retain body heat, so it typically incorporates some form of insulation between its interior liner and exterior shell.
The late deer season can be a rewarding challenge if you can brave the cold weather and snow, while sticking to the basics of afternoon food source movements. There are several strategies for hunting late season whitetails, and whether you are bowhunting or using a firearm, the same tactics apply. When December rolls around, there is still a lot of deer hunting that takes place. Just because the rut is over doesn’t mean you can’t find some fantastic hunting late in the season. So get off the couch, and get out there and punch that tag!
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