The Hunt’s Not Over: Making the Most of Late-Season Buck Opportunities

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We hope you’re enjoying the day with family or friends and celebrating what you’re most grateful for this year. Carve up that turkey you harvested during turkey season and have yourself a delicious meal. Then, spend some of the holiday weekend out in your Stump blind hunting for a late-season buck. It’s not too late to harvest a buck and have venison in your freezer in time for Christmas.

Second Rut

The rut is winding down, so you’ll need to start using post-rut hunting strategies from here on out. There won’t be as many does in estrus this late in the season, but that doesn’t mean there are none. A second rut takes place later in the year, during which unbred does will go into estrus again. It’s not as active as the first rut, but you’ll still be able to catch some bucks trying to find a doe. Less aggressive calls are needed this time of year. You don’t need to do loud, aggressive antler rattles. You can do soft doe calls to bring deer in.

Food Plots

Use your Feedbank Gravity Deer Feeders to provide the deer with supplemental food throughout the winter. You shouldn’t introduce any new food if you haven’t been feeding the deer already. The deer herd’s digestive system won’t be able to handle the new food during these cold months. Their bodies have already begun to shut down and hibernate for the cold months ahead. They need to eat things they can normally find in the wild this time of year. If you’ve been feeding them corn, continue to do so. Corn transitions into the winter months as a winter food source for deer. Soybeans are also a good choice. They love woody browse, like twigs and other tree debris. If you have a tree line on your property, focus on hunting along that line. Hunt between your property line and your food plot so that you’re not hunting directly on top of the food source.

The Feedbank Timber 500 holds 500 pounds of feed. It’s squat and circular, like a tree stump, and can easily be moved around your property. It has four feed ports at the bottom so multiple deer can feed at once. The lid latches shut and is watertight, so you won’t have to worry about any melting snow seeping into the feeder.

Check Bedding Areas

As the days get colder, the deer herd will be bedding down more often. Keep your eye out for bedding areas and set up your blinds accordingly. They’ll focus on insulated areas, like heavy tree cover and thick brushes to stay warm. The deer will start to be heavily pressured this time of year, so once you find a path, set up your Stump blind further into the woods than other hunters. Their pressure will force the deer further into the woods to avoid them, so if you’re on the opposite side, you’ll catch them when they move.

When you hunt these colder late-season months, stay warm in our Stump blinds, use your Feedbank Gravity Deer Feeders and keep in mind that the activity will be a little bit tamer this time of year, so scout accordingly. Enjoy these late-season hunts and you could harvest yourself some holiday wild game meat.

How do you make the most out of late-season buck hunting? Let us know in the comments below!