Late-season deer hunting

Cold weather will make bucks move. Be alert to it.

K, Christmas is over and out of the way, and I managed to continue my longtime shopping record. Chalk up another year that I failed to make it into the first store to buy gifts.

Many may consider me Scrooge or a dummy, but I dislike shopping with a passion and my wife dislikes it as well but she does enjoy buying for the little grandkids and our great-grandsons.

Now me, I'm content to watch her trudge out the door. I can tell, because I'm a trained observer, that Kay doesn't care one bit about joining the Christmas shopping throng at the local stores. I wish her good luck before Christmas when she went shopping, and I'd often have her drop me off at a friend's house and I'd climb into a tree stand for a few hours.

It seemed the perfect situation: her shopping and me hunting.

There I was, out in the weather with muzzleloader or bow in hand, depending on the season, and she would stop and pick me up three or four hours later. It seemed to make perfect sense to me. She dislikes hunting in cold weather, and I can't say it's my favorite thing to do but there was little cold temps to worry about.

Each day I'd watch for deer. Some days a few would pop out, and I'd make the decision to shoot or don't shoot. The hunt wasn't about killing a deer so much as it was about hunting for deer.

As my butt snuggled deeper into the foam rump pad, I'd think warm thoughts while the end of my bow was tucked into the top of my left rubber boot. My release was on the string, and seeing and hoping to shoot a deer meant waiting for the proper time to draw and shoot.

Numerous button-bucks and doe fawns were seen, and several mature does, but bucks with significant bone between their ears were conspicuous by their absence. As a matter of fact, not one well-antlered buck dared show his rack at any of my hunting spots.

Two or three small bucks were seen during December in another hunting location but they were always too away from my preferred bow range of 15 yards. A buck at 25 yards if outside my vision, and therefore outside of my shooting range with a bow. And, I don’t shoot small bucks,

No big bucks were seen this fall, and I’ve shot enough small bucks.

Shooting a muzzleloader is a bit different. I have a good scope on my black powder rifle, and can easily shoot bucks at 150-175 yards. I love my center-fire rifles, but thoroughly enjoy shooting bucks (and does when I have the proper permits) with a front-end loader.

The slightly colder weather is a turn-on for me because I know whitetails must move in colder weather. I'm still hoping for two or three days of 10-degree weather. When it gets that cold, I know the whitetail bucks and does will be up and moving.

The burning question right now is will we see weather that cold before the season shuts down on the evening of New Years Day. It looks very doubtful that we will have such weather until well into January when the season has shut down.

I don’t think we’ll have any bone-chilling cold between now and New Years Day.

Who knows? If all the talk about global warming is true, than what we are not seeing is what we'll probably be getting in the years to come. With the warmer weather will be more east winds, more swirling winds, less cold temperatures, possibly less snow, and a quicker spring break-up. It doesn't sound like my kind of winter deer-hunting weather.

So, between now and then, there is no shopping left to do. What excuse can I use to have Kay drop me off at one of my favorite spots, and pick me up on the way home?

I'll need to come up with something to get me through these last few days.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors