Proven Tactics for Bagging a Late-Season Whitetail Buck

I would love to write a piece about just how good late-season hunting can be, particularly when you get the type of weather patterns that drive bucks to feed well before sunset and fill ag fields to the brim with whitetails. When that takes place, the waning days of the season can certainly be some of the very best of the year.

But, alas, I can’t do it. Why? Because I simply don’t have a whole lot of experience with that situation to relay. In fact, quite the opposite has shown to be true. Where I live and hunt, the late stages of deer season can be mighty tough indeed. This is, of course, due to significant and steady hunting pressure that’s been in place and building since early October.

It’s not terribly hard to find a food source that’s drawing a sizable number of deer. There’s plenty of those locations around. But it is exceptionally difficult to locate a food source that’s drawing a fully mature buck out in the open during daylight hours at this stage of the year.

In fact, I would bet that’s a very similar situation to yours if you happen to live in a place like my home state of Michigan ... or Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, parts of Ohio and Indiana, really any location where human population is high and hunting pressure is, too.

So how should you spend these final few weeks of the season? Well, you have a couple of options, and those options all lead to the same thing—setting the stage for next fall.

TRAVEL AND SEE

I’ve hunted a number of states each fall for a long time. It’s become a standard mantra for me is to visit at least one, and often two or three, states outside of Michigan during the bow season.

Typically, I’m going to spend at least part of November away from home. But I have also started to spend a few days in late December exploring other areas as well. These trips have a far different feel than those that take place near the prime periods of the rut.

Sure, I have a tag in hand and I hope to fill it on a big buck. But I know the odds are stacked pretty steeply against that. My real purpose is to get a jump on the following fall. Post-season scouting is valuable. But my time is more valuable to me. I have a hard time spending time away from home if the only purpose of the time away is post-season scouting. I’d much rather be hunting. So, my peak scouting times are late December when I can still have my bow with me and spend time actually hunting and again in the spring when I can carry a shotgun and wear a turkey vest.

These late December trips are essential post-season scouting forays while the season is still open. This time of the year allows me to see all of the rut-related sign that was laid down in addition to gauging what type of hunting pressure an area saw throughout the fall. Stands, blinds, trail cams, tire tracks and boot paths are still easy to spot and likely in place. And, of course, I can spend some time actually hunting to get a feel for how deer use the area and whether any of them still are after running the gauntlet of the hunting season. I’ll elaborate on these in a bit. Of course, I understand my odds of filling a buck tag are likely slim if I’m being selective at all. So I don’t burn tags for these late-season hunts that are hard to draw or require an accumulation of points. These December outings are made for over-the-counter areas.

WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR

I’ve mentioned that rut-related sign is still readily apparent in December. That’s key because I focus so much of my hunting effort on rubs, scrapes and scrape areas. To me, there is no better sign to target than scrapes. Yes, does will visit scrapes but they’re buck-centric sign and often visited by multiple bucks. Unlike rubs, bucks will revisit scrapes often, and scrapes almost always appear in areas that bucks frequent on an annual basis.

Thus, my primary focus during my late-season visits to new (or even previously hunted) areas is to take inventory of all of the scrapes that I can find. I am particularly interested in finding areas with concentrations of scrapes that are located near thick security cover. If I can also find big rubs in the vicinity, I know I’ve found an area worth hunting the following fall.

In addition to the rut sign, I’m looking for indications of hunting pressure. Typically, it’s pretty easy to tell if an area saw a lot of hunter activity throughout the fall, and you don’t have to get very far from the parking area to know.

If I pull into a parking lot and I can see an obvious path of foot travel that’s beaten down, I’m turning around and heading for another location. As much as I wish I could, I just can’t make deer ignore significant, sustained human pressure. Those deer can be hunted and they can be killed, but I’d much rather not spend my time trying to do so.

I’m looking for areas that are a bit harder to access, or maybe smaller in size or hold less desirable habitat. Whatever it may be, the key is to locate areas that look like they may have seen a bit less (or a lot less) human activity over the course of the fall.

In addition to obvious paths and trails, I’m looking for trail cams, stands, blinds and other related indicators of hunter activity. For the most part, I’ve never found an area that was heavily hunted one year and not the next. And that was true even before today’s obsession with hunting public ground.

NEXT STEPS

By the time December arrives, I’ve spent about two months hunting as hard as my work schedule will allow. Like most reading this, that means weekends and precious few vacation days.

I try to time these late-season efforts around New Year’s weekend because that often comes with an additional day off from work. Because I’ll have spent the bulk of my vacation time during October and November, these December outings aren’t typically full-week affairs but are instead done on extended weekends. Given that weather conditions are often pretty harsh and cold, a few days is usually about the limit for me anyway, particularly if I’m staying in a tent.

I try to make the most of every minute of daylight. Morning hunts during this time of the season are generally unproductive and risky. The key to success is in finding those food sources that are drawing deer and to do everything possible to prevent disturbing those deer. This means afternoon hunts with an unobtrusive exit strategy. Rather than spend morning in the field, I’ll spend that time in my vehicle covering ground, looking for deer to hunt that evening and for areas to scout midday as potential locations for next fall’s outings. Obviously, I don’t want to scout midday in the areas I’m looking to hunt in the evenings. And I really don’t need to because my evening hunts will afford me the opportunity to learn the property a bit while checking out deer movement and buck quality.

Areas that I don’t intend to hunt in the evenings are prime for midday scouting and morning drive-by and glassing sessions. Areas that prove productive are looked at again in the spring when turkey season comes in.

Late-season hunts can produce. There’s no doubt about it. That said, the odds are long if you’re looking for a mature buck. However, that doesn’t mean the end of the season should simply be wasted. I’ve managed to find a compromise approach that allows me to continue to hunt while getting a jumpstart on next fall. It’s a system that works, and I encourage you to give it a shot as the season comes to a close.

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• This article was featured in the December/January 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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