Have The Right Game Plan For Late-Season Muzzleloader Hunting

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With more than half my hunting life in the rearview mirror, I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest fan of late-season muzzleloader hunts for whitetails. The hunt excites, but the conditions often dampen the spirit. Snow, ice, freezing rain and frigid temperatures plague many hunts. Still, with a solid plan focused on whitetail weaknesses at this time of year, and a willingness to endure a little discomfort, success is entirely possible.

Three key elements stand out in the late season: feed, bedding cover and a fading rut. Learn these elements and adapt them to your specific hunting area, and you can make a respectable last-ditch effort to add a trophy to your wall and meat to your freezer.

LAST FIELD STANDING

Across the Midwest, whitetails require immediate re-energization after the rut, especially deer living in the snowbelt. After pursuing breeding interests continuously for more than a month, bucks need a food infusion, and quickly. While bucks go into the rut a bit chubby, by early winter they’ve dropped 20 percent or more of their pre-rut physique. Suddenly lean just as their world turns cold, these bucks have an extreme lust for food.

We humans require approximately 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day to maintain a healthy, functioning state. According to government statistics, a whopping 70 percent of us surpass that intake. However, a late-season whitetail couldn’t even survive on our so-called “cheat” diets.

In a Pennsylvania Game Commission blog post, wildlife biologist Jeannine Fleegle examined the post-rut phenomenon and determined that even in this diminished state of health, whitetails have a reduced caloric intake. In the warmer months, whitetails consume an incredible number of calories per day to keep up with fawn duties (does) and antler growth (bucks). In winter this caloric requirement drops as an energy conservation strategy, the blog points out.

Think of it as “faux hibernation.” Basically, deer move less to conserve energy. Even so, whitetails still require feed, and by this time of year, most crops have been removed from fields, vegetation has dried and mast no longer exists in high numbers. That leaves a weary, mature buck looking for several pounds of feed per day to survive winter, even with their diminished activity.

Your strategy should be to seek out nutrition with the highest attraction factor. Think of high-energy foods, like what you might find in a large food plot, cornfield or soybean field. Working with a farmer ahead of time and paying them to leave a portion of a crop standing makes sense for late-season ambushes.

If not, look for fields that may have been flooded, thereby preventing harvest, or those unworthy of harvest. Researching top browse in a non-farmland setting also makes sense, and in a year with an abundant acorn crop, some mast may be getting a second visit. After determining a late-season dining preference, scout intensely to pinpoint a pattern compatible with a downwind stand.

BEDROOM BUST

While you could score big on a brassica food plot you prepared months in advance, why bet on just one winning hand? Consider a bedroom bust, too. You’re not actually hunting a whitetail’s sanctuary, of course (unless attempting a Hail Mary sneak near a hunt’s end or using a major storm to mask your entry). But, by discovering that sanctuary and surmising deer routes in and out, you can arrange a whitetail encounter well before deer reach a destination food source.

Why consider an ambush focused more on bedding cover than food? By the time many muzzleloader hunts start, most Midwestern whitetails have endured nearly three solid months of hunting pressure. Worn out, harassed, battling winter weather and trying to conserve every ounce of energy, deer spend much more time bedded, as noted previously, seeking the best in available refuge.

Despite a colder environment, deer may not feel the temptation to feed during daylight. While shortened winter days are usually colder, they do allow deer to feed longer under cover of darkness. Unless a severe winter storm goads deer into feeding or temperatures plummet for days on end, deer may not show themselves in fields during shooting light. They may, however, begin to move behind the scenes in veiled cover as they make their way toward high-quality feed.

Use a day or two of pre-scouting, combined with your trail camera photos (cellular is best to avoid disruptions), to plot an invisible ambush. Scan food source edges and note the arrival direction of deer, and you’ll get a better sense of potential bedding locations. After determining a probable hideout, retrace the deer’s presumed travel route to the closest, next closest and farthest likely bedding cover. Stressed deer stay closer to food, whereas deer in temperate winter zones may travel much farther away from food. All prey species understand that visiting food and water increases their risk of predation, so bedding farther away means improved survival odds when conditions allow.

Finally, move into the edges of bedding cover and search for funnels and pinch points on the perimeter. I typically use my HuntStand app to mark favorable, downwind ambush sites before entering cover. A blind or stand setup within a few hundred yards of refuge may offer an early glimpse of deer eager to feed, yet not daring enough to expose themselves on a field until dark.

ROUND 2 OF THE RUT

If someone said you had a 10-percent chance of winning $1 million, you’d be pretty happy with those odds, right? Well, those are the odds of a female whitetail coming into estrus in the late season, most notably in December. Most studies conclude that approximately 90 percent of female whitetails in Midwestern states are bred during the November rut. That leaves a 10-percent chance that unbred females will come into estrus in early to mid-December. Generally, most of these unbred females are healthy fawns of the year.

I monitor the rut with a HuntStand Pro Whitetail subscription. It offers an Annual Rut Map, plus a 15-day Whitetail Activity Forecast, Peak Whitetail Movement Times and Whitetail Habitat layers for the United States. All this can help me crack the code of when that 10 percent could spark a late-season rut frenzy, especially if the area I’m hunting has abundant deer. The more deer in an area means more does making up that 10 percent.

You may even have a front-row seat to mature does coming back into estrus. Although uncommon, some females simply aren’t bred in the peak rut due to their lifestyle or to bucks simply missing them because of a frantic schedule. That means they will cycle again 21 to 30 days later for a second opportunity. That’s the same window in which a few select fans will come into estrus. If females do not get bred in that time, they’ll come into estrus again about 30 days later.

To capitalize on these “mini ruts,” hunt areas with high doe concentrations. If estrous wafts on the wind, you might witness a buck doing a downwind check of all females on a field as they enter or casually feed amongst a herd. This creates opportunities for you. Using estrous scents and calls, and possibly even a female decoy (be safe when transporting and setting one in muzzleloader season), can entice a buck into smokepole range. I rarely hunt the late season without my rattling horns, a grunt tube and a wick soaked in estrous scent strategically set in a shooting lane.

GET OUT THERE

It’s a simple fact that some late-season hunts can be miserable affairs due to weather conditions. However, those suffering through the cold can also experience great hunting. I recall my own experience taking a mature buck with a CVA Paramount muzzleloader mere minutes before the end of legal shooting light on a recent late-season hunt. I’d been sitting the edge of an Iowa soybean field left partially unharvested to attract post-rut whitetails. The buck entered the field with two others and eventually offered a good shot opportunity as he turned to browse on a bean plant. Moments later, I was admiring a true late-season prize.

Hunting a destination food source such as this, travel routes near the edges of bedding cover and areas with high doe concentrations during a secondary rut are all productive late-season tactics. Bundle up, grab your muzzleloader and set up in the right spot. Overcome the cold and you may score big, even as other hunters have already given up for the year.

MODERN MUZZLELOADER GEAR

Upgrade with new, innovative equipment to boost your late-season success.

Few muzzleloader hunters fool with traditional patch-and-ball front-stuffers anymore as inline muzzleloaders have seen a transition to more efficiency in recent years. For instance, the Traditions Firearms NitroFire ($569.95–$729.95) and CVA Crossfire ($450–$595) use the Federal Premium FireStick ($37.99) polymer-protected charge. It creates a waterproof powder system using Hodgdon Triple Eight powder for an easy, efficient and effective muzzleloader ignition. Load a bullet, slip in the premeasured charge, insert the primer, and you are ready to hunt.

A variety of muzzleloader companies also have been innovative in creating muzzleloaders for longer shooting distances. The muzzleloader I used for a recent Iowa hunt was the CVA Paramount ($1,290). Extensive testing led CVA to embrace both the .40 and .45 as the calibers of choice for velocity, efficiency and precision at long range. Simultaneously, CVA designed the PowerBelt ELR Bullet ($33.50), which features a lengthened and tapered design for a higher ballistic coefficient.

This muzzleloader and the company’s Paramount Pro V2 ($1,920–$2,065) look like centerfire rifles and perform like them, with muzzle velocities racing past 2,500 fps. That speed is in combination with Blackhorn 209 propellent and CVA’s Variflame Adapter ($54/20 adapters). This device securely holds a large rifle primer. The large primers were easier to remove using the Variflame and burned the powder charge in a complete, efficient manner. CVA offers load information for Blackhorn 209 in both volume and weight recommendations to aid in longer, more accurate shots.

If you have avoided muzzleloader season due to the hassles of the firearm, it may be time to reconsider what you’re missing in the late season and invest in a muzzleloader upgrade.

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

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