It’s been warmer than normal throughout most of the whitetails’ range.  There was great acorn production in some areas and much corn still standing in others.  The combination of warm temperatures when deer have their winter coat and easy access to food make for difficult hunting conditions.  During these conditions, mature bucks simply aren’t very active during daylight hours and don’t need to move far to feed.  However, there are fewer acorns and less corn available as the fall progresses.  That combined with a cold front in the Rockies pushing east should make for some good hunting in the Midwest by later this week and the East by early next week.

If you’re a hunting local turf, plan on hunting the prime travel corridor locations when this next weather front reaches your area.  This could be a period of substantially increased daytime deer activity!

If your “suitcase” hunting (hunting an area far enough from home you packed a suitcase), then hunt as close as you can to a suspected bedding area without disturbing deer until the weather changes.  Try to locate travel corridors but don’t hunt them and condition deer to your presence until conditions change and deer are more likely to be more active during daylight hours.  Remember that spooked deer are difficult to hunt so make sure your scouting activities aren’t alerting them to your presence.

Harvesting mature bucks on a sustained basis requires much more strategy and skill than harvesting immature deer.  Mature deer readily avoid areas they associate with danger.  They rarely give hunters a second chance.  That’s why watching weather patterns and limiting your intrusion into areas they travel until the conditions are favorable is critical to harvesting mature bucks consistently.

Growing (and hunting) Deer together,

Grant