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Art Lander’s Outdoors: You may have to alter your game plan for late season bow hunting success


As Kentucky’s 136-day archery deer season draws to a close, hunters are carefully picking their hunt locations and times to go afield, based on weather conditions and available food sources.

Success comes to archers who alter their game plan from how they hunted earlier in the fall.

In January deer hunker down, especially when snow covers the ground and temperatures plummet. They bed up, and move around less. They don’t expend energy unless they have to.

Deer bed closer to food sources, and stay in thick cover, in areas out of the wind, often on south-facing slopes to escape north winds and to soak up the sun, on clear days.

In late season deer bed closer to food sources, and stay in thick cover, in areas out of the wind, often on south-facing slopes to escape north winds and to soak up the sun, on clear days. (Photo Provided)

In late season deer bed closer to food sources, and stay in thick cover, in areas out of the wind, often on south-facing slopes to escape north winds and to soak up the sun, on clear days. (Photo Provided)

The onset of cold weather causes body reserves to be drawn down since the food they consume is lower in nutritional value. Many bucks lose weight during the late fall and winter because of the rigors of the rut.

A bumper crop of acorns this past fall in most of the state provided lots of food for deer, sending them into the winter in good condition. If you field dressed, skinned and butchered a deer in October or November you probably noticed a substantial layer of body fat under the skin.

As fall turns to winter, a deer’s diet changes.

White oak acorns are eaten first, then red oak acorns, which are less palatable. Finally, deer consume browse, small twigs and buds of hardwood trees and shrubs. It’s the bark that’s most nutritious.

Landowners who manage their property for deer can have good hunting in the late fall and winter if they set aside some agricultural crops. In the grip of winter high-calorie food is a magnet for deer. Nothing beats plots of standing corn or soy beans to attract and hold deer, especially during snowy periods.

Winter wheat is also an excellent late fall and winter crop since green forage is in short supply, after clover and alfalfa die back from the frost. Honeysuckle is one of the few wild plants that have green leaves into late fall and winter.

How and Where to Hunt in the late Season

When’s the best time to hunt in the late season?

Concentrate efforts during the warmest part of the day, usually the afternoons. Hunt in advance of cold fronts, when deer will be moving around, looking for food. A thaw, after several days of severe cold, is one of the best times to be out there.

It’s late season, what do you have to lose? Be more aggressive in your tactics.

For more outdoors news and information, see Art Lander’s Outdoors on KyForward.

If you don’t have a food source that deer are keying on in your hunting area, go looking for deer activity. When the ground is wet, or snow covered, it’s easy to move around quietly. Try spot and stalk, glassing ahead with binoculars, as you move.

If you find fresh deer sign, where a deer has scraped the snow, looking for acorns, revisit the area with a climbing treestand, and settle in for an afternoon hunt.

Spike in Late Season Harvest

Because of the growing number of archers in Kentucky, there have been eye-popping increases in deer harvest during the late season in recent years.

Last season bow hunters posted a record kill of 23,323 deer, 14.97 percent of the overall number of deer taken.

A record number of deer were taken during the last two months last season — 14,509 deer in December, 2015 (included late muzzleloader season harvest), and 3,294 in January, 2016.

The deer harvest in January is always the lowest monthly total of the five-month archery season. Deer harvest fluctuates dramatically, due in part to weather conditions, and hunter participation.

But, in the last decade, the harvest by archers in January has increased by 54.25 percent, from 1,507 during the 2006 season, to 3,294 during the 2015 season.

Kentucky’s 2016-17 archery season ends on Monday, Jan. 16. As of Jan. 9, 1,606 deer have been reported taken.

Go bow hunting now. When archery deer season ends it will be 228 days until it re-opens.

1Art-Lander-Jr.

Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.


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