Set Up Between the Dinner Table and Bedroom
The Scenario: The craziness of the rut is over and a buck's attention is back on food. He needs to recuperate from the rut and prepare for the approach of severe cold. Unfortunately, drought in the Midwest wiped out crops. The corn normally left standing to provide both food and shelter for whitetails at this time of year is gone; so are any of the kernels left from a normal harvest. Hunters who typically hunt cut fields will come up empty-handed now and in future years when this occurs. The Solution: Move stands to spots still capable of producing food (blue circles; orange circles denote traditional stands that won't work this season). With rain finally coming to much of the Midwest in early September, hunters who planted fall food plots with late-season draws like brassicas are going to have a leg up. "The guys who put the effort into fall plots could be the guys who score big this season," says Intrepid Outdoors co-host Adam Hays. "They'll have the best--maybe the only--food around." Hang stands between an available plot or natural food and the nearest bedding cover. Deer are weary and pressured now, and will take the most direct route between the two. If you have a food plot adjacent to thick cover, leave the area alone until the time is right. Wait for an approaching front or significant temperature drop, then slip in and spend the day there. Don't miss the middle of the day. For the last two years, as the season got later and colder at my farm in Virginia, plot cameras revealed increased activity between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. John Kilgo, a research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, particularly likes a gray, drizzly midday hunt to catch late-season deer on the move.
If you didn't plant any brassicas, wheat, or beans for late fall, consider doing so in the future; these extreme weather patterns could be here to stay. For now, Kip Adams, with the Quality Deer Management Association, recommends finding where acorns were earlier and setting up in those areas. Deer will revisit them, pawing at the leaf and snow cover in search of remaining nuts.

Doug Howlett