The Challenges of Hunting End-of-the-Season Big Bucks
Remember Trophy Bucks Pattern Hunters at the End of Deer Season
 Editor’s Note: Hunters already have harvested many of the young bucks before January arrives. But the older, trophy-sized bucks have holed-up and moved only after dark to dodge hunting pressure. However, with the onset of the rut, which takes place at various times from October – February across the United States, even the dominant bucks will move during daylight hours at this time and become vulnerable to hunters.
Most hunters know that to take a trophy buck, you must pattern the buck. You need to know where the buck’s traveling to as well as when and why he's going there. If you understand the buck's routine and schedule, you can pick a spot to take a stand and bag him when he's on his daily route. However, often hunters don't realize that older-age-class bucks also have patterned hunters. Deer understand hunters will go into the woods 30 to 45minutes before daylight, walk 50- to 150-yards off a main road and sit in that spot or stay in a tree stand until 8:30 or 9:00 am. Then the bucks assume a hunter will move to another stand, remain there until about 11:15 am, break for lunch, return to the woods around 1:30 pm, stay on his stand until 15 or 20 minutes before dark and then leave the woods. Because bucks know your schedule, they understand when they can and can't move without hunters spotting them.
By late deer season, bucks will have patterned the hunters so well that the deer will move in the middle of the day when you're eating lunch, or they'll become nocturnal. Hunters will find the most-productive hunting time in most sections of the country during the late season the middle of the day from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm. The Good Lord in His infinite wisdom has saved the best buck hunting for the last of the season. You won't encounter the occasional hunter in the woods, and hunters already have harvested the young bucks. Master woodsmen and trophy bucks compete during the late deer season.
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