Whitetail Transition Periods

[HuntNorthEast]

I have a relative idea on what the herd does in my hunting areas. Basically just want to hear the varieties people see across the country.

So to the question. At what point in the year do you guys see your mature bucks transition from summer feed patterns to pre-rut ground, and pre-rut ground to rut territory.

Up here in Southern Maine, I usually see the older bucks start to move off of summer grassy/low browse feed, to the mast crops and woody browse around the end of September and no later than the first full weekend of October.

From there, these bucks are officially on their pre-rut ground. They start to spar, bachelor groups slowly break up, and by the third weekend of October they have settled into core rut areas to get ready to run does.

From third weekend of October to the third weekend of November, kiss any pattern goodbye. Our peak rut is typically between the 12th and 14th of November. A buck I hunted for almost 4 years was killed 1.8 miles away from where he was last on camera 33 hours before. 1.8 miles over 33 hours is nothing for a whitetail. They could cover that in minutes. Keep in mind though, this was a 6.5 year old GIANT, and he was running does through large blocks of timber.

So, lets hear some input! What do you guys see in your states for movement and when?! It may help others on here solve the riddle they've been trying to crack for years!

 

[HuntNorthEast]

Ttt?

 

[Nutterbuster]

So, I'm not 100% sure I understand your question. Our deer don't really migrate from feeding areas to pre-rut areas to rut areas, so much as they do all of those things in a general area depending on the time of the year. Can't help with that. But as far as kinda a framework of what deer do from October through February, here are my observations.

Right now (mid august) oaks are not really dropping. You may find one here and there, but the primary mast trees are cypress and tupelo. Late summer, these are what squirrels live on. This will remain true even in mid september when squirrel season opens (promise I'm getting around to the deer talk), but gradually they transition over to hickory (already dropping here to some extent) then to beech nuts (awesome squirrel action, because they love them and beech trees are comparatively rare. yay for concentrated food!) then to the early acorns. Acorns do not really get going good until late September or early October.

Once oaks turn on, they are far and away the preferred food source for deer here. All through the spring and summer they eat mainly fresh, new, tender browse. Smilax vines are a favorite, as are blackberries, yaupon, beauty berry, and many other plants. But summer heat retards plant growth down here and browse gets woody. So acorns are quite attractive. We do not have a lot of agriculture around here. Deer are mainly eating acorns in the woods, a little browse here and there as an appetizer, and corn and plots. A deer without acorns and or corn in its belly any time of the season down here is quite rare. I concentrate a lot of effort right at the transition from squirrel to deer season locating acorns that seem to be about to go hot. From opener to Thanksgiving, I kill most of my deer either at feeding areas or transitioning to the feed areas from their hidey-holes. Deer want to not get eaten and eat 11 months out of the year. Outside of seeing the occasional bachelor group of bucks during early season, I do not see a lot of buck activity. We have low buck numbers in this part of the country. I don't discriminate against a buck if he shows up to eat acorns, but I don't particularly have them on my mind.

Gun season is historically around November 22nd. You usually get one or two good hunts in before I notice a remarkable lull in deer movement. I believe deer are still eating and hiding, but with more of an emphasis on the hiding due to all the rifles in the woods. If you didn't kill those deer you were seeing during early season, and your neighbor/competition didn't, then they're laying low because by now they know the game's afoot.

Used to, I hunted harder during the period between early rifle and January rut activity. However, I've found it MUCH more productive to give myself a little break, and chase ducks from Thanksgiving opener until after Christmas. Migration is on, deer movement is off. I like low-hanging fruit. Occasionally I will find deer around my duck hunting haunts. If I think I can get on them, and the desire is there, I'll make my play. But for the most part I'm eating the deer I killed during early season under feed trees, and slinging decoys in tupelo swamps and log-filled creeks.

After Christmas, I start to turn my focus back to deer. How quickly I make this transition depends on how well the ducks are still flying and when I start noticing signs of rut activity. Mainly, seeing more deer on the side of the road (dead or alive), seeing more deer while going to and from my ducks spots, and noticing some good buck sign popping up here and there.

This signals "buck-killin' time." Shotgun goes away, rifle or bow comes back out. I generally am at my most serious during the period between just after Christmas until Februrary 10th when it's all over. I get more intense with each day, because the action is steadily getting better and better. I have a list of buck-killin' spots on my regular stompin' grounds, and it takes a lot to pry me off of them. They generally are funnels between patches of cover, or edges located in tracts of land that get next to 0 hunting pressure. Islands, outparcels, fringes...places people don't know exist or can't get to without waders or a small boat. Most of the does have been pushed into these areas after a long, lenient season. Deer brains have transitioned between "get fat and don't die" to "don't die and get laid" as the priority. I will sit dark-to-dark in areas I believe in if the weather is right and there is sign or sightings that indicate deer are still using the same hotspots I've capitalized on in the past.

So I guess the general pattern can be though of in terms of "get fat" to "don't die" to "get laid." Deer at the early season are recuperating from growing babies and antlers, and preparing for food shortages. They're pigging out. As hunting pressure spikes, daytime movement is severely reduced and pushed into the most secure areas. They're trying to lay low and not catch a bullet. Hormones kick in, and lust forces them out of hiding. The biological imperative to further the existence of the species overrides the need to preserve the individual, and they start doing things that don't make sense (travelling widely during daylight hours.)

 

[OspreyZB]

I see a small shift around late August/early September here. That's when our swamp chestnut oaks usually start dropping good. It's also when everyone is in the woods setting up their tree stands and bait piles. I say it's a small shift because I find a lot of bucks within a half mile or so from where I was seeing them in the summer. Our season opens the second Saturday in September and some of the mature bucks are daylight active and vulnerable in their core areas until they get pressured. They seem to be somewhat patternable until around October 15. That's when I lose track of a lot of the bucks I've been seeing, and start seeing some new ones. I have a buck I've been after for the last 2 seasons that disappears mid October and shows back up around Halloween for a day or 2, then is gone for the rest of the season. Some of the really old bucks don't seem to shift at all. They have everything they need all year in one small area (usually an area that doesn't allow hunting) and they have no reason to ever leave that area. High deer density and low buck to doe ratio means they don't need to go out looking for does.

 

[HuntNorthEast]

So, I'm not 100% sure I understand your question. Our deer don't really migrate from feeding areas to pre-rut areas to rut areas, so much as they do all of those things in a general area depending on the time of the year. Can't help with that. But as far as kinda a framework of what deer do from October through February, here are my observations.

Right now (mid august) oaks are not really dropping. You may find one here and there, but the primary mast trees are cypress and tupelo. Late summer, these are what squirrels live on. This will remain true even in mid september when squirrel season opens (promise I'm getting around to the deer talk), but gradually they transition over to hickory (already dropping here to some extent) then to beech nuts (awesome squirrel action, because they love them and beech trees are comparatively rare. yay for concentrated food!) then to the early acorns. Acorns do not really get going good until late September or early October.

Once oaks turn on, they are far and away the preferred food source for deer here. All through the spring and summer they eat mainly fresh, new, tender browse. Smilax vines are a favorite, as are blackberries, yaupon, beauty berry, and many other plants. But summer heat retards plant growth down here and browse gets woody. So acorns are quite attractive. We do not have a lot of agriculture around here. Deer are mainly eating acorns in the woods, a little browse here and there as an appetizer, and corn and plots. A deer without acorns and or corn in its belly any time of the season down here is quite rare. I concentrate a lot of effort right at the transition from squirrel to deer season locating acorns that seem to be about to go hot. From opener to Thanksgiving, I kill most of my deer either at feeding areas or transitioning to the feed areas from their hidey-holes. Deer want to not get eaten and eat 11 months out of the year. Outside of seeing the occasional bachelor group of bucks during early season, I do not see a lot of buck activity. We have low buck numbers in this part of the country. I don't discriminate against a buck if he shows up to eat acorns, but I don't particularly have them on my mind.

Gun season is historically around November 22nd. You usually get one or two good hunts in before I notice a remarkable lull in deer movement. I believe deer are still eating and hiding, but with more of an emphasis on the hiding due to all the rifles in the woods. If you didn't kill those deer you were seeing during early season, and your neighbor/competition didn't, then they're laying low because by now they know the game's afoot.

Used to, I hunted harder during the period between early rifle and January rut activity. However, I've found it MUCH more productive to give myself a little break, and chase ducks from Thanksgiving opener until after Christmas. Migration is on, deer movement is off. I like low-hanging fruit. Occasionally I will find deer around my duck hunting haunts. If I think I can get on them, and the desire is there, I'll make my play. But for the most part I'm eating the deer I killed during early season under feed trees, and slinging decoys in tupelo swamps and log-filled creeks.

After Christmas, I start to turn my focus back to deer. How quickly I make this transition depends on how well the ducks are still flying and when I start noticing signs of rut activity. Mainly, seeing more deer on the side of the road (dead or alive), seeing more deer while going to and from my ducks spots, and noticing some good buck sign popping up here and there.

This signals "buck-killin' time." Shotgun goes away, rifle or bow comes back out. I generally am at my most serious during the period between just after Christmas until Februrary 10th when it's all over. I get more intense with each day, because the action is steadily getting better and better. I have a list of buck-killin' spots on my regular stompin' grounds, and it takes a lot to pry me off of them. They generally are funnels between patches of cover, or edges located in tracts of land that get next to 0 hunting pressure. Islands, outparcels, fringes...places people don't know exist or can't get to without waders or a small boat. Most of the does have been pushed into these areas after a long, lenient season. Deer brains have transitioned between "get fat and don't die" to "don't die and get laid" as the priority. I will sit dark-to-dark in areas I believe in if the weather is right and there is sign or sightings that indicate deer are still using the same hotspots I've capitalized on in the past.

So I guess the general pattern can be though of in terms of "get fat" to "don't die" to "get laid." Deer at the early season are recuperating from growing babies and antlers, and preparing for food shortages. They're pigging out. As hunting pressure spikes, daytime movement is severely reduced and pushed into the most secure areas. They're trying to lay low and not catch a bullet. Hormones kick in, and lust forces them out of hiding. The biological imperative to further the existence of the species overrides the need to preserve the individual, and they start doing things that don't make sense (travelling widely during daylight hours.)

Just curious about deer changing areas and patterns throughout the country and when. Lots to learn about deer all the time. I am finally branching out and hunting other states and it is amazing the changes just one state over!

 

[DroptineKrazy]

I have a relative idea on what the herd does in my hunting areas. Basically just want to hear the varieties people see across the country.

So to the question. At what point in the year do you guys see your mature bucks transition from summer feed patterns to pre-rut ground, and pre-rut ground to rut territory.

Up here in Southern Maine, I usually see the older bucks start to move off of summer grassy/low browse feed, to the mast crops and woody browse around the end of September and no later than the first full weekend of October.

From there, these bucks are officially on their pre-rut ground. They start to spar, bachelor groups slowly break up, and by the third weekend of October they have settled into core rut areas to get ready to run does.

From third weekend of October to the third weekend of November, kiss any pattern goodbye. Our peak rut is typically between the 12th and 14th of November. A buck I hunted for almost 4 years was killed 1.8 miles away from where he was last on camera 33 hours before. 1.8 miles over 33 hours is nothing for a whitetail. They could cover that in minutes. Keep in mind though, this was a 6.5 year old GIANT, and he was running does through large blocks of timber.

So, lets hear some input! What do you guys see in your states for movement and when?! It may help others on here solve the riddle they've been trying to crack for years!

I actually see the best rut action right around Thanksgiving. My wife shot a buck a couple of years ago. There was three of them grunting and chasing a hot doe on Thanksgiving morning.

 

[Kurt]

I guess because our season starts in mid Oct and I don't hunt food sources or pay attention until I'm looking for does in the early season. I know they'll transition feeds when the first few hard frosts knock back the succulents and herbaceous plants. I'd say that happens towards the end of Sept. but it's really availability (hard frosts) rather than a specific time, although this event is fairly consistent annually. I consider myself a pre-rut hunter, ( although who doesn't love the chaos of the rut). My hunting grounds are on the oak slopes surrounding my house. I don't see bachelor groups. The last time I saw two bucks at the same time was 20 years ago. I get blown way by the guys who are showing 5 and 6 bucks hanging out together on their trail cameras preseason. I also don't run cameras. I have cameras, but most years I don't put them out. Last year the most deer activity I saw was the last week in Oct. and the first two weeks of Nov. and I would consider that the end of the pre-rut to full rut. Scrapes show up any where from late Sept to early Oct. By the time our season starts all the white oaks have been vacuumed up and I'm left sitting on red oak flats and side hills of red oak if I'm hunting food sources. It's why I seek out and hunt thicker travel corridors between these areas. My current plan for the coming season is to observe the oak flats early season and move in tighter on deer activity as the doe feeding pattern becomes more evident. I have one doe tag which I hope to fill early season and two buck tags which I hope to fill later when cruising gets hot. This is the time that gets my blood boiling. Hey , and if a nice buck should get to close, well I'll alter the plan by 690gr. It is also my hope to be successful with the recurve early, and bolster my confidence enough that I don't pick up the compound until The rut. I still need to check on how well my arrows perform out of my compound. All that being said, they logged my woods so It'll be a learning year as well.

 

[HuntNorthEast]

I guess because our season starts in mid Oct and I don't hunt food sources or pay attention until I'm looking for does in the early season. I know they'll transition feeds when the first few hard frosts knock back the succulents and herbaceous plants. I'd say that happens towards the end of Sept. but it's really availability (hard frosts) rather than a specific time, although this event is fairly consistent annually. I consider myself a pre-rut hunter, ( although who doesn't love the chaos of the rut). My hunting grounds are on the oak slopes surrounding my house. I don't see bachelor groups. The last time I saw two bucks at the same time was 20 years ago. I get blown way by the guys who are showing 5 and 6 bucks hanging out together on their trail cameras preseason. I also don't run cameras. I have cameras, but most years I don't put them out. Last year the most deer activity I saw was the last week in Oct. and the first two weeks of Nov. and I would consider that the end of the pre-rut to full rut. Scrapes show up any where from late Sept to early Oct. By the time our season starts all the white oaks have been vacuumed up and I'm left sitting on red oak flats and side hills of red oak if I'm hunting food sources. It's why I seek out and hunt thicker travel corridors between these areas. My current plan for the coming season is to observe the oak flats early season and move in tighter on deer activity as the doe feeding pattern becomes more evident. I have one doe tag which I hope to fill early season and two buck tags which I hope to fill later when cruising gets hot. This is the time that gets my blood boiling. Hey , and if a nice buck should get to close, well I'll alter the plan by 690gr. It is also my hope to be successful with the recurve early, and bolster my confidence enough that I don't pick up the compound until The rut. I still need to check on how well my arrows perform out of my compound. All that being said, they logged my woods so It'll be a learning year as well.

The woods I hunt got logged about 3 years ago and it amazes me how much it still holds deer in the very small, <1 acre patches of scrub oak and swamp they left untouched! I saw more bucks the year after logging blowing out of these small parcels across cuts than ever before!

 

[boyne bowhunter]

Here in the northern end of Michigan's lower peninsula our patterns/timing are very similar to yours. Our dominant buck ranges run about 1 to 2 square miles so a 1.8 mile trek for a breeding buck during rut wouldn't be really extraordinary.

The one thing I will add that I'm sure you see too is that once the snow sets in, say a foot or so deep for at least a week, the deer will start to move off of the summer/fall ranges to congregate into the winter deer yards, typically big cedar swamps. Exact timing varies every year because they'll try to stay in the mast crops as long as they're available. The interesting part of this is that they typically follow the same migration trails to the wintering areas every year. These trails look like maintained foot paths in some areas. Every year I run across guys set up on these "heavy trails" in October and they can never understand why they aren't seeing deer on them. Really the time to start hunting them is about a week into foot deep snow.

 

[HuntNorthEast]

Here in the northern end of Michigan's lower peninsula our patterns/timing are very similar to yours. Our dominant buck ranges run about 1 to 2 square miles so a 1.8 mile trek for a breeding buck during rut wouldn't be really extraordinary.

The one thing I will add that I'm sure you see too is that once the snow sets in, say a foot or so deep for at least a week, the deer will start to move off of the summer/fall ranges to congregate into the winter deer yards, typically big cedar swamps. Exact timing varies every year because they'll try to stay in the mast crops as long as they're available. The interesting part of this is that they typically follow the same migration trails to the wintering areas every year. These trails look like maintained foot paths in some areas. Every year I run across guys set up on these "heavy trails" in October and they can never understand why they aren't seeing deer on them. Really the time to start hunting them is about a week into foot deep snow.

EXACTLY!!! We had an early move last year here in Maine. Deer were starting to yard up as early as the end of November!

If you wanna kill em on migration trails, you gutta beat the migration! We even had plenty of mast still down, but it was too deep to work for so they made the moves to the cedars!

 

[boyne bowhunter]

Same thing here last year. Early snow, deer moved early because it's too hard to dig through that much snow to find food. I went to my normal hunting area during muzzleloader in early December and never cut a track on the drive in or the two miles I walked looking for a "hot" place to set up. They were already gone. Late season last year was spent bordering the cedar edges.

 

[Bowmanmike]

Here in upstate NY the patterns are very similar to yours. You come hunt here and you won't have to change a thing.

 

[HuntNorthEast]

Here in upstate NY the patterns are very similar to yours. You come hunt here and you won't have to change a thing.

I have friends that are native to NY and are usually pretty successful hunting ADK. Eventually I will wander that way!

 

[TNbowhunter]

Where I hunt in Middle Tennessee, I typically expect deer to move from their summer patterns of feeding in big ag fields during daylight to concentrating more on in-cover feeding and moving more at night in mid-to-late September. They’re typically consistent through most of October, and I do my best catching them close to bedding but moving toward food. Once November hits, the rut starts heating up, typically peaking in the Nov. 8-12 range. Buck movement dials way back right around Thanksgiving, and deer get real scarce until about Christmas. After Christmas, they seem to transition back to feeding in whatever food plots or under whatever oak trees have some dropped acorns left, and they get a bit more predictable until the season ends (around Jan. 7).

 

[Bowmanmike]

I have friends that are native to NY and are usually pretty successful hunting ADK. Eventually I will wander that way!

If your friends are successful in the ADK's they are doing well. I have been too scared to go up there to hunt. That is some serious big woods. I will go one of these years and canoe out into the boonies and spend a few nights. I seriously need to hone my backcountry and navigation skills though.

 

[HuntNorthEast]

If your friends are successful in the ADK's they are doing well. I have been too scared to go up there to hunt. That is some serious big woods. I will go one of these years and canoe out into the boonies and spend a few nights. I seriously need to hone my backcountry and navigation skills though.

They are woodsmen, we are all use to big woods around these parts!

 

[Bowmanmike]

They are woodsmen, we are all use to big woods around these parts!

Yeah,northwestern maine is definitely a big woods area. I am used to being in the woods here,but you would always hit a road within an hour or two if you manage to walk straight. In the big woods that would take a couple of days maybe...

 

[Kurt]

The woods I hunt got logged about 3 years ago and it amazes me how much it still holds deer in the very small, QUOTE]That's good to know. I'll start doing some evening sits shortly to watch the margins of the cut to see if I can't observe movements into and usage of the cut over. My thought was that deer would be pinched into other travel corridors around the edges.

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[Kurt]

If your friends are successful in the ADK's they are doing well. I have been too scared to go up there to hunt. That is some serious big woods. I will go one of these years and canoe out into the boonies and spend a few nights. I seriously need to hone my backcountry and navigation skills though.

I used to hunt up there in the areas around Indian Lake. Always waited for that north woods giant that never came. The only shoot able deer I saw up there all those years were two spikes. For me those weekends ended up being more about the camp life. I did my killing back at home with the bow.

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