A Smart Start to Deer Season

A Smart Start to Deer Season

By Kent Boucher

As deer season quickly approaches, it catches most of us by surprise every year. We generally are busy with summer vacations, kids, families, weddings, and by the time youth season or opening day of Iowa’s archery season opens up, we are behind scrambling to get “ready enough” for the upcoming months. We can either fumble and be ill prepared for the remainder of our deer season, or we can use the early season to vault us into one of our best seasons we’ve ever had.

Know Why, Not Just What
A fundamental task for deer hunters to master is studying the habits of the animal in order to exploit any pattern that can be detected, and I think most hunters become very proficient with this skill. But I think many hunters focus exclusively on what the deer are doing, and not why they do what they do. October weather makes this such a unique month to hunt. Some days the air temps can be as low as the 30s and 40s, or as high as the 70s and 80s. In my opinion the weather conditions during early-mid October are more influential on deer behavior than any other time during the deer season. From a biological standpoint, deer begin filling out their winter coats by this time of year. My good friend, and expert deer hunter Noel Gandy once told me he believes that during October, deer spend much more daylight time bedding in the shade because of this very reason. Their winter coats insulate them well enough to keep them alive in subzero weather. Imagine wearing your subzero hunting gear when the air temp is 60, 70, or even 80 degrees. A hunter planning with some common sense will realize that the hottest days of October are most likely going to be very unproductive aside from the first and last few minutes of legal shooting light. If you have the flexibility to prioritize hunting only during the best conditions for deer movement, I suggest holding out for the days when the weatherman uses the magic words “cold front”.

October Mornings
A thoroughly exhausted debate among deer hunters is the value of hunting October mornings. The water gets even muddier when you toss around the idea of hunting October mornings at the very beginning of the month. When I consider this debate each season, I have found that assessing the future is the best way to decide on my immediate hunting plans. My assessment includes questions such as: What is my hunting time availability for this property later in the season? How will the cover on the property change between now and later in the season? What deer have I been seeing on the property most recently? Who else is planning to hunt this property later in the season? What’s going on at the neighbor’s farm? What’s the weather like?

The answers to these questions should then be factored in with the amount of hunting pressure each potential hunt would bring on the deer herd. These combined considerations will help you zero in on the correct answer for your hunting situation. For me, the only time I would hunt an early October morning would be if time was of the essence because of an extremely limited hunting schedule, having the ideal weather conditions, or deciphering a well-established pattern on a high caliber buck, and my hunting pressure would not negatively affect my future hunting opportunities that season. If my situation doesn’t’t line up with those requirements, then I will tap into some self-control and use my mornings for target practice, and hold out for a cool evening hunt instead.

A Changing Landscape
A common trait for a large portion of the Midwest is the lack of forested habitat. The reason of course lies in the natural history of these states where vast grasslands once covered much of the ground. Since settlement, these grasslands have been replaced with monocultures of row crops. With so much of this surface area being occupied with annual crops that will in large part be harvested by late October, the available deer habitat on the landscape is the most defining factor for early deer season.

When I first began hunting, I often wondered how many deer would seek cover in standing cornfields. As I continued to gain hunting experience, I began to realize that a majority of the deer on the farm I hunt spend their day bedding in standing corn. For many hunters this seems like an overwhelming inconvenience because of the limited range of sight, and the uniform blanket of drying corn that goes on for dozens of acres. Although these challenging factors are undeniable, deer can still be counted on to behave as creatures of the edge, and that is something I have often capitalized on while hunting October. I locate a tree that gives me a good vantage point of the well-traveled areas where CRP grass meets corn and I wait for the cool time of the evening when deer file out of the corn with clockwork regularity.

If You Really Must Go, Go Public
Sometimes the urge to hunt the very second the season opens is so strong for a hunter that it can’t be denied. Perhaps these hunters are in the woods for the purest motivations? Regardless, there is a way to hunt the opening day without negatively impacting the deer herd on your farm leading up to the best days of the season: hunt public land. Now you may be reading this and feel yourself welling up with anger at my assumption that all hunters have access to private hunting acres. Of course, I know this isn’t the case for many hunters. So instead of taking this advice to your favorite farm, you should use it on your favorite piece of public hunting ground. The simple equation for early October deer hunting is this: due to weather conditions, and the yearly patterns of deer behavior this time of year presents greater risks of negative hunting pressure impacts than opportunities for filling buck tags. Accepting and adjusting to this reality means that during this timeframe, if you must hunt, you would be wise to do so on public ground that already receives a lot of hunting pressure, or that isn’t going to be a priority location for you to hunt later in the season. The best part of having a one-and-done hunting destination like I am describing is the fact that you can hunt it very aggressively. Deer spend a lot of time in cool, shaded areas this time of year so get in there tight to where you think the deer would be avoiding the heat of the day, play the wind and hope to see one stand up in his bed, or simply walk away from the explosion if you blow up the area.

As the first signs of fall start to show with cooler mornings, high school football games, and the sound of cicadas and marching bands I begin to feel an increased sense of urgency, and excitement for October 1st to arrive on the calendar. But if I want to start my season on the right foot, I have to calm myself down and channel this enthusiasm into a well-planned approach to kickoff deer season, and you should too.