Va late season blues

[Honyock]

As already mentioned numerous times, find what they are eating. IMHO, late season bucks are easier to hunt since all they are concentrated on is eating trying to put the weight on before winter. Find the food and hunt.

 

[K9kodi]

It’s finding the food they are eating during shooting hours hahaah. I know they find their way to the pastures late. Ima hunt the hardwoods near the thick pine growth and cutovers

 

[LostFarmer10009]

I’m in Fauquier and agree on everything said so far. We have some good cold coming in the next few days and my experience is that really starts to get them moving as they’re burning many more calories and have to find the food. Snow on Friday and cold on Saturday morning should make for a great day.

 

[Swamp Fox]

Isn’t FarmVille west of Richmond?

Anyway, late season is tough. You need extreme cold to get bucks on their feet during shooting light in my experience. I’m ready for spring gobblers and drawing western tags. Going striper fishing tomorrow. Punched a couple buck tags in November, and have a handful of does in the freezer. Deer season is effectively over for all intents and purposes if you’re not making man drives or using dogs in our part of the world.


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[K9kodi]

I’ve been hunting on my own since 16, when I had a license.
I’m 41.5 years of age. I’ve always heard of late season or second rut.

I’ve been out here 2-3x a month for a few days each rep.

I’ve seen new rubs/scrapes and this evening I saw a nice buck and doe together and he was hot on her ass, hard on her for sure.

 

[Undrcoverrednek]

A lot of great info shared in this thread! I thought this would be another post lamenting the use deer dogs. Pretty interesting given the low/no pressure property being difficult to hunt late season.

I’ve never been able to get a nice buck in late season VA. I always attributed it to all the people and dogs in the woods keeping deer in one small spot (that I couldn’t find) until after dark. Figured I might as well join the hound hunters after gun season starts. While that it hasn’t worked out late season for me yet, a few guys get lucky every now and then and it’s fun to add a social aspect with organized hunts. Muzzleloader season during the rut is by far my favorite for deer, though.

Good luck and post up if you get something figured out for our area!

 

[K9kodi]

I went up w a work buddy for a Thurs Fri sat hunt. My gf and her brother in law showed up for sat hunt. My buddy passed on a small buck and a doe the first morning. Friday evening I put out a ground blind and shot a doe, Friday evening my buddy missed a doe (I think the gun was way off bc it’s a tactical wanna be rifle with a complicated scope)

Sat morning my gf shot a doe and a coyote, my buddies rifle did not go off on a doe. Primer was struck but no boom was made.

Sat evening was windy as hell as well. I had a large deer slip by in the ravine to my right coming back to front and then my gf missed a nice 8 we’ve had in camera. It was a hard shot for her at 150 yards.

 

[Macintosh]

Sounds like you found the deer.