The late season has become one of excitement and frustration. Our late season in Pennsylvania runs until the day after Christmas through mid-January and we can hunt deer using archery tackle or the famed flintlock. I don’t have experience with the flintlock (though it is something I’d like to try one day), so it’s time to take the crossbow back out. Conventional deer hunting wisdom says to park yourself next to a food source in the evenings and wait out the deer in the cold. Sometimes this can be much easier said than done, depending on the access of land you might have.
The late season, for me, has become a time for me to try out theories I have. The early archery and rifle seasons are about executing the basics really well; the late season is time to throw a little more caution to the wind. This is the time when I’ve tried some things that toed the line between aggressive and stupid, usually landing on the latter. Sometimes, however, it works out when I don’t expect it to, as in the case of my first archery stalk kill.
This year, I’m trying a few new things. When it comes to saddle hunting, one theory I’ve had borrows from a John Eberhart tactic (side note – if you want to take a deep dive into saddle hunting, John Eberhart has been doing it for decades. Read his books.) The tactic he uses is to pre-establish dozens of stands before the season to eliminate noise during the season. He does this with dozens of spots before the season.
The way I’m translating this to my situation is that I need to get extremely close to a deer bedding area near a cut cornfield. I’m talking about getting into a tree within 50-75 yards of bedded deer with 0 leaf cover and potentially crunchy conditions. I put up a set of climbing sticks and trimmed lanes a few weeks ago with the intention of being able to silently access this spot with the correct wind. I’ve hunted this setup once already this late season and while I did not tag a doe, I was able to successfully sneak in and see a few deer, they just did not happen to head my direction when they entered the field.
I realize this tactic is not exclusive to saddle hunting; people have used this tactic with ladder and lock on stands for a long time. The advantage to doing this with a saddle is price. Instead of needing numerous stands, my saddle is the only stand I need. All I need to do is hang sticks or even screw in steps in these locations and bring my saddle with me. I can take it so far as to ensure the sticks bring me up on the side opposite the bedded deer so the tree blocks my ascent.
The point here is this is something I may want to do on an ongoing basis but have not yet had the time to try out or perfect. The late season is a perfect time to try it out because what do I have to lose? Pretty soon, I’ll have 10 months worth of thinking and scouting. It may sound like a detriment but that’s the real advantage of the late season: the clock is running out, so you can try things that might sound crazy or just different. Get more aggressive. Even try hunting a new species or style of hunting; the late season often offers small game and bird hunting opportunities. At the end of the day, the late season is the time to push outside your comfort zone because that’s where growth occurs.