For the past year, I’ve been saving up several questions and their answers for this December issue of Iowa Sportsman. Iowa deer hunting in December brings with it two shotgun seasons, the reopening of the archery season, and the start of the late muzzy season. If you are a deer hunting fanatic, December in many ways can be the start of your deer season. Opportunities exist to take some giant whitetails during Iowa’s late season hunting. And let’s not forget the opportunities December brings in filling freezers and managing deer herds.
Q1. My wife and I hunt a small property. We plant a rather large food plot each year to winter rye and turnips that cosmetically looks great, but some years sees very little action during December’s shotgun and muzzleloader seasons. Why can this plot be good some years, and not very good in other years?
A1. Food plot attractiveness from year to year is a common question I get and something I have observed myself in the past. In fact, the same plot can draw huge deer numbers on one farm, and next to nothing on a farm just down the road. Food plot attractiveness comes down to really two different things. First, if hunting pressure is high attractiveness can plummet dramatically on a given food plot. It doesn’t matter much how good the plot is or what is planted in it if deer feel pressured and fear for their lives every time they enter it. Second, and what is sometimes harder to see, is that food plot attractiveness is completely dependent on what is available at the time. In some years, a nice plot of winter rye and turnips may very well be the best food source available to the local deer herd. But, take a colder year with maybe some snow and those lush green plots might not be the draw. The more common scenario though is likely that other food sources are available some years that make your green plot less attractive during the late season. I’d bet good money that on the years that your food plot doesn’t attract all that well that there is a standing corn or soybean field nearby. Deer will flock to standing grain crops during the late season—if available.
I see on-line that many deer managers and other hunters are promoting a green only approach to food plots. Their logic goes to ease of planting, lower costs, high forage tonnage, and lower risks of losing crops to over browsing. But what this strategy misses are what you can’t control; mainly what is available in your neighborhood. If all you have is a green plot going into late season, and your neighbors successfully plant corn and/or soybean plots, you will find that they will be attracting the lion share of the local deer herd. Unfortunately having only green food plots during the late season can and will be hit and miss.
Q2. If I wanted to take advantage of later rut activity, which season would be better to hunt, the first or second shotgun season?
A2. Peak breeding of adult does each and every year across the Midwest is centered around November 15th. Peak breeding by fawns is about three weeks later than adult does putting their peak breeding centered around December 7th, or so. In Iowa, as high as 70% of doe fawns will get pregnant their first year. What adult does don’t get bread their first cycle, will come into heat again about 4 weeks later—considering that most adult does are being bread (or have failed) during a period from early November through late November, it puts their second cycle spread across the month of December. OK, that’s the technical stuff. But what it tells me is that if you were looking to capitalize on late breeding early December would be the ticket. Early December has the highest concentration of female deer possibly coming into heat. This is just the math and science around late breeding in whitetails. But, in my experience, as December rolls around, bucks will gravitate more and more toward their need to feed. And, hunting pressure does have an impact on rutting activity in terms of how much chasing and cruising is displayed during daytime. Even if does are coming into heat, if they have been hunted hard during a shotgun season their daytime movements will be quite subdued. Given all this, if you are looking to take advantage of late breeding activity during an Iowa shotgun season…Season 1 might be your ticket.
Q3. I have had very inconsistent performance with my bullets during muzzleloader season. Do you have any suggestions for me?
A3. I find that ballistic tip type bullets need to be shot with 150 grains of powder and that shot placement needs to be in the shoulder somewhere. With a ballistic tip type bullet, a pure broadside shot in the lungs will leave one small entry and exit hole, will leave little to no blood, and the deer can go for quite a distance. Placement of the same bullet into some bone can bring the deer down instantly. Although accuracy with a ballistic tip type bullet is awesome, I find a good old-fashioned hollow point type bullet is great. Most of if not all my muzzleloading is done within 200 yards, so a hollow point for me is a great choice. An expanding hollow point shot into a broadside buck’s chest will do twice the damage and leave twice the blood trail as a ballistic tip. This is a simplification but it’s been my experience. I am by no means an authority on muzzleloading ballistics, bullets, powder, etc.
Q4. I want to plant corn and/or soybeans for late season hunting but most years the corn and beans never last until December. Many years, the plots are gone before the end of summer. The soybeans get browsed to the ground; the corn gets destroyed in the summer. What can I do to get a food plot into December?
A4. To start off with, see also answer to question 1. Getting food plots to last until late season hunting can be a challenge for many landowner/hunters. Available acreage that a hunter can put larger food plots in can be the biggest challenge. Corn plots especially can be very costly. So, I usually consult food plotters to do one of two things. First, if you are the only hunter in the area putting in food plots, you can get away with putting in green only food plots of winter rye and brassicas. This combo will make it well into the winter and will be the preferred food source for the local deer herd…but only if that’s all there is. This is successful in areas of cow high acres of cow pasture, CRP, row crops that will be harvested, etc. But if you have just one neighbor that is putting in soybeans and corn, and they aren’t over hunting their plot, there is a very good chance that they will be attracting and holding the deer on their property during the late season.
Option two is to put in more acres of corn or beans, or to electric fence off your grain plots until well into fall. By putting in more acres of soybeans or corn the browse pressure should decrease on your plot. Soybean and corn plots need to be bigger than transition plots. In most cases, at least an acre is needed if not 2 or 3 or even more. Grain plots by comparison are expensive. When considering all costs, (seed, fertilizer, equipment, herbicides) a soybean plot can cost $150/acre, while corn can reach $400/acre. Putting in more and more acres to the average hunter can be impossible just because of cost. But for some, it is a solution to over-browsed plots.
I’ve had great success over the years fencing off my plots with a double electric fence to preserve them until well into fall when grain plots can be their best. A one-acre corn plot for example, with the proper fertilizer can produce upwards and beyond 200 bushels of corn going into December. But this can only happen if deer pressure is near zero until then. From the time the plot is planted, I will keep them electric fenced off until I want them released. My electric fences have at least one outside and two inside wires with an electric fence controller that will knock you over if you forget its on. The idea, is to create a three-dimensional obstruction that deer won’t feel comfortable jumping over…so they instead try to crawl through and get shocked. The rows are spaced about two feet apart—give or take. The outside row is about 12-16 inches off the ground with the two inside rows about 12 and 30 inches—give or take. I use a high joule solar powered fencer that will jump a quarter inch gap with a very hot shock. A very hot or powerful fencer is key! The first year I used my electric fence, it was common for does and fawns to run through the fence and break it. I was using electric rope type fencing. Since then, I have been using heavier galvanized wire pulled tight and have way fewer problems. Also, I’ve been running these electric fences on my one farm for about 6 years now and it seems as though it took the local deer herd a few years to understand or get with the program. Now, it’s almost as though they have been trained to not use my electric fenced plot until I pull down the fence and let them in.
Electric fencing food plots is not cheap. And it takes a considerable amount of work. But now that they are in, I use them each year to great success. It is a one-time cost that with a little maintenance, keeps running every year.
2019 late season is sure to bring some great hunting in Iowa once again. It is never too early to start hunting this year, and to start planning for next!