Beating The Mid-October Hunting Lull

Beating The Mid-October Hunting Lull

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Beating The Mid-October Hunting Lull

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A substantial temperature drop during the October lull can yield big results. Hunter shown wearing Lost Camo.

The October lull. Every year it plagues whitetail bowhunters across North America. It’s frustrating. It’s boring. It’s the hunters’ equivalent of a batting slump.

The October lull is a period typically near the middle of the month, not long after bow season opens, when the deer in your hunting area – particularly mature bucks – seem to vanish into thin air. It’s when the hottest deer trails and food plots on the property suddenly turn cold as ice. Sure-fire, can’t-miss, guaranteed-to-produce-a-deer stands become as unproductive as a dry oil well. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear aliens came down and snatched up all the deer you scouted for months and months leading up to opening day.

But you do know better. You know that, unless other bowhunters shot them – and it’s highly improbable all of your deer got shot the deer you watched during the summer are still out there. Once you realize your thoughts about alien abductions are ludicrous, and you convince yourself your dream buck is still prowling the same patch of timber he was using over the preceding months, you’re on the road to beating the October lull.

To get the right mindset for this challenging time of the season, you need to understand what’s going on in a whitetail’s world. To start, many states begin their archery deer seasons in late September or early October. By the middle of October, the deer are on to us. They know we’ve invaded their territory and they change their patterns, with their chief preference being to sit tight during daylight and move at night.

Add to this heightened state of awareness the fact that deer are naturally dispersing this time of year. The big herds of summer’s days of leisure are breaking up as the rut draw closer. Those five mature bucks you saw coming out to the soybean field every night in late August are not likely to be hanging out with each other in mid October. They’ve separated to claim their own piece of the woods for breeding time.

Not coincidentally, mid October is when you’ll notice new deer scrapes and buck rubs being made almost on a daily basis. These are the signposts of bucks marking their territory – and they’re also really good clues to let you know that, even though you’re not seeing them like you did a month ago, there are, in fact, still bucks running around your hunting neighborhood.

Still another factor working against you is the weather. By mid October, deer either have completely traded their thin, red summer coats for their brown, insulating winter hair, or they’re nearly finished with the swap. Despite that, the middle of October can be pretty warm. And when it’s warm and the deer are dressed for winter, they tend to sit during the heat of the day and go about their business at night. As you’ve probably guessed, the nocturnal curse is a driving force behind the October lull.

So we know what’s happening in mid October. But what can we do about it to fill our tags now? We could just throw in the towel and sit at home waiting for the deer rut. But what fun is that? It’s bow season, and you’re definitely not going to shoot anything other than the breeze if you’re sitting on the couch.

Weather Watch

The October lull can be a lonely time in the woods, but there are times when the action is awesome. Hunter shown wearing Mathews Lost Camo.

A bowhunter’s best friend during the October lull is the weatherman. There are certain weather events that can provide brief windows of increased deer activity during this time of the season. It might only last a day. It might only last half a day. You have to be ready to pounce when the opportunity arises, so check your local forecast several times a day.

Perhaps the best assistance from the weather a mid October bowhunter can hope for is a sudden drop in temperature. And I’m not talking about a degree or two here. We need a drop of at least 10 degrees.

Of course, the higher the starting temperature, the more the mercury needs to sink to shake the deer out of their beds during daylight. If it’s 95 degrees on Monday and the forecast calls for a high of 85 on Tuesday, you’re not likely to see a marked increase in activity. But if it’s 55 degrees on Monday and a high of 45 is expected Tuesday, I’m calling in sick.

Besides the temperature, you should also pay attention to barometric pressure. Look for those periods when the barometer is either rising or falling. Both tend to compel deer to get out and feed. A rising barometer is indicative of improving weather, often accompanied by cooler air. A falling barometer usually means a storm is on the way.

A deer hunter shot a Pope & Young nine-pointer in October one year at around 1:30 p.m., thanks to the barometer. A storm was on its way fast and the barometer was dropping like a stone around lunchtime, while he was sitting at home. He decided to run out to a tree stand he had positioned over an alfalfa field, and deer starting pouring into the field before I even hauled up my bow. Ten deer were feeding in front of him and dark clouds were rolling across the sky when the 135-inch buck walked out of the woods to the field on the trail directly beneath his tree stand. It was one of the easiest shots he had ever been offered.

Speaking of stormy weather, if you can catch a forecast that calls for a nice soft rain, mist or drizzle around dawn or dusk in mid October, that’s another jackpot. When the rising or setting of the sun is muted by rainy weather, you just might catch a nocturnal buck moving a little later in the morning or earlier in the evening than he normally would this time of the season.

Into the Corn

There’s a farm some buddies and a deer hunter have been hunting for roughly two decades, where the farmer rotates crops of soybeans and corn in his series of established fields. Every year, the same thing happens. They get about a week of good bowhunting in early October, during which time they have a good chance at taking some decent bucks, and then those good deer disappear.

Well, they don’t actually disappear. They head into the fields of standing corn. They don’t venture out until nightfall. And they don’t move out until the corn gets cut or the rut kicks in – whichever comes first. In any event, times are tough in their tree stands in the woods when the deer are in the corn.

So you know what they started doing? They took the hunt to the deer. They started sneaking through the standing corn, row by row, in hopes of getting a crack at a buck. They wish that they could say that they've piled up the trophy bucks with this tactic, but they can’t. They have, however, come close on many occasions. And this is at a time of year when they otherwise see nothing when they stick to the trees.