The Charles Alsheimer Whitetails 365 blog is a look into the deer world that you’ll only get here at Deer & Deer Hunting. Learn what deer are doing in the real world, and see how they are changing with the seasons. The behavior insights alone will make you a better educated hunter, which will help you predict how deer will travel, bed and feed during the hunting season.
The Charles Alsheimer Whitetails 365 blog is a look into the deer world that you’ll only get here at Deer & Deer Hunting. Learn what deer are doing in the real world, and see how they are changing with the seasons. The behavior insights alone will make you a better educated hunter, which will help you predict how deer will travel, bed and feed during the hunting season.
If you can only plant food plots of an acre or less, put half in clover for warm-season feed and half into a cereal grain such as oats or winter wheat, or a tuber, such as radishes or turnips. If your soil has a pH of 6 or higher, clover offerings will thrive, providing you […]
Winter takes a heavy toll on the white-tailed deer, especially in the snow belts of North America. North of the 38th latitude (Virginia north), food can be tough to come by, especially if food plots and agriculture crops are not available. In such settings, whitetails must rely heavily on natural foods. In my area […]
I was recently sent an email that described some of the deer behavior the writer was seeing now that his northern deer season is over. In it he was wondering why he was now seeing a number of fresh rubs in his hunting area. For starters whitetail rutting behavior does not end when peak breeding […]
By early January northern whitetails have two things on their mind, eating and surviving. In order to maintain core body temperature they must find adequate food. It is not uncommon for bucks to lose over 20% of their pre-rut body weight from the stresses of the rut. Therefore it is critical for them to find […]
A mature whitetail buck’s drive for dominance never ends. There is no question that a buck’s aggressiveness peaks in November in the North. However, when the rut ends fighting does not. It has been my experience that during December and early January just as many injuries and broken antlers occur as in November. A case […]
By the end of December northern bucks have pretty much lost interest in does, so their desire to breed is a thing of the past. One rutting behavior that is tough for bucks to turn off is rubbing. In spite of decreased testosterone levels bucks will make rubs until they cast their antlers. However, the […]
By mid-December the landowner who has the food has the deer. With November’s rut history bucks have had enough time to recover from the rigors of the rut. It’s now time for them to replace fat reserves lost in the rut. In heavily forested regions of the country, browse from maple, oak, ash, basswood and […]
In fine-tuned deer herds, the majority of breeding will be over by the time December’s recovery period is in full swing. However, on good whitetail range where the herd is healthy and the fawns of the season are large enough, some December breeding will occur. In my area of western New York, many doe fawns […]
For all practical purposes the rut is over in the North. For the better part of the last 40 days, bucks have been on the march searching for does to breed. During that time they’ve devoted little attention to eating, causing them to lose up to 25 percent of their pre-rut body weight. Though breeding activity […]
When hunters think of vicious buck fights they envision encounters that occur in the late pre-rut or when the rut goes hot-to-trot. Though some of the most incredible fights occur during this time, fighting doesn’t end when the rut ends. Some of the most impressive fights I’ve witnessed in my career took place when the rut was over. […]