I was mesmerized listening to the experienced hunters and guides talk. Still in my late 20s, I had figured out enough to be dangerous but had no clue how much I didn’t know. This expertise-laden group was schooling me and didn’t realize it.

The discussion centered on when a big buck would likely “come home” to a property. But what captivated me were the details painting a clear picture that the buck shifted loosely with the seasons. Any day, the experts agreed, he should return home and stay there for at least a couple of months before eventually shifting to his winter range.

That was the first time I remember learning about bucks shifting with the seasons, but it wasn’t the last. Through the years, I’ve been involved in many discussions and witnessed many more events regarding seasonal shifts. Heck, the larger properties I’ve managed have been huge eye-openers in that regard, as I’ve seen the entire picture.

Here’s what I’ve learned through the years about seasonal shifts in the deer world and how we can use them to our advantage.

The Foundation

To grasp why deer shift, you must understand what motivates them. Most deer share the same major needs: food, water, comfort, a feeling of safety and breeding opportunities. When properties provide all those considerations in better quality than deer can find at surrounding areas, deer will spend a disproportionate amount of time on that ground. Sure, social stress and other factors play roles, but it’s really generally that simple.

But there’s more to factor in. The habitat and a deer’s physiology change through the year. High-protein diets are helpful for does and bucks in spring and summer. For does, it’s critical in milk production. For bucks, protein helps build inches of bone.

In the Midwest and points north, bucks use early fall to fatten up for the rut, and does and fawns prepare for winter survival. Packing on weight becomes more important, meaning deer more often seek foods high in fats and carbs.

During much of summer and early fall, bucks and does have reasons to remain separate, but that changes with the breeding phase and during winter — at least in areas receiving true winters.

Even desired cover types change. During fawning, does crave thick, protective cover to hide fawns. During that time, the sensitive velvet covering the racks of bucks provides obvious motivations for them to avoid thick cover. Now, drop the leafy growth and add some hunting pressure, and that thick cover becomes highly attractive to bucks.

The deer world features all sorts of needs. It’s easy to understand some, but you must add other factors, many seasonally based. Finally, when you add it all together, you can start to understand why deer shift. Simply, deer shift to best address their wants and needs during specific periods. That sounds obvious — and it is when you really think about it. In fact, the more you do, the clearer it becomes.

Common Examples

With that in mind, you can start to sleuth out why deer shift. Let’s start with a winter shift. The most pronounced shifts occur in areas where deer migrate to traditional overwinter yarding areas. We will discuss those more later, but it merely involves deer migrating to areas that offer superior thermal cover.

In much of the rest of the Midwest and points north, another more minor migration occurs. Often, deer migrate some distance to a superior food source.

Remember, winter marks the seasonal low point in food for deer in areas experiencing true winters. Meanwhile, mature bucks have lost about 25% to 30% of their body weight, and most deer experience negative energy balances until spring green-up. Having just lost a bunch of weight and looking at more than a couple of months of burning more calories than they can digest, you see why limited remaining high-quality nutrition can be an extremely powerful attraction. Heck, if deer don’t shift to the best food in the area, they might die.

How about the rut? Deer generally don’t undertake complete area shifts, but they change where they spend time. When chasing begins in earnest, many does that were already bred or aren’t ready try to avoid getting harassed. So they lay low far more than usual and seek thicker cover in which to hide.

Bucks also alter the areas at which they spend time, as areas with doe concentrations change from spots to be avoided to the places to be. And a wild hair or, most often, a series of pretty smelling does can drag a rutting buck well outside his normal home range.

Putting it Together

Many reasons prompt deer to shift areas. But those almost always occur because deer are addressing their primary needs of food, water, comfort, a feeling of safety and breeding opportunities. It’s challenging to start by blindly speculating exactly where deer will shift. The world is a big place, and we must fine-tune the search.

That’s considerably easier working in reverse. Instead of starting by asking where deer went, I find more success asking what deer want most at that time. With that answered, my logical follow-up examines the closest locations that can satisfy that need.

In bad weather or as weather turns bad, where can deer get shelter from the conditions? The same question applies to hunting or predator pressures.

As food supplies and dietary needs change, where are the best remaining foods that meet those needs? In spring, the first areas to green up are often where you find concentrations of deer. During summer, deer prefer areas with fawning cover and, for bucks, relatively open spots. During the warm stretch in December, where’s the alfalfa, clover and cereal rye? During a brutally cold stretch, where are the grains, brassicas or acorns? During droughts and overly hot temps, where’s the water?

It’s hard to blindly predict where deer will shift and when, but it’s much easier to determine why and what caused it. It almost always comes down to deer addressing their primary needs.

If you’ve hunted areas for a year or more, you should begin to see history repeat itself. One property I manage has a southern-exposure alfalfa field. When alfalfa growth kick-starts there in early spring, I check the area for late-dropped sheds. That occurs for a couple of weeks every spring. I also know deer will be hammering — and dropping sheds — where I’ve left grains and planted Antler King Fall-Winter-Spring and Honey Hole.

In late summer and early fall, many bucks will spend summer in a specific area because of the more open woods, water, prime summer foods and native grasses, which combine to protect their velvet, offer ample nutrition, provide a good source of water, and offer shade and breeze to reduce insects. As the testosterone of bucks increases, they shed their velvet and the rut approaches, they’ll disband and relocate to fall ranges within a few miles of where they spent summer, with a couple of bucks sticking there year-round.

With that info, I know I’ll have a hot start to the season near their summer range, and I’d actually be wasting time hunting areas they’ve yet to shift to. However, come mid-October, I can be set up and waiting for their return.

Then, as the rut starts to wind down, I know the areas bucks shift to for wintering and the few remaining food sources they’ll be packed into. In fact, I have stands prepped for each of those shifts well before they occur.

Conclusion

Deer are not programmed to shift with the seasons. They’re programmed to address their primary needs. Sure, it complicates matters that the habitat changes dynamically through the year, along with the rut cycle and other physiological changes that occur each year. Still, it mostly comes down to addressing those needs.

For managers who want to stop deer from shifting off their grounds, diversity is critical. Give deer everything they need in better quality than they can get elsewhere, and they’ll spend a disproportionate amount of time on that ground and have drastically reduced incentives to shift off it. Another option is merely to focus on addressing their needs during fall and not caring about the rest of the year.

For hunting, we can become Nostradamus. When you know what deer need, combined with some woodsmanship and being a student of history, you’ll see clearly into the future and be positioned and ready as shifts occur.

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