We received a question a few days go on our Facebook page referring to hunting the October lull:

Dan SprengelerWrote:What happens to the bucks/deer in general during this lull? I have hardly seen any deer moving this past week and was in Nebraska hunting this weekend and it was the slowest I’ve ever seen. My thought was they may have moved to acorns, but I tried that and still didn’t see anything – cameras are a bust. What are your thoughts?

Dan,
The short answer to the “October lull” is that, yes, it exists. A lot of people attribute it to hunting pressure, but in my opinion, it is much more than that. As row-crops like corn and beans are harvested, the terrain and available food sources change dramatically. Mature bucks tend to lay low and preserve energy at this time and do not travel far from bedding areas which equates to less sighting from the stand and on trail cameras. Bucks are pretty much in preservation mode preparing for the pandemonium that will break open a couple weeks. Unless there is a significant cold front, I usually sit on the bench for the majority of this phase of the season because most of the movement is quite concentrated and at night.

The lull is a great time to tighten up loose ends around the house and get your gear ready. Unless you have a target buck that is slipping up during daylight hours, you can do more harm than good by hunting during mid-October. The more you educate the heard, the lower your odds are at killing a good buck when the pre-rut fires up around October 24th.

There are a lot of theories that vary on the lull, none of them are necessarily wrong. I am not saying that you cannot go out and kill a mature buck because you most certainly can; it is just more difficult at this time unless you have a dynamic understanding of the herd transition and feeding patterns. The key to the lull can often be a mast acorn drop; however finding an oak or group of oaks that yields the most acorns can be challenging as not just any tree will do. On an average day, a whitetail consumes 3 to 5 pounds of forage which equates to one heck of a lot of acorns. When you do find the right tree, the second factor is determining how to hunt it. More often than not, deer will bed very close to the tree/trees that are dropping the most acorns, many times within ear-shot distance. The close proximity bedding makes these locations very difficult to hunt for two reasons, getting in, and getting out undetected.

An oak producing a heavy crop of acorns can draw deer off of clover fields and back into the timber seemingly turning them into ghosts. As hunters, if we cannot see them, we assume they are gone. However, that is typically not the case; the deer are there, they are just more concentrated and are gorging themselves on carbs (acorns) to fatten up before winter closes in.

If you have any soft mass such as apples, plum, crab-apples, or pear trees, they can be a big draw at this time as well. Apple, plum, and pear trees need full sunlight to grow which is a benefit to the hunter. Most of the time, soft mass trees are out in the open meaning that you can access and hunt them without marching through the timber. Deer will seek out and travel to soft mass trees, the trails to and from will be distinct. Setting up on the wood-line near a trail that leads out to a fruit tree allows you an easy access route and high visibility.

Unless you have solid proof that he is moving during shooting hours, opting to wait until the pre-rut fires up may be a better choice. Each scenario is different, but a lot of experienced hunters believe that a minimalist approach to hunting trophy bucks during mid-October is best. Many mature whitetails have a relatively small window when they are killable and educating them too early can put a permanent hex on the remainder of your season. Hunting the “lull” has only paid off for me one time, being the fall of 2014. I had a camera set in a stand of white oaks, admittedly unintentionally, that was picking up a significant amount of afternoon activity. In mid-October, I made my move and scored on a solid 150 class buck the first time I hunted the stand. Much like an estrous doe in early November, a red-hot oak tree with a large crown was my ticket to success that fall; he just couldn’t resist the urge for an easy meal. The fall of 2013 was the exception for me. Without the aid of a luckily placed trail-cam, I probably would not have been out that day.

(2013 lull buck. A red-hot White Oak was the key to this kill. (Before THLETE came to be, ASAT was my go to, it’s a very good break-up camo pattern)