The Early Muzzleloader Gets The Fresh Opportunity
By Kent Boucher
I plan to hunt the early muzzleloader deer season this fall for the same reason I hunted it for the first time- I have a brand new baby scheduled to arrive during the later firearm deer seasons that I would normally plan to hunt. After my first round of hunting this outlier season, my decision to hunt the early muzzleloader season, or “early muzzy” as many have nicknamed this season, has evolved from being based solely on necessity to also include preference. The reason for this change in mindset is because the early muzzleloader season provides some unique opportunities that none of the other firearm seasons do, and if you understand how the deer behave differently in mid autumn compared to the rut or the late season you will likely find enough reason to become a lifelong early muzzy convert.
The first advantage provided by the early muzzleloader season that other firearm seasons don’t offer is plenty of green food sources and bedding cover because the fall harvest is only partially completed, and there have been just a few photosynthesis disrupting frosts by this point in October. This results in nearly every farm with at least some bedding cover and a water resource housing deer. In contrast, during the winter firearm seasons deer will limit their real estate preferences to the farms that offer premium thermal bedding cover and an abundance of late season groceries.
Since there is still plenty of standing corn during the early muzzy season, many deer spend their days bedding in fields. I have found that deer maintain a heavy preference for using edge habitat within corn fields such as grassy terraces and the most secluded portions of unmowed waterways. Stands of timber also hold more deer during this part of the season with the greater number of forbs offering both food and cover. Possessing this knowledge can help you narrow down where to strap your tree stand.
As deer transition to their heavy winter coats they become more intolerant of the heat. This knowledge, along with understanding where deer are bedding and feeding at this time of year can simplify locating deer compared to the cold month firearm seasons. My experience hunting the early muzzy season has consistently shown that days with significant cold fronts that roll in brisk temperatures (not just a front with a big drop from 70 degree weather to 60 degree weather) such as low 50s and below, deer activity peaks. If you can break loose to hunt on these days, I strongly suggest you do.
Winning the weather lottery during an Iowa October is unreliable, and often a stable air mass will settle with a week straight of temperatures that don’t dip below the 60s. As a result, deer movement is often much more limited during hunting hours. This is when you have to make some cost analysis decisions for the remainder of your deer season. If this is the only deer hunting you will be doing this year, then you need to try to be out in the field as much as possible. You never know when a neighbor will send a cluster of deer skittering out of their beds toward your stand while he harvests his side of the fence. Beyond these lucky opportunities though, most deer movement will be limited to the coolest times within the legal shooting hours. So if you have plenty of archery hunting left after early muzzy season, limit your impact by only hunting early mornings and late afternoons on days with less than ideal weather conditions. Expect the bulk of deer activity to occur shortly after first light in the morning, or even more likely, just minutes before last light. During these hours, Deer will seemingly appear out of nowhere as they walk out of the corn into creek-cooled draws to munch on grass, or nibble on some soy beans as they begin transitioning away from their grass and browse based summer diets. Holding tight in your stand until the last minute will be critically important, and since you will be hunting in low light I strongly recommend that you equip your muzzleloader with a scope that has a large bell (50mm is good) that can gather as much of the low lighting as possible, or with some fiber optic, iron sights. A scope with a narrow bell will ruin your opportunity to take an ethical shot in these low light environments when the deer are able to be harvested, so if you aren’t able to lay down the coin for an adequate scope, go with the iron sights.
When something screws up a well planned deer season it’s usually the result of unwise behavior from us hunters. Terribly intrusive entrance and exit access routes to a tree stand, overchecking trail cameras, poor stand placement and poor scent management are just some of the most offensive habits that can destroy our chances at wrapping a tag around an antler, and all of these bad habits fall under the category of pressure. Obviously we can control our own actions to help mitigate the abundance of pressure on our favorite hunting areas, but we can’t do much beyond begging and pleading with the other hunters we share with to practice the same diligence. This is where the greatest advantage from purchasing an early muzzy tag begins to pay off: you get to hunt before much of the season’s hunting pressure has affected deer behavior.
The best way to capitalize on these lower levels of hunting pressure is to maintain the minimal pressure once you are in the field with your muzzleloader. Just as an early season bowhunter has to map out the least invasive travel routes for hiking into a tree stand, you will need to do the same. Look for stand access routes that deer very rarely use, and that are well hidden from easy detection. I recommend using fence lines between standing ag fields (corn is best), far from bedding areas and popular food sources that may hold loafing deer that could be accidentally spooked during your hike in.
Once in the stand be sure to monitor the wind so that your scent stream is not traveling into bedding and feeding areas or busy travel routes. This kind of pressure will raise the alertness of the deer in this area of your farm for the remainder of the early muzzy season, and most likely the remainder of archery season as well. One final tip for lowering your scent impact on the property for present and future success is to try to limit all of your hunts to where the deer will most likely be when you are hunting them. This seems obvious enough, but one challenge to hunting ground with so many standing crops is being able to narrow down where the deer will show up. I have found many times that October deer will seek out the cool draws that I mentioned earlier, but will choose to venture further from standing corn in the evening as the secure cover of darkness cloaks their movement. In the morning hours though I have observed that deer prefer moving in tight proximity to corn for an instant escape route now that they have greater vulnerability as sunlight begins to make their movements easier to detect. Based on this observation I choose to set up accordingly to not only see more shootable deer, but to make my scent impact count, and not be wasted on a low odds stand location.
Whether you share my circumstances with more important obligations altering your deer hunting agenda, or the mild weather of October is more enticing than a frozen December tree stand, the fact remains that this unique season provides an excellent opportunity to roll a cloud of smoke and tag a beautiful Iowa giant.