Understanding the Whitetail Lockdown Period: Brutes and Receptive Does

I was going through the gate when I saw Doc, the landowner, coming toward me on his side-by-side. He was wearing an insulated flannel shirt and the faded orange cap that he always dons during hunting season. Doc had made his rounds that morning, feeding cows and checking fences, and I could tell by the way he was motioning at me that he’d probably seen some deer along the way.

It was November 17, muzzleloader season in Tennessee, clear and cold with a blistering north wind. I was late getting to the farm, but planned to hunt the rest of the day. “My friend, I wish you’d have been with me this morning,” Doc said, meeting me at the gate. “I saw a bruiser of a buck.” Doc doesn’t hunt much himself, but he does know a big deer when he sees one. It was encouraging, but it was 8:30, and I knew Doc started his rounds at daylight. The buck was probably long gone.

“He was walking across the pasture pretty as you please with a doe,” Doc said. “I don’t know how many points he had, but he was big. They went in that little woodlot down there.” He motioned to an island of trees across the pasture that was no more than 5 acres, surrounded by field on all sides. We’d run beagles there while rabbit hunting, and so I knew the woodlot was full of blackberry briars and washed by a deep ravine in the middle. If ever there was a place for a big buck to lock down with a doe, that was it. “How long ago has that been, Doc?” I asked. “Shoot, not 10 or 15 minutes,” he said.

Worth a look, for sure. I loaded my muzzleloader, stuck an extra charge and bullet in my pocket, and eased into the trees on the south side of the wood lot with the wind in my face.

WOOD LOTS AND LOVE

The “lockdown” phase of mid-November can be tough. It happens when most does in an area are receptive, and so bucks no longer have to search the countryside looking for them. During that time, breeding pairs of bucks and does isolate themselves in cover for 24 to 48 hours until the doe’s estrous cycle ends and breeding is complete. Overall deer activity can seem to slow to a crawl, especially compared to the frenzied seeking and chasing of early November.

But there are silver linings to the lockdown. A receptive doe is one of the few things that will get a truly mature buck on his feet during shooting light. In much of the country, gun seasons of some sort are open. Finally, the cover where breeding pairs hole up is somewhat predictable.

Not that breeding cover is as easy to identify as, say, a flickering neon vacancy sign outside of a by-the-hour motel. But the cover is often small, thick, isolated and adjacent to open country where the lovers can see other deer approaching. Little woodlots full of briars and surrounded by open fields are perfect, but I’ve seen pairs lockdown on thick creek banks, around dozer piles and in overgrown fencerows. These aren’t places that you can really identify in the preseason, hang a stand and then hunt on hope with any regular success. But when the circumstances are right, you can sure sneak into them on foot with a rifle in hand and have a better-than-good chance at killing the deer of a lifetime.

That morning in Tennessee, the circumstances were right.

IT’S GOOD TO BE LUCKY

I stepped into the woodlot, leaned against a tree and watched. “This won’t work,” I thought to myself. As I did, I saw the twitch of a white tail, and a large doe fed casually into sight 75 yards ahead. I raised my binoculars and could see that she was content, nibbling browse and acorns. And behind her, through the briars, I could see the white throat patch, black eyes and antlers of a giant buck, staring straight at me.

I pressed the muzzleloader’s forend against the tree and cocked the hammer, but the buck’s body was completely obscured by thicket. He’d seen me for sure, and under normal circumstances I’d have never known he was there. But the doe was oblivious, and he wasn’t leaving her side. I watched her feed for a few seconds, and then she stepped down into the ravine and out of sight. The buck seemed to vanish.

I lowered the hammer and thought of leaving, but instead I stepped back out to the field edge. I knew the deer were down in the ravine and out of sight, and so I thought maybe I could hustle ahead of them. It’d take real luck to see them again and get a shot before they caught my wind, but I knew I wouldn’t kill that deer by moping off to sit in a stand, either. I crouched low, hustled ahead and nearly propelled myself into a somersault when I spotted the doe feeding in the field, broadside, just 150 yards away. I pulled myself against a tree just as the buck walked into the field behind her.

I cocked the muzzleloader and missed him clean.

Second Chances

The pasture was large, and instead of bolting back into the wood lot, the doe trotted farther into the open, checking behind her for the buck that was now hesitant to cross the field. I had one more shot left in my pocket. I laid on my side to work the ramrod while also staying out of sight. The buck was walking when I again closed the breech, settled the gun against the tree and cocked the hammer. “He’s 200 yards now,” I thought to myself. “This is my last chance.” I held high on his shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

When the smoke cleared, I could see his white belly laying still in the brilliant November sunshine. The buck was heavy and old, with a broken G2 and drop tine; a deer I’d never seen on a trail camera, despite having one over an active scrape not 100 yards away.

But Doc saw that buck, headed for that little woodlot with a doe, and he told me about it just in time. Now, I had some skinning to do, good luck to celebrate and a hell of a deer story to share.

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