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How to Bump Deer From Your Food Plot After Dark

By Ralph ScherderOctober 21, 2022

About ten minutes before the end of legal shooting time, one of my target bucks strolled out of the woods and into the food plot. He made his appearance just as I was preparing to leave the stand. I was trying to come up with the best way to bump the group of does feeding in the field so that I could make a quick exit as soon as time was up. The arrival of this buck, slightly out of range, complicated things. 

I could accept that he wasn’t going to wander within range with enough light to shoot, but I didn’t want to spook him while getting out of my stand, either. Part of me worried that he wouldn’t come back if I did. So I waited. And waited. 

It was a full moon and I could see the silhouettes of deer feeding in the food plot in front of me. Finally, when they wandered far enough away, I slipped out of my stand and boogied down the tree line to the forest road. The food plot had been planted by the DCNR on public land, five miles back a gated forest road, and it was a long ride out on my mountain bike. Later on, back at camp that night, I knew I had to figure out a better way to exit my stand without spooking deer.   

How To Get Deer To Leave Your Food Plot After Hours
Shooting light has expired. How will you bump the buck away from your stand without alerting them to your human presence?

The Buddy Trick

Hunting food plots, or any food source, can be tricky. These can be great evening stands, but what do you do when it’s time to leave and you’re covered in deer? We spend so much of our time trying NOT to spook deer, but in situations like this, we sometimes have no choice. 

Occasionally, you can wait them out like I did that night, but that’s not always practical. I’ve experienced evenings when deer simply refused to wander off and seemed content to feed around me all night long. 

If you can ask a buddy or friendly neighbor to drive across the field at a pre-arranged time, you can get deer to leave long enough for you to get out of your stand. Outfitters I’ve hunted with in the Midwest practice this quite a bit, and it can be done multiple nights in a row without deer getting wise to the trick…or the truck. Each time, deer were right back out in the food plots within minutes of us leaving, and the following evening’s hunt was unaffected.

Your buddy may not even have to drive all the way into the field. Just parking along the edge, opening and closing the truck door and making other noise can be enough to drive deer off while you slip out. One guide I had in Missouri liked to pull up and blast the radio. Even though the truck was on the road 250-300 yards away, deer didn’t stick around long once that heavy bass started thumping.

How To Get Deer To Leave Your Food Plot After Hours
Have a buddy drop you off and pick you up for a less threatening impact on your deer herd.

Tricks for Solo Hunters

But what if you’re a solo hunter? Or what if you hunt far from any road? 

First off, never let deer see you climb out of your stand. In my experience, that’s the kiss of death for a stand. Next time deer come out into the field, their focus will be on your location first and foremost, and their body language will warn every other deer in the vicinity that something might be amiss. 

Before doing anything, wait an adequate amount of time for darkness to settle in. If you start rattling things around or spooking deer the minute legal shooting time ends, don’t be surprised if deer start showing up in the field later each evening, and eventually not showing up at all until after dark. Just an extra 10-15 minutes of waiting for darkness to really settle in can make a huge difference.

Deer after dark seem to become completely different animals. They lose a lot of the caution they typically exhibit during daylight hours.  Many times, when predator hunting, I’ve walked right up on mature bucks in fields, sometimes within just a few yards of them, and they simply stared at me as I walked by. 

I’ve had the same thing happen while getting out of stands, too. Even if I know deer are present, if I wait until absolute darkness, I can slip out without them getting too riled up. Most of the time they’ll just bound off 50-60 yards and then stop to make sure I’m leaving.

The real “trick” to pulling this off is to have a good, quiet exit strategy. We take extreme care when planning routes to access stands without spooking deer, but we often overlook how to exit those stands just as stealthily. When the hunt’s over, all we can think about is getting back to the truck, back to camp, or back home to a nice hot meal.

How To Get Deer To Leave Your Food Plot After Hours
We place a lot of importance on the way we access our stand, but we need to consider how we can leave our stand and slip out of the woods without spooking deer at the end of the hunt as well.

Once I have a stand in place, I’ll sweep all leaves and debris from around the base of the ladder or steps. I’ll even clear a path 10-20 yards back into the woods behind the stand. This ensures that I can get down quietly and get a short distance away from the stand before alerting deer of my presence. From there, I take the long way around, if necessary, and circumvent the field as I head out.

Also, instead of setting stands exactly on the field edge, set them back 5-10 yards. Place stands so that you have a few trees between you and the field that you can use as shields as you get out of your stand. If you do it right and have the wind in your favor, most deer won’t even look up from their meal as you go.

Aggressive Tactics

Still having trouble getting deer to leave the food source after legal shooting hours? It happens. Feeding deer can be mighty stubborn. They can also be very tolerant of your presence once they know you don’t present any danger. The reality is, every deer has its own tolerance for commotion, and some deer truly are so stubborn that nothing can drive them off of a food source after dark.

Perhaps the quickest I’ve ever seen deer exit fields, though, was when coyotes have appeared. Numerous times, I’ve seen deer high-tail it out of there as soon as a coyote was around, but within minutes of the predator leaving, deer were right back in the field feeding. On several occasions, I’ve used this to my advantage and carried a coyote howler in my backpack. If it gets dark and deer are still hanging around, I pull out the howler and can usually clear the field long enough to get out of there.

How To Get Deer To Leave Your Food Plot After Hours
These deer won't make it into bow range before dark. What now?

Another aggressive tactic is to bark like a dog. This, I’ve found, works best when I lower my pack to the ground and rattle it around in the dry leaves. The combination of barking and leaf rustling sends deer for the woods – most of the time, at least.

Other times, I’ve just started coughing as loud as possible and made all sorts of weird grumbling “get off my lawn” noises. I’ve even played music on my phone, thrown sticks, banged sticks off trees and generally made a ruckus to get deer to leave. Some deer will vacate with the slightest disturbance, but others require a little more encouragement.

Deer in urban areas can be so accustomed to human presence and encounters that you really have no choice other than to get out of your stand and walk out. In these cases, I make my exit as quickly and quietly as possible, sticking to the tree line or any available cover as I leave.

Also, and perhaps most importantly, be careful how often you sit stands where you must continuously bump deer after the hunt. No matter which method you use to move deer along, you’re still drawing attention to your stand location, and they’ll soon start avoiding your corner of the field altogether. In this regard, staying mobile with a climbing tree stand or saddle hunting can be an advantage because both allow you to pick different trees to hunt from each evening.

No matter which tactic you use, don’t rely on the same one every time out. Mix it up each time so that deer don’t start associating certain sounds or methods to your presence. This will keep your food plot stands fresh and productive for longer periods of time.

Ralph Scherder
Ralph Scherder is a full time award-winning writer and photographer from Butler, PA, where he lives with his wife Natalie, two kids Sophia and Jude, and an English Setter named Charlie. He has hunted and fly fished all over North America, and God willing, will continue to do so for many years to come.
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