In many states, January is a deer hunter's last-ditch, 11th-hour, bottom-of-the-ninth-with-two-outs chance to fill his tags until next fall.

Hunting the late, late season requires steely determination because the odds are mostly in the whitetail's favor.

After three or four months of hunting, deer numbers are just about as low as they'll get all year. Deer that are still standing have learned how, when and where to avoid hunters.

And for us humans, the weather can be downright miserable.

Now, you'll notice I said the odds are mostly in the deer's favor, not that they are all in the deer's favor. Food is scarce, but deer need it more now than ever. The trees are bare, which makes their hiding places fewer and farther between.

The scarcity of both food and cover forces deer to bunch up in the few areas where conditions are optimum for them.

In January, hunters must be prepared to go the extra mile to score venison for the freezer. You may have to literally go a mile to get some!

Find places where deer are bedding and feeding, and then hunt those areas from stands and/or ground blinds. Still-hunt through them.

If none of those tactics works, get together with some friends and put on drives. If the deer are there, they can be fooled. All you have to do is figure out how to do it!

STAND/BLIND HUNTING
In January, figuring out where to hunt from a tree stand or ground blind is usually the easy part. Find the deer's preferred bedding and feeding areas and set up nearby. Because both are in short supply this time of year, they should be easy to locate.

In my opinion, heading for the woods before daylight in January is a waste of time. At this time of day, deer don't seem to move the way they did back in October and November -- probably because in winter, dawn is one of the coldest times of day. The deer prefer to sit tight until the sun has warmed up the woods by a few degrees. (

I can recall one cold January morning back in my formative years when I liked to be up in my stand a good hour before daylight. By 10 a.m., my toes were numb. I hadn't seen a single deer. I climbed out of the tree stand and on the walk back to my truck, ran into six deer headed toward my stand. That day, I'd have been better off waiting until after the sun came up to head to the woods.

I now prefer hunting from 9 a.m. to noon on morning jaunts. But for me in January, the most productive time of day to hunt from a stand or blind is from 1 p.m. until dark. You can usually count on deer moving from their bedding to feeding areas in the afternoon and early evening.

BEATING THE COLD
In hunting deer from a fixed position in January, the greatest challenge is surviving the cold. It takes a special kind of dedication to sit in a tree stand or ground blind. Your fingers and toes are going to sting. Your face is going to go numb. You're going to get the shivers. Your muscles are going to lock in place. Unfortunately, the deer seem to move more often after the mercury drops, long after you've turned into a hypothermic lump of coal!