F&S online had a quick article about hunting storm systems, before, during, and after due to deer feeding habits and certain advantages weather can offer. Do you watch for systems like that and do you go out at a specific time coinciding with a storm? What is your favorite routine?

Nobody will mistake me for a meteorologist, nor do I own a "double doppler", but during the mild temps of our early archery season when light showers subside is one of my favorite times to hit the woods. This doesn't seem to translate to the late colder temps...or maybe my old bones are just more easily tempted to stay in the warm and dry, lol! I'll back out in a heartbeat over a precipitously falling barometer and any discernable breeze is my nemesis, as where I hunt it will be entirely unpredictable.

Certainly is different between bow hunters and rifle hunters.

I hunt whenever I can, but I've found deer move a bit more immediatelyu before and after a substanmtial storm. I expect they primarily hole up during a storm, like I do.

I recall I went out here one year during a Thanksgiving blizzard, which dropped about a foot of snow or more… I was out in it hoping to follow a track right up to a bed with a deer still in it and passed up a shot or two because I was packing the .45/70 and there were houses at some considerable distance in the background, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take a shot in that general direction because… What kind of a person would do that???

Anyway, shortly after that I did one thing right and one thing wrong: what I did wrong was to walk around in a heavy snowfall with my rifle slung over my shoulder with the muzzle pointing up… So when I did the thing that I did RIGHT, which was to ease through a travel corridor, I came face-to-face with a youngish buck at about 15 yards. So that those I had seen were bedded, as one would expect in a heavy storm like that, but this buck was up and cruising, looking for a little company on a cold night….

Had I been carrying my rifle the way I normally carry a shotgun, and with the muzzle not catching snowflakes, I’m pretty sure I’d have had just enough of a drop on him. But he swapped ends and was gone at just about the same instant that it occurred to me to check my bore, and sure enough, there were a few frozen drops of water in there, so probably just as well that we parted company with no shots fired…..

But I have also sat in a promising location with heavy weather moving in and have sat there grumpily growing icicles in my beard while watching the woods fill up with snow and seeing very little else, if anything at all. So I am not convinced that there are any guarantees one way or the other and JMO the best time to go hunting is whenever the heck you can!

Now, I am actually looking forward to January because even though that will mean that I need to buy a new hunting license, at least I can go find some Bowhunting only areas and try my luck with the small game without worrying about running a vowel of anyone parked up in a tree. I don’t think there are a lot of guys going after small game with crossbows or compounds, so it should be a little more peaceful no matter what the weather!

I watch for weather systems. I've noticed increased movement preceding a storm front, as much as 24 hours before it arrives. I think they are trying to load their stomachs to ride out the storm in the bed. And, immediately after the front passes, there seems to be a few hours where activity and travels are noticeably higher. Dad figured that out long ago, taught me, and it holds the vast majority of the time. My favorite routine is to try to hunt the end of the front, but that's "iffy" because you never know if it will pass sooner, or later. I like to get where I want to be under the cover of the front, when there are fewer eyes and noses to alert.

I do try to hunt both sides of a front , sometimes that means sitting through a storm or getting back out as soon as possible after it. I think they try to feed before and after and possibly freshen up scrapes

Yes and no. I go when I can mostly. I shot my 10 point this year early in season and on a 80 degree sunny day so like I said go when you can!

Thanks for the input guys! Corax, that was a good story!

I've carried an old Army poncho in my day pack for years. Hunting for 30 years with mostly the same group, if it was raining and no "electricity" I'd leave camp and sit at the base of my stand covered up, waiting for it to let up, then up the tree I'd go. The guys in the camp would bail out and head for their stands after it let up and would encounter deer movement before they could set up. If the rain stops or settles into a light, drizzly rain, deer tend to move. They feel comfortable and relaxed in those conditions from my experience hunting in the south.

When I start gettin a sinus Headache it's time to be in the stand

Deer or most any animal will feed prior to a cold front or a storm. Kinda like shoppers panic shopping for bread and milk before snow flurries

and beer! ;-)

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