Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Opener and heat

1 week until the opener here in North FL in the WMA I hunt. Forecast calls for a high of 91, low of 71...just feels funny for someone who has lived in PA or AK for most of their time. Thermacell is loaded and planning short sits.

Any other folks getting out in the southern states?

Just cause it opens next week doesn't mean you have to start hunting
Season opens Oct 1st here and I won't start hitting things hard til latter half of the month

We can hunt in September during "early Bow" season, but are required to take a Doe first. Sitting in a treestand when it's near 90 and humid, with mosquitoes buzzing around, isn't my idea of fun. I'll wait until the regular season at the beginning of October.

Our season opens today. Too hot . .to many skeeters. If I go it it will be squirrel hunting so I can stay moving. I plan on hunting the cold feont in a few days.

Missouri opens today (9-15) and it is 88*. I'll keep fishing until it cools down.

Archery season for the specific WMA I hunt ends Oct 14, dont think it wil be much cooler then 😀

Some parts of the state open in July so hunters can hunt the rut in those specific areas.

http://myfwc.com/media/4233506/dbcstatewide.jpg

If you want a doe for the freezer in FL, you have to sweat it out in archery. The MZ and Rifle seasons that open later are antlered only.

July rut thats odd

Archery season ends this weekend here and it's still HOT. Going out for the last four days and daytime temps are predicted to be in mid 70's at 9000'+ elevation!

was 96 last sat at 5oc when I went to my stand in shorts no shirt an flipflops it sucked

SWGA hunter here. Season has been open for two weeks and I haven’t been yet. I’m sorry but I’m just not going when it 94-95 at 6:30 PM. No, that’s not my idea of hunting. We had 105 degree heat index over the weekend...no interested, not at all. And I love hunting as much, if not more, than the next guy.

I'm going Sat morning for a few hours, spose to be 67 degrees with light rain, something may be stirring, I know what tree I'm going up, going to sneak in early get the climber hooked to the tree and get set up right quick, we'll shall see.

Get um!!!

Not quite southern, but, KS muzzleloader opened yesterday. It hit 94' and I sweated through every article of clothing I had on.

Passed up 2 small bucks and lots and lots of does. The silver lining of the drought this year is almost no mosquitoes.

If successful at arrowing a buck, one must also deal with the damn flies in hot weather....

Yup, you've seen a pic of the genetic bloodline I'm after, the ones Saturday are just over the mountain in Arkansas.

Yes, a big meat box fulla ice, a year round running low water bridge never hurts either.

It was 24 degrees when I woke up in SW Montana last Friday morning.

It's hotter than 2 rats frigging in a wool sock around here. Hunted last Saturday morning. Seen 5 does. Going in the morning, Friday. Gotta hunt when you can...

Ours opens Saturday, It was 99 yesterday and 98 today. I was planning on going but it is just too hot to risk having one rot.

Yup, rain all day tomorrow, slacking off a bit on Sunday, if no blue fire in the sky, I'll be set up and waiting.

Our bow season opens Saturday. Deer are still in summer mode where I hunt until the third week of October, or so. Thirty miles south they are in pre-rut now and the rut will peak in a couple of weeks, before our's even starts. I have bowhunted whitetails a long time and learned a lot about doing it.

My best advice is to practice with your bow, hunt where deer live and be still.

Oh... we're going dove hunting next weekend. Too damn hot.

We open here in Texas on the 29. It’s supposed to cool down a little bit by then. Knats will probably be bad.

Hunted all yesterday in the rain, saw small bucks and doe, 9 deer in all, but nothing I wanted to burn a tag on, had a great time nonetheless.

One word of caution, many of you may do so anyway, but, I always carry a sidearm when bowhunting, this area has black bear and hogs on it, bud showed me a trail cam pic of a mama black bear with 3 cubs earlier in the year, hogs on cam too, not to mention the possibility of two legged idiots, I was walking out of the hell-hole at dusk, off to my left I saw a white pit bull laying in the pine needles staring at me not 20 yards off my trail, no collar and a strange look on his face.

I chunked my new bow on the ground and yanked the glock 45 off my belt, he stood up with tail raised, didn't move, we had a stare down for a minute or two, I never said a word to him, he turned to walk the other way, when I couldn't see him any longer I picked my bow up and moved off in the direction I had been headed, damn near walking backwards checking my back trail, also looked to be flanked from either direction, I couldn't imagine trying to fight a surprise pit bull attack in the woods with everything wet, no gun, and a strained right knee to boot, I would not have been my best.

Be careful out there men.

If I were to see that pit bull where I hunt at I could be reasonably sure somebody had driven way out in the boonies and dumped him. Probably because he was unmanageable for them. Stupid people do that sort of thing. As much as I hate shooting dogs, he has no business in the national forest.

Agreed, I had second thoughts about letting him live, problem is, my neighbors here in Oklahoma could have shot my dogs a dozen times when they got out, they never hurt anything or anyone, save one chicken, this patch of land is some my MIL has, it's an 800 acre block that she rents out to weyerhaeuser to grow pine trees on, the place is surrounded by many farms, don't know who the dog belonged too if anyone, just hope like hell I don't hear of it causing any harm.

Totally understand in a place like that where there are neighboring farms. Dog probably got loose and hopefully the owners corral him quickly. I hunt very remote large blocks of public land. In my situation if there is a domestic animal there, it's been dumped by some irresponsible pet owner.

Yup, hope so too.

Bow opens here next Monday, the 1st. found 2 scrapes on sat. and pulled a chip today and had 2 bucks fighting on sat night!, did go down to 38 so im getting fired up, but if its 80 Ill wait, 69 right now!

Did my first sit of the season last night, saw nothing but bugs weren’t bad considering 90F. All in all good evening in the woods. Hope to get out next weekend after this full moon has passed if work/school/kids allow.

Wow, sounds pretty rough out there. I was out hunting a bit farther north last week, had a couple days of snow...think I'll take that over 100 degree heat!

Problem here all my good bucks leave early. So if I have a good one, I have to get him first weekend usually. I sweat to much to sit in an open stand so I hunt a sealed box. Plucker is right toasty when its 100 plus out there, but no other choice really. Though I literally hunt in shorts with no shirt.... HATE the heat.

I hunted yesterday. Chill factor of 102°. Gnats, then black flies, then mosquitoes. And I forgot my climber seat and had to stand. I'm giving up my man card and will never do it again. Of course, I say the same thing about tequila....

Heat was a killer here as well

And still is.

Went out this weekend and it was like summer during the daytime.

I start hunting in mid September. I just keep a small freezer in the garage with a bunch of blue ice packs frozen. I have a few large coolers with extra thick walls in the garage. I shoot bambi and hang it in the garage to skin right away. Once skinned the hide goes in a garbage bag and then into the freezer. The deer gets stripped inside an hour and layered into the cooler with the blue ice packs. If it's hot, the next day I swap blue ice packs and layers of meat into the next cooler. After the first day the blue ice packs usually last two days. I butcher at my leisure, and the meat stays at perfect aging temp.

Done like this with it all ready before hand, the only problem is that you might sweat a little waiting for Bambi to come by for inspection. The rest is not much different than if it's cool outside.. Here where it can be, and not infrequently is, well below zero, the cold temps are really a lot bigger problem. If it's cold you have to get the hide off them immediately. If you don't, it becomes a much harder and much more uncomfortable job in as little as 8 hours. Along with that, you do not get any benefit from aging when they are frozen. Also, depending on how full the house fridge is, I may just take the gallon zip-lock full of grind meat and the pork shoulder and drop them into the cooler until I am ready to grind it. After having meat in a cooler, it's a snap to spray it out with a garden hose and then let it dry out as opposed to a garage fridge. The big foam coolers are easy to come by for free, and they are better than the Yetis.