Cold, windy and rainy...perfect sleeping weather. I got in from work last night and decided that this morning I would take the day off from hunting. Apparently, my Father-in-Law, being much smarter and tougher than I,decided that he was gonna go ahead and kill a nice 8 point, while I was sleeping...



This was one of three bucks that he saw this morning. He said one of the other two was bigger than this one, but was well out of range in the heavy wind and sideways rain.
One of these days I am gonna learn...

One thing I learned most important when, at the age of 43, I decided to devote myself to hunting: You can't shoot them from the comfort of your own home. You gotta get out there with them.

All the study of deer behavior affected by the elements still yields one basic truth: they gotta eat.

I soon learned that they still move in cold, wet weather. Drizzling & 40 degrees is my favorite hunting forum. I love it.

I love hunting blacktails in the rain. Most of my bucks have been killed in the rain.

It can be hard to get up and get going, though, especially if your gear is still wet from the day before!

-jeff

When I left the house yesterday morning at 4:30am for my hour drive to hunting camp it was 20�. The farther into the Southern Tier I got, the colder it got. When I got to hunting camp it was 13�. I gotta tell you......it was miserable. I sat from a around 6am to 8:30am. That's all I could take. At 8:30am is was 15�. It didn't start to warm up until 10:30am or so. We did one big drive and then most of us had to go. I got in the truck to come home around noon and it was 25�. I think it got up to 35� or so later on in the afternoon. Today was a lot warmer . Didn't get to hunt today though.

That's a nice deer your Father-in-Law got!

Hey, won't that walnut & blued carbon steel gun rust, swell, and fall apart if it gets wet?

did somethin simmilar a couple years back.

Left the house at 4am grabbed brunch at a local greasy spoon an headed for the hills. Then the sky opened up an flat out poured. THat made me remember I didnt have rain gear. Back to the house Then back to the hills. Lost the drivers windshield wiper in the process so im lookin through the passenger side of the windshield.

Made it to where I wanted to be an hour before sunrise (ya I left early) Sat there for no more than 5 mins listening to the rain on the roof before I conked out. Woke up 10AM with head on the floorboard of the passenger side my butt in the drivers side and my huntin gear all underneath me.

Hurt for the rest of the week.

"They gotta eat"....you said a mouthful.....grin.

That is why deer and elk are taken in any weather Ms. Nature hands out. That is the bottom line no matter what else may be goin' on here or on the moon. The times they feed may be changed a bit to "work around" our huntin' schedules, but they feed and not just when it's dark.

Outside of severe weather disturbances (read...dangerous), hunt when you can. Heck, the seasons aren't long enough anyway and come early spring, we'll all be chompin' to get back out there.

We can always dry out later......when we're enjoyin' those backstraps.