Hunting Snowscape Deer
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Late-season deer hunting weather is unpredictable. Snow cover can be a decisive issue. During average winter conditions, typically mid-December through late January, deer must adapt to snowy conditions. After gun season, leftover deer recluse for many days. But they must eventually adapt to cold-weather conditions and go on living, transitioning into survival activities. Although weather sometimes becomes extreme and they face survival-of-the-fittest conditions, deer quickly adjust and adapt to adverse weather that we humans might find intolerable.
Hunters’ personal comfort tactics cover a wide range. How well you dress is vital, and the ability to warm up increases your odds of success. Winter deer hunters must dress for cold, gusting winds and unexpected snowfall. Clothing must also control a hunter’s body temperature, provide moisture release and retain body odors. Gore-Tex, Thinsulate and wool are a few chosen clothing materials. Whether standing motionless for hours, or during stalking/walking movements, body heat must be retained, and perspiration dissipated, for maximum comfort. Importantly, clothing pattern and color should blend with habitat coloration.
Clothing shouldn’t release body heat. It should help retain body heat. The more efficiently your clothing design traps body heat, the longer you can stay afield. But, regardless of what commercial products you select, no cold-weather clothing suits every person’s body design.
Undoubtedly, understanding how whitetails coexist with fickle elements is a major factor for hunters’ winter success. It’s a fact that a falling barometer pinpoints a shifting weather change. Deer have a unique ability to feel this swing and will alter their habits accordingly. They often binge feed, even during daylight hours, before tucking into dense cover.
Researchers believe that the worse the impending storm, the thicker cover deer seek for sanctuary. During adverse winter weather, where you choose to hunt is as important as when you hunt. Therefore, now is an ideal time to stand hunt along trails leading into heavy cover.
Deer seemingly have no problem with adjusting to winter and will adapt their behaviors for nourishment and comfort. They are masters at surviving. How they lived during October and November are different than during December and January’s snowy, colder days. Bow hunters, especially, should follow suit. Find you own comfort zones and adapt. If you remain warm, you’ll become a more effective hunter since you can direct your thoughts and energies toward hunting, and not shivering while trying to stay warm. There is no greater hunting downfall than discomfort.
Whitetail habits change significantly during snowy periods. Whenever weather is unusually cruel, deer remain bedded for extended periods. And, they can be in small herds, yarding up and using each other’s bodies for warmth. They prefer to feed and bed along southern terrains because snow depth is usually lighter and melts quicker. Deer are more active during the daylight hours to take advantage of the sun’s warmth, too. That’s when we hunt sunny slopes where morning sun provides warmth. Remember this if you’re a bow hunter.
During unexpected snow depths, deer favor lying down until the menace subsides, even if it’s of two-day duration. Fortunately, the insulating qualities of deer hair and body fat are so efficient that snow can cover them and not melt. Equally, a snow covering provides insulation, giving them added protection from winter elements. No matter how bad the weather, even if we think they aren’t frequenting a favored hunting location, they can still be there.
Deer typically prefer to avoid more open landscapes when experiencing fluctuating snow depths and cold winds. That’s when hunters should focus more on dense pines and protective valleys, as well as semi-dry, swampy depressions. If deer habitats are adjacent to leftover grain fields from agricultural crop fields, oak tree ridges and fallen masts, all the better.
Cold-weather whitetail hunting can be difficult if you aren’t prepared. For a bow hunter, it can also be a psychologically non-active vigil. Prepare yourself for lonely hours of non-activity from any wildlife that might keep you alert. Fortunately, you can count on less human hunting pressure. But deer have begun to relax after being pursued during the major gun season.
To be a more successful snowy-day deer hunter, think of your comforts. Remember that wind is annoying because it steals body heat, makes hearing a strain, and moves underbrush, which can make it difficult to identify deer movements.
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If you’re a stand hunter, however, this is a “plus.” In your favor, frozen ground and hard snowpack will give away deer positions when they walk, especially if they step on patches of ice. Deer become sensitive to landscape features that are uncomfortable to them. This is another reason they don’t move much. Perhaps this is why stalking hunters are more successful now because, while deer are bedded, they often curl up like a sleeping dog. Wintering deer don’t move as often or as far, especially when they locate protective bedding with food sources.
Whitetail deer will forever be impacted by their environments, specifically weather. Deer possess an innateness that arouses them to feed before the advance of weather changes. Realistically, though, not every deer will react the same before approaching weather changes. Therefore, hunters who realize that deer appear to be programmed to sense impending weather will gain a hunting edge.
Consider that barometric pressure intimately manipulates deer. Studies reveal that deer are comfortable with rising barometric pressure, more so than when it’s falling. Whitetails will be on-the-go several hours before storm fronts, although they seek hiding niches during severe storms. After a storm passes, deer move leisurely again.
Invisible thermal air currents are important to deer and hunters. Vertical air flows rise during morning as the earth warms, lifting odors upwards. In contrast, they descend during late afternoon as cooling air pushes downward. Therefore, hunt high ground during morning, as air flow rises. Later, focus upon lowlands during late afternoon when thermals descend.
Deer tend to be at ease during sunny days with snow cover. They display perky tendencies, often lying out in the open, even when temperatures hover around freezing. When the first major winter storm arrives, deer are likely to lay-up for short periods. But, if hunger or mating desires motivate them, they become restless, unless weather is so cruel that it hampers their movements.
Inclement weather typically compels deer to focus upon food sources. Although intense cold often keeps hunters within the shelter of their homes, it can be a productive time to ambush deer searching for food. Try hunting ravines and hillsides that divert chilling wind gusts. Wind-blocking hillsides with adequate cover provide locations where deer feed, or bed down with a degree of protection.
Before any harsh storm, be on stand prior to a front’s arrival. Select low-pressure hunted areas along trails leading to and from food sources and bedding niches. Just after storms, deer often travel open landscapes as they search for food sources. Both stand- and still-hunting work well.
Fierce, winter winds cause deer to be spooky, and they are seldom seen unless they are motivated by food, mating or activated by hunting pressure. But a gentle snow is an ideal time to stand-hunt openings along trails and feeding landscapes. When bitter cold dominates, hunt lowlands, dips between hardwood ridges and pine thickets. Deer favor wind breaks and stay close to natural cover to conserve energy.
Cold, snowy-weather whitetail hunting can be difficult if you aren’t prepared, so always be prepared. With limited hunters, there is less hunting pressure. And, a lone hunter dragging a deer across snowpack has an easier job.
For more insight and tips on how to make the most of the time you spend hunting, check out the articles in every issue of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.
MWO
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Bob Grewell
Bob “Greenie” Grewell has written about and photographed the outdoors for 40 years. He’s travelled throughout the U.S., Canada, the Arctic Circle, as well as Germany and Denmark. He has written a book on hunting dogs and contributed articles and photography to others. He currently focuses on deer and turkey articles, and wildlife photography.