Friday, June 09, 2006
Planning Ahead For Hot-Weather Deer Hunting
So, what’s a bow hunter to do. Michigan, a northern state, is supposed to have cool temperatures in October. It’s not supposed to be 80 degrees or higher during bow season.
Well ... hunters have two choices when the early days of October are warm. The first and most obvious is to wait until the weather cools down but waiting is no fun. The second choice requires a good bit of thought, some careful planning and more than a bit of good luck.
Deer normally bed down in thick cover, wait until just prior to dark before they start moving out to feed. When summer-like temperatures prevail early in the season, there is little rush to move out to eat. It’s not like the deer need food to generate warmth as is the case during winter months.
Ho hum. Another hot day. The deer probably are holding pretty tight to the many thick areas and waiting for things to cool down a bit. There’s no rush for them; they know where the standing corn fields are. Waiting an extra hour before moving allows the temperatures to cool somewhat and for hunters to get out of the woods.
Here is a strategy to try if you are too antsy to sit still in a normal hotspot. Fiddle with it a bit to see if it can work for you, but with every change in tactics comes a certain degree of risk. This method is fraught with danger because it’s possible the hunter will do the wrong thing at the wrong time and spook the deer. Spooked deer seldom return to that area for a period of time.
This strategy is to hunt as tight to the bedding areas as possible. This calls for a quiet approach, a keen eye on the wind direction, and being lucky enough to keep from spooking deer.
It’s not easy. The woods are dry and noisy, and some are so tinder-dry they snap, crackle and pop like Rice Krispies when the milk hits them. You can fool a deer by being downwind of them, but it’s difficult to fool their ears. The noise of a person moving steadily closer, and making some noise is totally out of character. If those faint noises suddenly stop, the deer will do one of two things—spook or become curious. I would never count on curiosity at this time of year.
It’s possible to work down and across wind, and try to work into an area as close as possible to where deer exit the bedding location. There may be only one good spot to hunt, and in many situations, there are no good spots to try. A hunter must use every skill possible to arrive at this location across and downwind of where deer bed down before walking out of the thick cover.
If possible, get up in the air. Later in the season during the pre-rut and the rut, the soft noises of a climbing tree stand going up a tree can replicate the sounds made of a buck raking his antlers in the brush or clicking antlers with another animal. Early in the season, when the weather is hot and dry, such sounds are seldom heard. The other flaw in the climbing tree stand is so few trees in this state are suitable for a climber. Most trees have too many limbs close to the ground.
Sneaking in tight to a bedding area is one of the best ways known to scare deer. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but in hot dry weather, hunters need the third part of this equation: luck. Or ... as we all know, we can sit still in key areas in well-placed ground blinds or tree stands, and hope for the best.
Personally, that will be my game plan when hot weather slows down the early-season deer movement. For those who are too high-strung to sit and sweat, trying to move closer has some merit only if the hunter weighs the risk factors, and is willing to accept spooking deer.
I’ve hunted with many men who can’t sit still for long. They have to be moving, and sometimes that movement pays by driving deer to another nearby hunter who is sitting still. But driving deer during bow season is another topic for another day.—The Whitetail Wizard