During the great Dec. freeze of 1989, was down in Zapata county chasing South Texas whitetail and the lunchtime temperature reading on the civic center's sign in Mirando City, TX was something like 18 degrees. Forecasts were for the low that night to drop into single digits, 5-9 degrees. So brutally cold, that the waitress at LaLa's cafe was offering complementary lodging at the civic center that night; sure did love the food and friendliness of LaLa's. We were out for 3-4 days during that freeze of 6-7 days, don't believe the high temps ever got out of the mid 20s and more than one day had sleet and snow flurries. All ponds on the place were frozen solid 6" deep or more. During that hunt, saw tens of deer and many nice bucks, lots of hogs and javelina.

It was as if the jungle had opened up and the animals were "on the hunt" looking for nourishing food. What are your coldest memories?

I think anyone who has ever hunted in Saskatchewan or North Dakota would win the award.

North Nebraska, 12 degrees with wind blowing 25mph. Also, sitting in a tripod in Menard back in the late 80's, 8 degrees was the high that day.

Texas weather Trophy, the Op's post, me said Texas Whitetail hunting weather....

I hate being cold and I get cold easy, so I can remember many.
Very early 90s. I remember driving VERY slowly on Thanksgiving Day on very icy roads from ETx to Albany to meet up with the rest of the guys. We caravanned on to NE Cottle County to camp in tents about where the forks of the Pease River come together to hunt 50000 acres. We were there about a week. Definitely no enclosed stands, or stands/feeders of any kind. It wasnt single digits every day but it was some days.
We had a 4000 acre family lease in the TransPecos in the 60s/70s/80s. We never had a stand and I didnt know feeders existed. Once I had been out on foot all day and it was sleeting type weather all day. I dont have any idea how cold it was but I killed a buck and he had a layer of ice all over him(I guess I did too).
Used to hunt tripods outa Throckmorton. A few times I hunted from daylight to dark in subfreezing and sleet/snow type weather. I couldnt of done it without one of those "body heater" sleeping bag type outfits.

20 some odd years ago when I hunted LBJ Grasslands, I was sitting under a tree in single degree temps and freezing rain. Miserable and exhilarating at the same time.

Gotcha,

I saw the whitetail but not the Texas.


I haven't ever hunted Whitetail in any notable extreme conditions. But I have hunted Mule Deer in West Texas in a freezing rain storm. No blinds, no heater, just sitting there in an Open Cab Polaris glassing to see If i can pick up a deer standing up to reposition.


But since you limited it to whitetail I won't talk about that time.....

There was a morning 15-20 years ago when I hunted with a friend west of Cisco. We got up that morning for a 30 minute drive to the lease and it was 11 degrees. Luckily it was sunny and no wind. From 7.30 to 11 am deer were everywhere. I saw 8 bucks, 18 deer and shot 2 pigs. There was no Heat Hawg or Mr Buddy going and I was in a wood blind facing North. Coldest I have been but it was a hell of a hunt.

That's what I'm talking about Man, no Mr. Buddy, no Heat Hog. 40+ years of hunting and never used either until hearing about folks using them on the THF, lol....Got smart quick..

Trophy, since it's TX weather, go ahead and let us know about that mule deer hunting weather...

Free, you sure have had some adventures! I've been known to regularly hunt tripods near freezing to sub freezing temps on my place in SW Young county; not all day hunts but 3-4 hour hunting sits...

Well, It can suck real bad. Like I said, no blinds, heaters or anything like that. I also didn't have a windshield so the ride out was brutal.

I've been ski'ing in Colorado at 11k feet in February and it wasn't this cold. The wind is the worst, any piece of exposed skin just gets beaten to death. West Texas during a Winter Storm isn't a good time. The deer don't think so either, they really don't move in that weather

I’ve hunted Minn, the dakotas and been to canada in the winter. I can tell you I’ve been in the same negative temp in TX/Okla panhandle and thought I was going to die, were as I was just cold cold up there. I have no idea if its humidity or windchill difference… but highplains sux!!

same lease as TT, although I think its colder when no moisture and just blue bird blowing wind

Dont remember what the air temp was but it was probably 12-15 years ago. It was December and I wanted to shoot a Doe with my crossbow. I had on just about every piece of warm clothing I had and headed out to the stand in a wind blown driving sleet storm. Got to the tripod and couldnt get up in it because it was so iced up I was afraid I would fall out trying to get into it. I ended up making a little brush blind under the tripod and sat on the ground. The whole time I had to make sure my trigger and flight rail was not freezing up from the sleet. When a nice doe showed up I had a heck of a time flipping open the scope caps to make the shot because there was so much ice on them. Anyway I made the shot and trailing and dragging was a piece of cake on the snow and ice covered ground. It was a cool adventure but I dont want to do it again.

I've been hunting the TX Panhandle since 1995. I haven't documented temps/chill factors over that time, but rest assured you can freeze your ever lovin' nuts off up there.

Same freeze in the same area as you, can remember ice not melting on the blinds for 3 days straight. Lala's would have been a wonderful welcome that week, we had no electricity back then and a very drafty 1800's ranch house to stay in.

Many years back hunting TransPecos between Christmas and NY, sleet, snow, ice storm with temps in single digits and continued for 5 days. We could not get out and 4 wheelers and utv were very very cold rides and had to put chains on tires just to get around. Have pic somewhere similar to BoBo's post. WT and mule deer were moving everywhere, would road corn and hand corn around feeders for the deer but with the sleet coming down as hard as it was, it only took a few minutes for corn to be under the ice. Deer would be pawing to get to it. Shot a nice buck that was covered in sheet of ice and added a lot of extra mass to rack with ice shield. Looked like a true giant warrior that for do or die had to get up and forage from bedding.

Colder in TX with that everblowing wind. agree bluebird day just as sun rays pop out with bind blowing is not for the faint of heart but usually no place I'd rather be

20 plus years ago was hunting in Voca which is near Brady, Texas. Was 12 degrees that morning with sleet on the ground. Went to a tower stand that had no windows. Not sure how long I stayed there but it was brutal cold. Finally saw a young doe who appeared to be as cold as I was. As mentioned by others no heat of any kind. Finally gave it up and went back to camp empty handed.

The cold doesn’t bother me. I caught a limit of crappie one time on Palestine when it was 17 and snowing.

The worst conditions I ever hunted in was outside Sterling city when I was a kid. It rained on us for three days. We didn’t have blinds to hunt out of so I spent the weekend watching my dad and his buddies drink whiskey under a tarp. The creek rose up and got in our tent. We finally got a fire going under the tarp and I left my boots next to the fire to dry out. They burned up down to the soles. I never have understood why we didn’t just go home. We did kill a nice 8 point on the drive out of the ranch and got to gut it in the pouring rain..

Same as us, some old 1800s telegraph white plastered over stone bricked houses that supposedly had been part of the pony express...No A/C, no central heat, just a central fireplace. LOL Icicles that hunt off the tin roof were maybe 1.5' long. Crappy job of the 3 of us was keeping firewood on the fire through the night. Got cold real quick outside of those sleeping bags and blankets in sub teens temperatures.

It was in the Ardennes in December of '44. The Lt had send me out to see if I could find a deer for food....

Ok. Not that far back. 1971. It wasn't really that cold, probably in the teens, but there was 5 inches of snow on the ground and it was windy and I was a kid with not the warmest clothes to wear.

Coldest hunting (waterfowl) was on Lake Lavon in 1972 (I think). We had motored out to a blind about 3/4 mile from the launch. While out there the lake froze over and our engine quit. We paddled back, breaking ice and hoping it wouldn't pop the rivets on our aluminum boat.

Reminds me of a memorable cold weather hunt and tent camping, but it was in north Louisiana, so doesn’t qualify.

Ha, I can relate.

i think it was late 80’s but we had a bunch of angora goats and cattle freeze to death. had to take chain saw’s to water troughs until they completely turned to ice all way through.