Bad Weather Success?

Back when I lived in Montana, I came to the realization that I would only see bears during the rain. Not a torrential downpour by any means, but still a steady bout of not so pleasant weather. Just curious to see if an factors that are usually looked down upon, like extreme weather or "Last minute of the last day", have actually proven themselves useful for yall? If so, I enjoy reading the stories, especially when matched with success.

I've got a long track record of killing game in less than ideal conditions. Full Moon, Hot, Dry, etc. Is when I have been known to luck out and take a good animal. These conditions are usually universally agreed upon as bad in regards to game movement and activity.


Its beginning to become something of a trend.




For hunting whitetails, my favorite time to hunt them is on a cold to cool overcast day with a little drizzle, get them to come to rattling horns. Actually ideal deer hunting weather but nasty to be out in.

A cool S. Texas drizzle in Dec will make the rut absolutely explode!!

That's what I'm starting to gather, and whats even crazier is I have friends who will NEVER even try during the rain (snow back north). To me personally, especially if doing spot and stalk, it adds to the story and the feeling. Nothing better than testing our mental strength when hunting.

I see it all the time when fishing. The fish go crazy on rainy nasty days but I get people who drive me crazy. "hey captain there is a 20% chance of rain so I think we should cancel what do you think?"

I would like to say "you obviously dont know much about fishing and have no clue what you are talking about" but I cant. Nothing pisses me off more than clients wanting to cancel because there is a percentage of rain.

I always tell them the higher the percentage the more fish we will catch and the answer is always "really"??

Duh!!!

I love nasty days to hunt or fish. I hate sunny days for both.

one of my best pheasant hunts growing up in S.W. Ks. was after a 6" snow, I caught what was most likely the Ks. record crappie during a light rain.

Nasty weather in late November or early December and I am in the blind.

Some of my best days fishing are in the rain. I remember more than one time catching 30-40 fish in under an hour in a complete downpour. Rain stopped and the fishing sucked. Oh well. Got the cooler full quick more than once. Same with hunting. A good rain early in the morning will have everything moving a little later as soon as it stops.

When a cold front blows in is when I'm sitting in a treestand swaying back and forth in the cold, driving rain. Almost the minute the rain lets up, the woods come alive. If you wait until it clears up to be out there, your too late.

Can't say horrible weather brought me luck but each buck was taken in unique, not ideal weather or situations. Never been in 50 degree blue bird skies with plenty of help around. My first buck was in 93 degrees in Dec! Record high. Next mornng was 40. Personally 40 degrees and overcast is ideal for deer.

I hunt when I can regardless of the weather. Years ago my best friend was still hunting on opening day and killed a 12 pointer around 1:00 PM. The temperature was in the upper 70's and the wind was blowing like crazy. He did this while I was sitting in camp drinking a beer. Lesson learned for me.

I like to hunt in drizzle and light rain - seems to me it kind of keeps the chance of being busted down. The situation where I notice the chances of success go way down is in heavy wind. If really blowing, it just seems that I see fewer animals.

Biggest deer my wife ever shot was taken on December 27, in a sleet storm near Waco. I told her she was wasting her time going to the stand in this weather.
Only time in my life I have been wrong and her right..........lol

I'll gladly head to my stand in a pre-dawn rain to be there once it stops at or just after daylight. It really makes no difference what time of day so long as you're there waiting once a lengthy rain comes to an end.

Mr. T - bet you never heard the end of that !!

You are so so so correct!

I agree 100%.

This is a 6 or 7 year old cull buck I was hunting really hard a few years ago. Only caught one glimpse of him most of bow season. While sitting in the bow stand we had a severe storm complete with torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightning blow through. It was bad enough that I got out of the bow stand and sprinted to my box blind for shelter. As soon as the rain cleared I ran back to my bow stand and couldn't have been there more than a few minutes when he showed up. To this
date the biggest bodied buck I have ever killed.

The way I see it is your definitely not going to have any luck in your living room, I have killed a few deer in bad weather and I have killed tons of waterfowl in bad weather. To me anytime I can spend in the outdoors or in a stand is worth it nothing’s better than when you don’t expect to see anything and a monster comes out. Plus they aren’t going to spook as easy if you make a little noise it will be covered by the rain.

Shot this buck in 17° sleeting rain.

I've hunted in just about every kind of weather imaginable, from great to super nasty. One particular hunt I vividly recall back in the mid-late 90s and it was starting to rain pretty good, I suited up in adequate gear, took a couple hundred yards from the truck, cross Mesquite Creek (barely trickling) and another couple hundred yards up to a open tri-pod 10 foot stand overlooking a small 15ish acre field food plot with a feeder on the far side about 100 yards. Crawled up into the tripod about 30 minutes before shooting light. The heavens opened up and it started raining heavily and continued for an hour or so. The feeder went off but nothing was moving. I decided to wait it out. The rain continued from moderate to heavy for another hour or so, I had just about decided to call it when I see movement thru the rain close to the feeder. It was a beautiful 10 point (actually turned out to be a 12 point) that I had never seen before. I readied my rifle and took the shot when I had the opportunity and he dropped straight down. I waited a little bit and then went to field dress him. It was so muddy, I knew I couldn't drive over there, so I grabbed him and took off trudging thru the food plot on down to the creek. Upon getting to the creek, I realized all the rain brought the creek up substantially and it was moving. I slung my rifle over my neck & shoulder and got a good grasp on the antler and took off very slowly ensuring I had good footing, everything was fine until the rushing water flipped the deer over and the open gut cavity was acting like a parachute and down stream the deer went with me struggling to hang on. It took every bit of me to continue across to the other side and maintain a grip on him, then get him drug up the other side of the slick embankment. Thankfully, it was a central Texas hill country mature buck that field dressed about 130 lbs, not one of the much larger north or south Texas brutes. That was probably the 2nd largest set of antlers I had taken up to that point in time.

The weather doesn't really deter me when I have the time to hunt ... whether I see anything or not, I'm still in the woods

I took a nice 8 point this December near San Angelo after a night of driving rain and the whole morning of rain and drizzle. Temp was in the low 30s.

My buddy called it quits right around 9:30 and 4 minutes later this guy walks out.

PMK - got a pic of the deer/rack, by chance? Great story!

way before digital cameras, probably still have the rack out in the shed somewhere ... will check to see if I can find it

PMK that's a hell of story! Wouldve loved to see that all play out

My brother shot the biggest buck we have ever shot on our place in a low 30's degree sleeting rain.

Always thought good cold mornings would make the deer move. We got a pretty decent snow 2 years ago at our place in Duval Co. I was stoked about the hunting thought it would have been off the charts, every deer on the place would have been out and about eating and at the feeders or road corn... couldn't have been more wrong! I think those deer didn't know what to think of snow, I swear they didn't move from their beds till the snow was gone.

I've seen a few deer in those bad weather days.... Nasty weather they eventually have to eat. The rut hits, it won't matter how much rain we get in South Texas and they still move well all day long. They even moved on a rare snow day in early December when it was 28 degrees. The rain photos are late mornings to early evening in 38 degree temps.

Great pics!

beautiful animals & pictures stxranchman!!!

All great pics ranchman! The second one of him shaking is an incredible snap!!

As always, STX amazing photos.
I hunt pretty much any time I can regardless of weather and prefer hunting daylight to dark. I have had success in bad weather but cant really say that its any better than nice weather. However, I glass a lot and its a big part of my plan. When glassing a lot it really helps to have sunshine to help you see the deer so I really prefer sunny days, generally. Real windy days certainly seems to deter deer movement but its not keeping me in camp. Normally on windy days I would consider hunting in thicker cover. I guess the cover breaks the wind and/or if they are bedded in cover cause of the wind you may catch them during whatever small moving they do.

You mention last minute of the last day. My family does a big Thanksgiving hunt in Oklahoma every year. On the last day, we always have a "safeties on" time. In other words, at such and such time, safeties on, no shots fired after "x" time because we have to get back to camp, pack, clean up, and leave in order to get home in time. It seems that someone in the family will always shoot something right at that time. I shot my biggest buck like that a few years ago.

It was the last day of the family hunt, and I had been hunting a ridge with my Nephew that morning. The wind started blowing and temp was dropping, and we were not seeing much movement at all. "Safeties on" time was 9:30. Around 8:45 I decided to drop down into coon hollow for one last ditch effort. My Nephew had missed two deer already this weekend, and we as a family (6 of us hunting) were about to be skunked. We got down to the Hollow and found a tree to lean against around 9:10. We started rattling and grunting almost immediately. I looked at my watch around 9:25, and figured we were done. Just minutes later, he came down the hollow. Head down, lips curled back, and grunting. He had come in looking for a fight, and got one. He lost to my .270 that day. I didn't want to do any tracking, so I had put two rounds in him...the second one at a run. He didn't make it more than a foot after the second shot. I looked at my watch, and it was 9:29.

Wow now that's a memory! It seems to be when we all least expect it. Very well written as well, thanks!

i was living in cooke county texas out in an area a little town called woodbine..now its not a remote place,lots of small tracts sorrounding our little 10 acre homestead..there was an old ,man that owned a peach orchard that i coon hunted with my little treeing walker bitch.sissy whom i named after sissy on urban cowboy..she was a wide hunting crazy lil dog that weighed about 50 lbs..well on the coldest night of the year..i mean tanks were frozen over and loggerhead turtles were trapped under the ice..well i decided to take her to see if any coons were walking that night..i believe temp was hovering in the single digits,,i had loaned my .22 out to my cousin the night before and only had my marlin 30/30..well decided to pack it and turned sissy lose in the peach orchard..she struck and ran the coon right over the aformentioned tank..scared the crap out of me..as i shined my flashlight and saw her slipping and sliding accross the tank..seeing the loggerheads trying to punch holes to breath thru the ice..well wind kicks up and sissy disaapears over the ridge toward a private lake..could not hear her..now shes done this before..she knew the way home..so i hollered and called her to no use she was gone too far..well i go get in my pickup and try to cut her off..no use..shes too far..well i decided to leave my coveralls for her to curl up on when she comes back..went on home..about daylight the next morning i warm the truck up and away i go to pick her up..as i pulled into the peach orchard..there stood a nice 10 pt..grabbed my rifle and started a stalk..about 130 yards from where i was parked..i saw something move and it was sissy comming toward me..the buck saw this and snorted and whirled and as he went to jumb a little draw with frozen water..i leveled off and shot him .about an 80 yard shot.shooting free hand..the 150 gr corelokt found its spot..down he went..not a clean kill but i finished him off with a shot to the heart...i later learned the temp that morning was 6 degrees...brrrr. sissy later went on to become a grand night champion.and won many a wild coon hunts

Great photos as usual!

Wow mow!

The story actually gets better! This was the prelude to a story that I posted right after Thanksgiving 2018...Lost in the Woods

Yeah bubba , I remember reading that one when you posted now that I clicked on it. Coon hollow must be somewhat of a twilight zone place hahaha! wild chit happening there left and right