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Rain?

Oil everything that needs oilin', put electronics and paperwork in a Ziploc, plan on getting wet. If it's cold, break out the Hell's Canyon parka and bibs. If it's warm, just be wet all day.

Also, in my experience you're much better pulling the old slip-and-stalk during a rain. Deer moving less plus you making less noise moving seems to work well.
 
Early season, no thanks, I'll work and hunt another day.

Rut hunts grin and bear it. It ain't always fun. All my most misrrable days ever hunting and fishing are cold rains. I've been hypothermic for sure. I have a new tree umbrella to try this year.
 
Ive got an umbrella as well. but im suee the water will slide down the tree onto my tether and wooosh.....soaked. May take my stand as a back up.
 
Unless I am on a trip and have no choice or the hunting is just super hot right now I just stay home.Hate to get all my crap wet.Hate to blood trail in the rain.There will be a better day and quite frankly I have had the best luck on days that were 30 to 40 degrees and blue bird clear skies.Dammit I guess that means I have gotten soft.LOL
 
Tie a piece of paracord to your tether and cinch it tight with a few wraps. The water will drip off the tail.
Most times I find a side of the tree your protected from the rain unless it’s a downpour, then you have no choice but to get wet. If I had a choice I would watch the radar and hunt the periods before and after the heavy stuff. I’ve never seen much activity during a steady rain but the deer do need to move/feed.


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I agree with @Chistavocat, they dont move much during the rain. However, a gap in the rain usually gets them up, and there is no better time to slip through a bedding area than during a good, windy rain.

A certain creek bottom than borders pine plantation on one side and hardwoods on another has proven particularly bountiful. Just slip along with the ole 06 under my arm and watch for flickers. 9 times out of 10 they sense something's amis and stand to get a better vantage. Last mistake they make.
 
Nutterbuster said:
I agree with @Chistavocat, they dont move much during the rain. However, a gap in the rain usually gets them up
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2X a gap or the end of a moderate to heavy sustained rain is one of my favorite times to be in the woods. Everything that didn't just grit their teeth and bare it gets up and starts moving on hungry stomachs. It also seems like it can change nocturnal habits off for a little while, as in an all night rain will have them up and out whenever it stops (unless they get too restless, in really long rain storms), and it may take them a day or two to revert back if the do.

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Wirrex said:
Give me more info on this stuff! How do you use it?
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Luminol, aka bloodglow, aka bluestar.
Its used in forensic police work so it is not a gimmick.
I'm not sure exactly what chemical compound it is but it detects the iron in blood. The stuff I have comes in tablet form. Mix 2 tabs in ~ 20 oz of water in a spray bottle. It is used only in the dark...blood will glow blue for a minute or so. If blood is present, It WILL detect it. It can show blood that is not visible to the naked eye.
Rain cannot wash away the iron on blood so luminol will still glow. When we 1st bought it, we were advised to test it with a mock blood trail. We put some pig blood on a rag and dragged it through the woods. We came back after dark and employed bloodglow. It worked as advertised, but what was even more impressive was one night later. The next day after the initial test, we got over 3/4 inch of rain...enough rain to wash out even the best of blood trails. We returned with the luminol and the blood trail still glowed.
Keep in mind that after dragging the rag through the woods, there was NO visible blood but it was microscopically there. The luminol proved it.
I paid around $20 for a 2 tablet mixture which should/could reveal 400 yards of blood(according to the manufacturer). It is not a substitute for ethical shot selection or proficient blood trailing skills but it is a great tool as a last resort.
It obviously cannot find blood that is not there. If all bleeding is internal, the stuff won't help.
There is a bit of a learning curve to using it, though. Iron is present in some soils and some plants but the appearance of the glow will be different with blood.
Also, some water for the mix may contain iron. I was advised that windshield washer fluid works best for mixing. It contains no iron, its pH neutral, and won't freeze in a spray nozzle.
Something else... blood can be spread by boots, or other animal traffic so its another thing that can throw you off if you don't recognize the difference. Translocated blood will have a different glow appearance that blood dripping from a wound.
We had a squirrel(?) walk across our test trail...he translocated a blood trail over to, and up a tree.
The stuff is amazing but it isn't magic.
Jerry Allen is who I bought mine from. Not sure if he still runs the business or not, but Jerry was extremely helpful...We could call his cell anytime and he could talk at length about blood trailing.
He also wrote a pretty good short book "Blood in Motion". A forensic trailing guide that has info about wounds and trails that I've never read anywhere else.
https://www.bloodglow.com


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Nutterbuster said:
I agree with @Chistavocat, they dont move much during the rain.
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We often talk about how deer behavior is different from region to region so take this for what it's worth. I've whitetail hunted in Pa for 48 years. In Ohio since 1995 and a few years in Iowa. IME, rain has little effect on deer movement. In addition to my anecdotal input on hunting experiences with rain, I also live right among a substantial deer herd. Our plots and cover surround our home and we can pretty much watch ~100 acres from our windows. We observe deer daily. Rain does not minimize deer movement in any of the places that I interact with deer. We had 6 inches of relentless rain over a 48 hour period during Florence. At times the rain was fairly heavy. We watched deer out in the plots at all hours.That isn't the only time I've witnessed that. I've watched it happen countless times since we built our home in 1986.

IME, a light rain during the rut actually stimulates buck movement.

I will say that a short, heavy rain even seems to send deer from the plots and into cover, but that usually only happens during severe storms and for short periods.

Deer behavior in the rain may differ in other regions, I don't live/hunt everywhere so I can't say one way or the other about deer behavior in other places. But where I live, and where I hunt, rain makes no difference to the deer.
 
Being retired, I either pick a better day to hunt or go out after the rain. Deer tend not to move that good during a rain so I don't feel like I'm missing much. And while I have Luminol for blood trailing, I prefer not to have to use it. I do make an exception right around the rut since the bucks are probably going to be on the move anyway. Invest in some decent rain gear, a tree umbrella, etc and just try to stay as dry as possible.
 
I spent 11hours in the saddle on Saturday. It rained all day, I was soaked, and actually at about 3PM started to shiver so bad I thought how stupid I am. During the entire day, I saw 10 doe at various times slipping thru the field, well out of bow range. Nothing in the woods, I'm pretty positive that it's because the rain was so loud in the canopy. It was almost deafening at times. I don't think the deer would feel safe traveling in such noise. The only reason I stayed was it was my first saddle hunt, and I wasn't going to be deprived. Experience in saddle was great, but misery in rain was horrible.
 
Allegheny Tom said:
We often talk about how deer behavior is different from region to region so take this for what it's worth. I've whitetail hunted in Pa for 48 years. In Ohio since 1995 and a few years in Iowa. IME, rain has little effect on deer movement. In addition to my anecdotal input on hunting experiences with rain, I also live right among a substantial deer herd. Our plots and cover surround our home and we can pretty much watch ~100 acres from our windows. We observe deer daily. Rain does not minimize deer movement in any of the places that I interact with deer. We had 6 inches of relentless rain over a 48 hour period during Florence. At times the rain was fairly heavy. We watched deer out in the plots at all hours.That isn't the only time I've witnessed that. I've watched it happen countless times since we built our home in 1986.

IME, a light rain during the rut actually stimulates buck movement.

I will say that a short, heavy rain even seems to send deer from the plots and into cover, but that usually only happens during severe storms and for short periods.

Deer behavior in the rain may differ in other regions, I don't live/hunt everywhere so I can't say one way or the other about deer behavior in other places. But where I live, and where I hunt, rain makes no difference to the deer.
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I get what your saying here. Most of my rain experiences are during the rut when you just don’t want to give up on the chance to get into a spot with minimal noise and reduced scent coming and going, before or after a rain. I kind of look at it this way. Like a turkey in windy or rainy conditions, if the need to feed is there, a deer may prefer an open area where it can use its sight as the number one defense vs that of a thicker area, where the noise of the rain takes away the ability to hear and sight is diminished from foliage moving. They will either hunker down or move to an open area, not to mention I’m sure they have less encounters with humans during these conditions.


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fbwguy said:
I spent 11hours in the saddle on Saturday. It rained all day, I was soaked, and actually at about 3PM started to shiver so bad I thought how stupid I am. During the entire day, I saw 10 doe at various times slipping thru the field, well out of bow range. Nothing in the woods, I'm pretty positive that it's because the rain was so loud in the canopy. It was almost deafening at times. I don't think the deer would feel safe traveling in such noise. The only reason I stayed was it was my first saddle hunt, and I wasn't going to be deprived. Experience in saddle was great, but misery in rain was horrible.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was thinking. You beat me to it


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