Favorite and Least Favorite Deer Hunting Weather?

Curious what sort of weather people like best or hate for getting deer up and moving? Any other conditions like moon phase etc that you pay attention to? Just curious, as two of my least favorite conditions are rain and wind, but I just saw 10 deer wandering around an hour ago by my office with a decent amount of rain coming down and fairly windy too. Also, with the harvest moon happening curious what your thoughts are there? IMO it depends on the overnight weather, but I seem to correlate a full moon, with later daytime movement like midday or early afternoon.

I love hunting in a light rain light wind situation and or light snow or directly after a light snow the night prior. I dont like hunting in warmth or heavy wet snow.

Bearcat89 wrote:

I love hunting in a light rain light wind situation and or light snow or directly after a light snow the night prior. I dont like hunting in warmth or heavy wet snow.

Warm weather sucks. Makes me open all of the windows in my stand…

I won’t hunt in rain. Depends on the wind too, pretty dangerous in the north woods when the wind is strong. I’ve left my stand several times due to the wind.

Hate 20 below days, prefer about 20 above. Clouds over sunshine.

Overcast and misty (not rainy), 30s to 40s for temp and light & variable wind. Although I don’t mind a little breeze as long as its favorable; it helps cover up stand noise and masks movement amongst the limbs.

Tough to beat a light dusting or an inch or two of snow. I like a decent breeze, but once it starts ripping they stop moving and wait it out. Ideally a cold front this time of year is a good thing, and I am really looking forward to the next couple weeks before gun season!

Love the days following a good snowfall! I hunt the big, big woods and with such low deer densities I need to find the pockets of deer before I feel confident I can get one. I’m primarily a ground hunter so any conditions that favor stalking/still-hunting are what I prefer. Strong winds and heavy rains are about all that keep me out of the woods.

DeRangedFishinguy wrote:

Love the days following a good snowfall! I hunt the big, big woods and with such low deer densities I need to find the pockets of deer before I feel confident I can get one. I’m primarily a ground hunter so any conditions that favor stalking/still-hunting are what I prefer. Strong winds and heavy rains are about all that keep me out of the woods.

I am also a ground hunter. And have been teaching my son the same

Anything between about 20 and 45 degrees is fine. Fresh snow is helpful. Heavy rain or high winds are a deal breaker. Warm temps suck because it limits daytime deer movement and spoils meat quicker.

I hunt from an open air ladder stand most of the season that’s about 20 feet high so I’m fairly exposed to the elements. I prefer the height for seeing and hearing better, and a longer shot if necessary.

Rain especially when you get caught in a down pour . Makes it really hard to recover animals if not impossible.

Every single day I can get out.

I don’t really like bow hunting if it’s blowing 30. But otherwise every weather condition offers another strategy. I cherish every minute I’m in the woods.

Pailofperch wrote:

Every single day I can get out.

I don’t really like bow hunting if it’s blowing 30. But otherwise every weather condition offers another strategy. I cherish every minute I’m in the woods.

This^^^

Anytime you can be in the stand is a good day.

Timing is more important to me than anything else though.

I’d rather be in a stand on Halloween with 70 degrees and sun than October 15th with 2″ of snow and 30° temps.

Considering deer pee and poop every 35minutes to a hour AND they dont relieve themselves while lying down- I really don’t care so much about the weather , but rather where and how I hunt. If it’s windy, stay deeper in the woods or set up where field is wind blocked. Raining or heavy snow, sneak in closer to bedding areas. Over cast and drizzle – sit all day.

Do not like strong winds, or heavy rain or snow. I prefer to not be out in 65 above or less that 20 degree temps.

With the full moon, I have heard that the deer feed during the night. So less daytime movement. Not sure it is true but make sense to me.

Light snow accompanying a cold front has to be the best by far. I don’t hunt much when it’s above 50 degrees, mainly because coaching and working over the years hasn’t allowed me to be in a tree early in any season

I like those crisp still mornings when I can hear a shrew fart. No deer can sneak up on me so I don’t need to pivot my eyes as much. And there’s lots of excitement hearing new noises begin and figuring them out. Too many squirrels gets old though.

I hate hunting in a rain. Probably just the fact I hate being wet. I also dont like hunting during the full moon. especially during the muzzleloader season. To me it seems like when there is a full moon the deer often move to feeding areas well after legal shooting and are back into their bedding areas well before legal shooting times. I believe the full moon just makes it easier for them to feed well easier after the normal prime time. For me Muzzleloader hunting is a more laidback hunting season. We normally only hunt the last few Hours of the day. It just seems like during that season the deer typically only move the last few hours of the day. Its all about hunting the remaining food source that time of the year. With the season being 16 days its likely that you end up with a full moon for some part of it each season.

John Rasmussen wrote:

With the full moon, I have heard that the deer feed during the night. So less daytime movement. Not sure it is true but make sense to me.

That has been my experience that with a full moon daytime activity drops dramatically.
Always choose the right stand position for the wind conditions, keep quiet and pay attention.

John Rasmussen wrote:

With the full moon, I have heard that the deer feed during the night. So less daytime movement. Not sure it is true but make sense to me.

I think it’s less movement during what we typically think of as primetime, first and last hour or two of the day. In my experience if you are hunting near a full moon AND it’s not been cloudy at night, you are better off focusing your hunt on midday. As Randy stated they don’t just sleep for 8-12 hours during the day, if they’ve been up all night feeding they may bed down for a good portion of the morning, but they will be up again feeding at some point during the day.

suzuki wrote:

I like those crisp still mornings when I can hear a shrew fart. No deer can sneak up on me

That’s one of the reasons I hunt in an open-air stand. My Father sits in a Stump Stand with plexiglass sliding windows and he can’t hear nearly as much as I can because of the enclosure. I can hear a pin drop on a quiet morning sometimes…and my left is partially damaged from shooting firearms.

If there is anything I’ve learned in all my experience hunting deer, it’s that deer care very little about the weather. Unless we are talking a bad lightning storm, tornadoes, etc. The deer are going to be doing deer things. I’ve had just as many hot 75+ degree days that the deer were moving as much as they ever have been at 10am as not. I’ve had snowy days that I didn’t see hardly a squirrel. I’m willing to bet that if you add it up, there is not a statistical weather front besides dangerous weather that effects deer. Not heat, cold, snow, rain, or wind. There are numerous GPS collar tracker studies that say the same thing.

There is only one thing I pay attention to, and that is wind direction. Nothing else matters. That said, I do like snow, the more the merrier. I like cold, quiet, and it’s way easier to track deer in snow, and way easier to haul them back on a sled towed by a snowmobile.

My shootin iron dictates my limits.

Older Remington 30-06 has a Mauser action; must be dissimilar metals as the action “freezes” below zero degrees. My brother was stationed in Alaska in the 60’s and bought it for moose hunting. I replaced the old Redfield scope with a Leopold 3×9 and have used it for 30 years “as is” for sentimental reasons.