Raining...to hunt or not to hunt

During the fall, I spend more time on the internet looking at the weather than checking my email. Why? I am constantly evaluating if the precipitation forecast, wind direction, wind speed, cloud cover, and temperature will be appropriate for certain archery hunting stand locations. I can deal with and overcome any situation of wind direction, wind speed, cloud cover, and temperatures. What I cannot deal with or rather, what I will not deal with is rain. Now I know a number of waterfowl hunters reading this blog are laughing, but as an avid archer rain is not good.

It is not that I melt when I get wet. I could setup a ground blind or purchase a tree umbrella. There are very good products on the market to shelter you from the elements. As every ethical archer strives for a clean, efficient lethal shot, every archer should also be concerned with the ultimate recovery of the game. This is where I have determined over the years that I cannot deal with rain. Sometimes just a split second allows the deer to “jump the string” or “take a step”, which causes the 310+ fps arrow to miss the perfect shot. These imperfect shots, and even perfect shots for that matter, can allow a deer to travel well out of sight and require an archer to follow the trail of the deer. Generally, you need to allow that ever precious commodity of time to pass to allow the deer to bed down and expire. In the rain, time is not something you have. Every minute of waiting is another minute allowed to the rain to wash away the trail. If you cannot track and recover your game, then why would you shoot? That is one of the most common ethical question many hunters have to answer, whether they realize it or not.

In a light drizzle, I will hunt with the objective of harvesting a whitetail. In 2004, I used the

light rain to help cover my approach into the woods, the setup of my tree stand, and finally the cover of any movement or noise when the deer approached. This strategy allowed me to watch a 10 pointers walk directly under my stand. My arrow traveled exactly 9 feet and the buck traveled 45 yards. As you can see from the picture, it was still a light drizzle when I took pictures in the field.

In steady average rain, I will do my best to get out, more for scouting than harvesting. This year the second weekend of MN firearm season was raining throughout the morning. I woke up at 3 AM, loaded up my truck and headed up north. I took my Ameristep Brickhouse Ground blind and Browning 7mm Medallion A-Bolt to the same ridge that my friend Shawn took a beautiful 10 pointer one week earlier. Sitting through the early morning rain was comfortable in the blind, but unproductive. It was apparent that not many deer were moving as very few shots were heard in my audible range. Had a deer appeared during the early steady rain, I would have probably just taken a picture. However, as the morning went on, the rain let up to a light drizzle. This was exactly what I wanted, wet leaves, rain dripping from trees, and a slight breeze. This was PERFECT conditions to still hunt. I took this opportunity to slowly move through the thickets and bedding areas. My steps were quiet, any noises were covered, and my movement was blended with the brush movement caused by the wind. Unfortunately, the whitetails were nowhere to be found. This was the ending of my firearm season in Minnesota. The following weekend was opening day of Wisconsin firearm season and I would be joining fellow Block Outdoors Team member Dan Block and our family and friends at our WI hunting cabin.

Finally, the last type of rain condition is a heavy rain. This is when I stop checking the weather and start checking my email J. This is true when archery hunting and firearm hunting.

These are my general rules with rain. Hunt whenever possible to successfully harvest and recover a whitetail. If either cannot be done, just scout or update your blogs.