Tips for hunting in winter weather

AccuWeather

There are benefits and drawbacks to hunting in cold, snowy conditions. AccuWeather's Dave Dombek breaks down some of his best tips for your hunting plans.

Transcript

00:00Hunting this time of year can bring some weather challenges for the bitter cold to the snow.

00:06But in some cases, winter weather works to a hunter's advantage.

00:11AccuWeather meteorologist and regional expert Dave Dombak joins us now with more.

00:17Dave, what are the benefits of hunting with snow on your side or snow on the ground as

00:23we're seeing in the Northeast?

00:26That's a very good question.

00:28Think about this.

00:29You have a deer, which is basically a brown-colored animal, and if there's no snow on the ground,

00:35this time of the year everything is kind of dead and brown.

00:38The ground is pretty much some kind of a brown color.

00:42Deer tend to blend in and it's very tough to see them in certain situations with the

00:48background.

00:49But when you have snow, a deer will really stand out much.

00:53It's like a night and day difference.

00:55Also, you could track the deer.

00:56You could see the deer's tracks in fresh snow.

01:00And the other thing, too, is if you happen to get a deer, whether it's with a bow and

01:06arrow or with rifle, and you did shoot at a deer, it's much, much easier to track that

01:12deer and to find that deer and to retrieve it.

01:16Red blood shows up very well in snow.

01:19So it's very unlikely that you would lose that deer and not be able to find it.

01:25Dave, the wind often certainly contributes to the acuity of the real field temperature

01:28among many other variables.

01:30But how does that impact hunting conditions?

01:33Yeah, good question.

01:34Well, certainly from a human standpoint, if you're out in the woods and it's windy, it

01:40just makes you feel more uncomfortable in a cold situation, obviously.

01:45That's the effect on hunters, on people.

01:48What we found over time is deer tend to get a little nervous, a little more antsy when

01:54there is a lot of wind, so they tend to move more.

01:58Now, obviously then it also plays into the whole scent situation.

02:02So when, you know, deer have a very good sense of smell, and so if the wind is blowing, prevailing

02:09in one particular direction, you might want to consider that, where you want to post,

02:15where you want to stand for your hunting, so you're not, you know, in a case where the

02:22deer is going to be downwind of you catching your scent.

02:25When it's dead calm or very light winds, your scent will tend to more go drift upward rather

02:30than move in one direction or the other.

02:33But yeah, that's definitely, the wind definitely comes into play during hunting.

02:39That's a great tip.

02:40Really quick, are there any other tips that you can maybe give hunters to stay safe in

02:47the cold and the snow?

02:48Well, certainly a lot of the cold weather things are just common sense.

02:52Dress in layers, hat, gloves, good pair of boots, warm socks and so forth, just dress

02:58in layers and don't push it.

03:00If you're too cold, you've got to move, you've got to do what you've got to do.

03:04And if I had to pick my absolute worst case scenario, the two worst weathers, types of

03:10weather to be out in during hunting, one would be a driving, soaking rainstorm.

03:16It's miserable unless you're in a stand that's enclosed or has a roof on it.

03:20It's just going to be miserable.

03:21The other one is dense fog.

03:23It's just, you can't see anything and you might as well just hang it up and go hunting

03:28another day.

03:29All right.

03:30Good advice there.

03:31I can imagine.

03:32That first one sounds miserable, so I agree with you.

03:35Yeah.

03:36Can't argue with any of that.

03:37Dave Dombek, AccuWeather meteorologist, long-term forecaster here at AccuWeather and a regional

03:41expert.

03:42Dave, you're one of the best.

03:43You've been here for a long time.

03:44We appreciate your advice and expertise.

03:45Thank you, Dave.

03:46You betcha.

03:47Take care.

03:48All right.

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