Game in the rain

[Caveman_Sam]

Hello!  I was in the woods day before yesterday and yesterday.  First day it was dry and off trails thee leaves were crunchy underfoot, i felt nosy and clumsy.   The second day it was raining.  The sound of the rain felt like a soft blanket surrounding me, muffling the sound of my movement.  I did not feel exposed or alien to the woods, much more part of it.  I also think the rain soaked the leaves underfoot so they did not crunch when stepped upon. 

Reflecting on these experiences I thought that hunting in the rain must be more successful/easier.  But as a completely inexperienced hunter, and the first generation of such in my family I do not know how game acts in the rain, and so cannot make in informed judgement on the matter.  Are they like cows? Do they sit down?  What do they do? When hunting in the rain do you have a better time of it?

[crooketarrow]

  Deer still go about there use'll movement. They move alittle more because of the lower light and cooler temps.  Light rain dos'nt bother them but a really  cold rain will make them hould up exspecially it there a hard wing with it. Just like a snow storm a rain front went the barmorer drops it makes the deer feed up to on comeing front. After a hard rain the deer feed up just because there hurry from not movring around feeding.
   Turkeys rain seams to effect them a tad more a light rain even makes them stand around a lot more tha deer. I have killed gobblers in the rain but if it's more than a miss I stay home.

   My granddad was a spring gobbler hunter and only a couple of his friends rival his ablity or his love for turkeys. He lived dreamed of gobblers 24-7-365.
  Your statment about how much easyer it was on wet ground. It made me think of so advice he gave me as a kid. It took me a life time to realized I've come to do it.
  HE TOLD ME
  WHEN YOU CAN BECOME PART OF THE WOODS RATHER THAN BE A INTRUDER IN THEM. THEN YOU CAN BECOME THE HUNTER YOU WANT TO BE.
  This just happened to me with out me realizing it did.
   Become a woodsmen you'll become a hunter.
  I turkey guided for 12 years and as soon as I had someone taging along in the woods I could tell there ablity and how far I could take them.

[lostarrow]

In my personal experience, if the weather is crappy and you don't want to be out in it,............. neither do the critters. Juust as a rain lets up, they start to move into the open . Espescially the birds. They can't fly as well with wet feathers ,so they try to get them dry quickly. That's hard to do in long grass and under dripping trees. Hunting seasons for me mean cold weather, so like crooketarrow was describing it is always a cold rain (with the exception of spring Turkey).Snow is a different story. Generally ,with bow hunting deer ,you let them come to you. Scout the area ,find the most likely spot and set up an ambush. Get there early,so you don't don't diturb the game. most guys hunt from a stand, so the crunchy leaves don't matter up there. it just makes it easier to here them coming. I hunt from the ground ,so after I choose my location ,I clear a spot on the ground so I'm not stepping on leaves at the critical moment, should I have to shift position. The sound you make will sometimes even attract deer ,as it sounds like a buck making a scrape. (Guessing). It's happened to me often enough to comment . The fresh earth also acts as a cover scent. I often have deer walk within 6 feet of me. If you do have to walk ,think like a deer. Watch them walk and imitate the pattern of sounds they make. Step..............step..........step ,stop. wait for a good minute while surveying your surroundings,and repeat. I also try to imitate the sounds that I've heard the deer make as they are moving. It's a locator call ,so they can keep track of each other. It's a very soft grunting sound. barely audible.Takes a long time to get anywhere,at first ,but with a little practice you will spot more game. Your greatest tool for hunting ,is being able to think like an animal. Observe ,learn and practice.

[Pat B]

A light rain makes for a good hunting day. IMO  It keeps the woods quiet, helps to hold your scent down and most animals don't mind a light rain. Heavy rain and high winds are a different story but if you're slipping through the woods you might be able to spot a bedded deer and slip up on it.

[JW_Halverson]

A light overnite rain puts me in the mood to be in the woods just because it muffles each step I take.  I can move more swiftly and silently....enough so that I need to consciously make an effort to move more with deliberation than speed.  Sudden movement draws the eyes of everything you would want to hunt, so it needs to be suppressed every bit as much as sound. 

Groundstalking on windy days can be a lot of fun because of how much movement and sound you can get away with.  With all the background motion, you own motion just blends into the background and lets you get away with quite a lot.  Especially with keen eyed turkeys.  You can't swing a shotgun on a turkey on a calm day, but if you got branches whipping around you can!

[Wolf Watcher]

My Opinion:  I think it depends upon the area you are hunting and your quarry!  I spent several years hunting the coast of Oregon for elk and blacktail deer.  The terrain there can be very steep and often with lots of heavy cover  I found blacktail deer to be very difficult to hunt as they tend not to have travel patterns and can hide like no other deer.  Often hunting the clear cuts a blacktail can hide all day without you being able to see him! Someone once told me that if every one in Oregon would line up on the ocean coast holding hands and walking thru the mountains to the Willamette Valley,  some of those blacktails would sneak thru!!  I found rain to be a big factor in my success with them.  Blacktails will hole up during a regular rain and are difficult to approach, but a heavy rain that drips down to the ground thru a tree's canape will cause them to get out of their beds.  I had better success hunting with my bow during those long, hard, and heavy rains.  Never did figure out how to stay dry and keeping the arrow fletchings dry was a chore.  I found that hunting coastal elk with my bow was much easier than trying to arrow an elk here in Wyoming.  If you can catch a herd of coastal elk in moving thru heavy cover, you can get right among them.  Most times you can smell and hear them and the rain seems to dampen your scent.  We have more snow than rain here in Wyoming and that is a different situation.  I always say, except when you are bugleing, that seeing elk first without being seen is 90% of success and the 10% is getting close enough to score a shot!