Never hunt angry

If you trust nothing else, remember this: hunting success can always get worse. Success depends, in large part on wind, weather conditions, hunting pressure and hunter skills. It's easy to control hunting pressure in some areas, but other people often must hunt on federal or state land. Wherever we hunt, we cannot change the wind or weather conditions.

I had to conquer anger, wait for the wind to die, and in walks this nice 8-point.

So our hunts may have been planned for a week and the weather doesn't cooperate. We spit and sputter, gripe and complain, and then we go out and hunt, and act madder than a hornet.

That can be a very big mistake. And it’s one we all have made in the past.

Hunting angry doesn't help a thing. If anything, being mad about something we can't control just messes up our hunting judgment. It makes us make even more and often costlier mistakes.

We just goof up. We get upset, and that makes us feel worse, and we begin to fidget. We move around, make the occasional noise, and any deer that may have come to us might see a movement and be long gone.

Som why get mad? I've hunted deer for too long, and over more than five decades, have become somewhat philosophical about bad weather. Learn to take the good with the bad, and think happy thoughts rather than about how angry you are. That line of thinking only makes us madder, and that only increases our problems.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Instead of focusing on the things  we can't control, change your thoughts and think about those things that can be changed.

Change those things that can be fixed, and don’t sweat the small stuff.

Climb a tree, if need be, and set in an elevated coop and do whatever can be done to beat the wind. Or ... do what some hunters do and that is to go home and take a nap. There is always tomorrow for many hunters.

Taking the good with the bad doesn't always mean that a bad day can't turn productive. I've sat out, and had the wind ripping leaves off the trees, and about 30 minutes before shooting time ends, the wind gusts taper off and die away to nothing. It then becomes whisper quiet, so quiet you are soon wishing for a soft breeze.

If some light rain falls when the wind dies, there can be some very good deer movements. It seems as if the deer are happy to see the falling rain.

Deer caution often is more likely when they move after a strong wind and rain storm. Hunters must learn to keep their cool,
and to take the weather conditions as they come even though we seem to be have more bad weather in the early season than ever before. Is this part of the global warming trend. If so, deer and hunters will soon get used to it.

Last-minute weather changes have paid off for me more times than I can remember. Heading in to the house, and skipping the evening hunt, often means hunters quite possibly will miss the finest 30 minutes of the day as the wind and rain dies.

The weather often changes in that 30 minutes after sundown. Wait for it.

It's far better to consider the weather, whether good or bad, as part of the deer-hunting experience. Such last-minute weather changes don't happen often enough that we can plan around them, but they can pay off often enough that they should be one more trick in our deer-hunting repertoire.

It's an awesome feeling when we've rode out the bad weather, and than see the last-minute change that we had hoped for. We no longer are mad at the weather, and things start looking up. When the bad weather suddenly changes, and the good hunting weather moves in and the deer start to move, we feel blessed as we sit in a ground blind or tree stand.

Look up at the sky, nod and  say "thanks," and get ready for a nice buck to step out of heavy cover and be within easy bow range. Just remember this advice as long as you hunt deer: it never pays to hunt angry.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors