bronko22000

This has been a brutal primitive season here in PA. Temps I don't think have gotten above freezing with most days in the teens and nights in the single digits and less. And to make matters worse walking in the woods in some of my favorite haunts has showed zero tracks! I have no idea where these critters went. I've even checked patches of pines, low areas out of the wind, sunny sides of the mountain etc. Seems like the deer just vanished. Maybe they took a hint from the birds and all went south!!!!!!

Semisane

I feel for you Bronko. Down here in S.E. Louisiana we're having lows in the mid-20's and highs in the mid-40's, and that's too damn cold for this southern guy. I really don't know how you guys can put up with that white stuff.

GoexBlackhorn

Nobody I know likes extreme temps.
Heck, I can't stand summer temps above 90 anymore.

BarnesAddict

So much for global warming..........

No doubt its been an unusually cold start to winter for much of the country. The minus 18 stuff we've been getting is to darn cold for anything, but there are places colder yet.
I didn't need to hunt the late season, but this cold has caused the deer to yard up in areas where they haven't yarded up in years. I heard the same from a friend who did hunt the last days... no tracks.

The DNR is having a couple additional hunts for the area, actually 2 - 4 day hunts for any deer, any firearm, including archery. They want to take an additional 1,300 deer from part of the county. Sadly we're in an area with a specific strain of bTB and with the rate increased from a botched trial, now they have to thin the herd to attempt to fix their botched failure. The farm country will be hunted hard.

dbowling

Deer go where ever the food is this time of year, will travel 2-3 miles or more to get to cornfields etc..

bronko22000

Wow a real heat wave today. It got up to a whopping 26*. I was out for about 5 hours walking and only cut one old track. I would agree with you dbowling but there are no ag crops for at least 5 miles from where I hunt.

hunters_life

Mr. Bronkoski, I'm coming to PA for my summer vacation with you having 26*..We haven't seen double digits in a while now and with wind chill it's been way below zero. I don't mind the cold. Honestly I prefer what most people call cold to anything over 75* but this is getting ridiculous. May just carry my big ole butt to Australia for a few weeks.

Blackpowdersmoke

Bronko...

Yer preachin' to the choir Clem! I've only been out once and saw nothing after sitting in single digits for 2-1/2 hours. I have been seeing a few deer on my back yard most nights in the middle of the night (when I get up to pee) but they're gone before daybreak. I had 9 deer out on the yard last night before they moved on.

I have not seen any deer passing through my woods so I think they're going across the state line into NY before daybreak and bedding in a huge overgrown field that used to be a hay field when I was a kid. It's grown so thick now with Amur Honeysuckle (invasive specie) that it blocks the wind well and still gets a good bit of sun.

What sucks is my neighbor used to leave his corn standing until February before picking it, this year he decided to pick it in late November so now they have nothing to come to but stubble. I could almost always count on getting a deer in flintlock season because they would hit that standing corn hard.

The forecast locally is for extreme cold Friday and Saturday with daytime highs in the low singles and nights well below zero but it's supposed to break by Sunday with Monday's high in the 30's... deer will be moving! Good luck to you during the remainder of our season Bud!!

BPS

Game Stalker

I'm glad I invested in good hunting gear. I've paid my dues where being cold. No more! Put an end to that some time ago. Warm but glad to see these temps go when they do.

c-rad

We had a decent day on Saturday hunting. Had 18 guys killed 2. Biggest issue was the guns not going off. It was rough keeping the pan dry. It was nice having deer out on every push except 1.