Good golly its cold
 

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!!!!!!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Sounds like that farmer wisened up BPS.

muzzy season begins here in ohio on sat the 6 of jan friday nite lows -3 deg & saturday hi is 5 nothing is going to move unless it is pushed .will be in geauga county hopefully the amish will push but somehow i don't see alot of people heading out on saturday. monday going to be 35 deg more likely deer will be out feeding & tuesday hi's are 40 deg better yet. but not alot of hunters will be out on mon & tuesday.

Monday it's supposed to be in the 30s. Yaaay!!! Right now as I type this it is a cozy 3*!

It was so cold in northern Wisconsin at the range my first shot cracked the paper target in half.

JW.

-24°F

If they are using FFFF for priming, have them drop down to FFF or even FF...I typically reprime every 30 minutes or so when raining or very damp conditions...

I use FFF usually. It was just bad conditions. High winds and snow. When using FF do you get a lot of misfires?

Temps got close to or just above freezing and tracks started appearing everywhere. Nothing in them yet that I've seen! Hopefully this afternoon. Next two days is supposed to be raining.

Hey Bronko, I have a good recipe for Track Stew if you want it.

I think my season is over. I was sneaking down an old snow covered strip mine road and stepped on some ice under the snow. One second I was scanning the woods on either side of me and the next I was looking at the tree tops. I came down pretty hard on my back and smacked my head on the frozen ground My back is really hurting right now. And to make matters worse I plugged my bore with snow and put a crack in my custom curly maple stock opposite the lock from the top down through the lock retaining screw. About 2" long. :rant:

That sucks. Heal fast.

Man Bronko, that sucks big time.

I feel your pain. Really, I feel your pain.

On December 8th. we had one of those very rare snow days here in S.E. Louisiana. I arrived at the lease around 10 p.m. on the 7th., just as it was starting to mist light rain with a mix of snow. Hit the bunk in my little hooch with the electric heater going. Up at 5 a.m., I peek out the door to five inches of snow over a thin layer of ice covering everything, including my truck.

I'd planned to drive to another section of the lease and sit in a box stand, so decided to start the truck and let it warm up while I dressed and made some coffee. Slipped on sweat pants and a sweat shirt and, with Crocks on my feet headed to the truck (which was parked on a slight grade). Three steps off the deck of my hooch with my keys in my right hand I came to the incline and did exactly the kind of instant flop you described. There was no "OH crap I'm falling" - just SPLAT.

I landed on my right elbow, which jammed my humerus into the shoulder joint. I really though I'd broken that arm - excruciating pain with no ability to move the arm at all. I lay there in the snow with tears in my eyes trying to stand up, but could not get my act together. One other guy was there that morning in a small camper about 100 yards across the campground. I thought about pressing the panic button on my key fob to get his attention, but did not know where the keys were (it turns out they were still in my right hand, I just couldn't feel them).

I was finally able to roll to my left side, get that arm under me and stand up.

Now here's the dumb thing. The radio said the road home was closed, so I strapped my right arm to my chest and an hour later headed to one of the box stands. Climbed into that sucker with just my left arm and sat in it all day - in pain and without seeing a deer. I'm not sure I could have made a left armed shot anyway. The day ended with beautiful sunset. The picture below is looking out of the box toward a small 1/3 acre food plot I'd watched all day. You don't see a scene like that very often down this way.

X-Rays the next day showed no breaks, cracks or chips. Doc says give it time and if it doesn't start to improve he will do an MRI to see if there's a tear in the joint. As of today I have almost full motion of the shoulder with only moderate pain, but it's weak. At least I can lift a fork and a glass of Scotch.

Last week my spit patches were freezing on the muzzle at 10 below...today it was 50+.

We went from single digits last week to 65 degrees yesterday. This morning at 4am it felt tropical with felt humidity. I had seven deer laying in my yard that jumped up on my way out to work. Tomorrow back in the 30's which still feels warm compared to those single digits. We dont get that too often here in my part of Va.

Well thankfully my back feels pretty good. Praise God.
As for the temps. Today it is in the low 60s and feels downright balmy. But not for long. Tomorrow the high will be 31 and tomorrow night 6! Talk about a roller coaster ride eh?

That's happy news on the back Bronko.

My shoulder is improving slowly also. But the doc says it may be a few months for full recovery.

I'm hankering to do some paper punching with two muzzleloaders I acquired over the last year but have yet to shoot. But I doubt my shoulder would be able to take more than one shot right now, so I have time to wait for better weather. For the first time in years, after the fall injury, I hunted with my 25-06. I just wasn't up to loading frontstuffers. I lucked out with an 8-point and a 6 point and was awfully glad they were one-shot kills. Just before pulling the trigger I thought "damn, this is going to hurt". :D

We used to get a group of guys together every year for flintlock season. Haven't done that in 3-4 years now. Seems like everyone's too busy or has something else going on. I miss that, we used to have some good times. We would get together at lunchtime in my buddy's garage and have a good meal with crock pot dishes we prepared ahead of time.

The deer in my avatar is one I got from one of our drives some years back.

BPS

bronko and Semi...

JEEZUS!!! You Ol' farts need to take it easy! Seriously though, I'm glad you guys are doing OK albiet still in pain. I'm not far behind you both and I know that the ground gets harder each year you get older. I slipped on the ice carrying in an armload of wood a few years back and bruised my tailbone (thank God I didn't break it), I was in pain with that for several weeks!

BPS

Semi, I'm glad you weren't seriously hurt. I'm quite sure you are far ahead of me in muzzleloading, but CROCS in the snow? NO!NO!NO!NO! There is a reason we have 2 sets of tires for our cars. one set is just used in the winter when we have snow, so we will have better traction. Those 'snow' tires have a different rubber compound and a better tread pattern,(think mud). The down side to those tires is they wear much more rapidly in the summer, so we have to switch back & forth, spring & fall. We also have winter footwear, but that still doesn't protect us from all falls. We have to learn where & how to place our feet.
There is so much more I could talk about our different climates, but I'm sure I'm getting boring already.
The big thing is us old(er) guys have to take better care of ourselves so we can keep passing our smarts to the younger ones coming up.
Keep making good smoke, Paul

Heck Moosehunter, I was wearing those new SnoCrocks. :s2:

I just wasn't thinking, and put them on out of habit for a quick fifteen foot walk to the truck. Those Crocks are my camp shoes, but even I know better than to wear them when the campground turns to slick goose**** after a rain.

The soundtrack was "squeak - squeak- squeak - PLOP - ARGGG!".

Had a good year back in the fall. I got a nice big doe during archery in Oct. the ML season came in and another big doe. Then that same day after being really tired, I got my first wall hanger that night. For one reason or another I didn't do any real gun season! My club usually gets together the last week of the season for all sexes but this year the cold was really nasty. Single digits for this old man is way too much.

Still hoping the Virginia DF&G will come out with a primitive ML late season!!

DGIF...we have one the last two weeks of Dec. and first week of January. You can carry primitive or inline your choice!