Mike: I‘ve heard that bucks move better when the barometer is moving, either rising or falling. Is that right?—Joe from Indiana Joe: For decades, biologists have been trying to pattern deer activity as related to changes in barometric pressure. To date, nobody has been able to pin it down. Dr. Grant Woods, one of the top whitetail scientists in America, puts it this way: “I’m confident that deer move before and after significant changes in weather. However, since such changes can’t be predicted more than a few days in advance, there’s no way to plan hunting dates weeks ahead of time.  After years of trying to find a pattern, the best I can offer is hunt when you can!” My personal [...]

Mark Drury and I compared notes again and came up with our 5th annual prediction of the best days to shoot a monster in the 2013 rut. Any year, the first week of November, when bucks rub and scrape like fiends and troll for the first receptive does, is a great time to hunt for a big deer. If you take off this week, you ought to hunt all day every day, because you never know when you might see a shooter. But with the moon new and dark this November 3 and then waxing crescent, bucks should be most active at daylight. Get on stand extra early and hunt the mornings extra hard. The first week of November “will [...]