Weather and Hunting

Weather and Hunting

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
I chatted with regular correspondent Rob Maxey about his preferences as it relates to weather and hunting. "Whether is huge for hunting especially if you look at statistics. There are years where there is a 6% success in years where there is a 30% success. So much of it is weather dependent. Animals have to move to get out of the weather, find shelter and get food. Sometimes it is easier to track them in the snow. The seasons are so short these days, with the specialized seasons that you have to draw for, a lot of it is just the luck of the draw in terms of what kind of weather you get. Disregarding comfort, do you experience more success in cold or warmer weather? Hmmm. I have had good hunts in both. Generally the colder the weather, the more the animals have to move. As long as it is not so cold that I can't move. Too much snow in a couple of my places means that I cannot hike the buttes. It's a double-edged sword in terms of how much whether you get. All of the duck hunting I do, the colder the better. I hunt on the rivers and it makes it nice that the rivers don't freeze and everything is focused right there. The nice thing about frozen weather duck hunting is that the birds metabolism goes up that they have to constantly feed. And a lot of the waters that are smaller are frozen up so it focuses the birds on the bigger water and it's moving. That's where the Columbia and the Willamette are really nice because it is a constant, open source of water and the birds have to keep moving because of the weather."
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