We have hunted and lived in the same places. Grew up in N Mi and was in NY in the army. Sometimes miss the snow believe it or not. BlessingsOkay, I'm a yankee born and bred. I moved here to sunny Tenasi over 20 years ago, but I had already put in about 40 years of hunting in the snowy north.
Deer won't change their pattern much for a little snow. But when it gets chest deep on them they are likely to stay undercover in the thickets and swamps.
A foot or a foot and half of snow is just "a little snow". Two feet of it is "some snow". Get three feet or more and then you can talk about real snow.
In the Adirondack Mountains of New York I have seen snow drifts so high/deep that they covered the utility lines. Up there the deer go in to "yards" for the winter. This usually is a hemlock swamp. They wander the frozen swamp, half starve eating what tree buds they can reach, and make deep, packed down trails so the snow on the sides of their trails is sometimes higher than their heads.
I lived there in upstate New York and also in Michigan. I was out there, on snowshoes, when it was 20*F below zero! I had enough! That's why I moved to Tenasi when I retired.
I think you are maybe the only one that understood my question, I probably didn't word it like I should have.By what i seen this year on the earlier snow when had and the pattern the deer have used all year and when it snow they did not change there patterns. This is my first year really studying the deer in the snow most of the time when it snows I stay in but this year I made my self get out and scout and hunt at the same time and that's my opinion
Do you think southern deer play by the same rules since we rarely get any snow much less the type of snowfall you referencedOkay, I'm a yankee born and bred. I moved here to sunny Tenasi over 20 years ago, but I had already put in about 40 years of hunting in the snowy north.
Deer won't change their pattern much for a little snow. But when it gets chest deep on them they are likely to stay undercover in the thickets and swamps.
A foot or a foot and half of snow is just "a little snow". Two feet of it is "some snow". Get three feet or more and then you can talk about real snow.
In the Adirondack Mountains of New York I have seen snow drifts so high/deep that they covered the utility lines. Up there the deer go in to "yards" for the winter. This usually is a hemlock swamp. They wander the frozen swamp, half starve eating what tree buds they can reach, and make deep, packed down trails so the snow on the sides of their trails is sometimes higher than their heads.
I lived there in upstate New York and also in Michigan. I was out there, on snowshoes, when it was 20*F below zero! I had enough! That's why I moved to Tenasi when I retired.
This is interesting.My cell cameras have shown either a major slow down in deer movement over that last 3 days of snow or the deer shifted their patterns on my place because of the snow. Pictures don't lie
It isn't the amount of snow we have that will change their patterns. It is the extremely cold temps, which will have them holding close to any type of growth that blocks wind and holds a little heat. In single-digit temps, pine and cedar thickets will draw a lot of attention.Does deer travel change in snowfall? Been scouting today and wondered if I was wasting time. Wasn't scouting for buck sign.
Years ago, I worked on a big hunt camp in the Adirondack Mountains. I kept having to reevaluate how I was looking at the property in summer because the hunters showed me pictures of "opening weekend of gun season" and it was often a major winter wonderland, with deep snow. Designing habitat for summer production is very different than designing habitat for hunting when deep snow is on the ground.In the Adirondack Mountains of New York I have seen snow drifts so high/deep that they covered the utility lines.
Yeah the beds are like neon signs right now. We found 4 yesterday. All under low hanging cedar trees on the edge of the thickets with long ranges of visibility.This is a great time to find sets of tracks and just walk them. If you do that enough, you get a sense for how deer travel. It's also a good time to find beds - they are easy to find in the snow. I put more emphasis on WHY they bed in those locations than the locations themselves.
Spot on - The last time it snowed several weeks ago, I found a few with binoculars. All were just over the crest of ridges and points facing south. They had the thick cover up top, northerly wind over their backs and facing S where they could let the sun hit them to stay warm. Open hardwoods in the direction they were facing. They were tucked just inside the thick cover, mostly just in there a few steps.Yeah the beds are like neon signs right now. We found 4 yesterday. All under low hanging cedar trees on the edge of the thickets with long ranges of visibility.