The Best of the Bad Day Deer-Hunting Strategies
Day 4: How Hot Weather and Pressure Affect Your Deer Hunting
 Most hunters believe deer don't like to move in hot weather. But, because I live in Alabama where the weather remains warm much of hunting season (this last week in December, 2010, the temperature is in the 60s), I won't get to hunt often if I wait to hunt only in cool weather. Here are some tips for hot-weather hunting:
* deer seem to move best early and late;
* the hotter the weather, the more deer will use salt licks, either natural or man-made;
* you'll find deer on the edges of creeks, sloughs or ponds during drought conditions;
* you'll have more success if you use camo netting instead of insect repellant to keep off the bugs and keep the deer from smelling you.
 Deer-Hunting Pressure:
In most areas of the country, hunting pressure affects deer movement, especially older-age-class buck movement, more than any other factor. If you hunt in places with high levels of hunting pressure, learn the general movement patterns of deer to use hunting pressure to drive deer toward you instead of away from you. I consider my GPS (global positioning system) the most critical hunting aid for hunting in high-pressure areas. Using a GPS receiver to navigate, you can get deep in the woods well before daylight and to the backside of the regions where the hunters will come into the woods.  Also, if a hunter walks into your region and fouls it up with human odor, you can use your GPS receiver to move quickly to another hunting site by the shortest route. Too, the GPS receiver will allow you to hunt those last 2 minutes of legal shooting time when most other hunters leave the woods, because the receiver will help you navigate through the woods after dark.
Tomorrow: Hunt When There Is No Deer Sign
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