HOW TO HUNT DEER IN A SNOWSTORM
Hear No Evil -- See No Evil
Editor’s
Note: A grizzled hunter in the Berkshire Mountains of
New England once asked the young Gerry Bethge, now editor
of "Salt Water Sportsman", and past editor
of "Outdoor Life Magazine" and Harris Publications,
"Boy, when will you find the best conditions to
hunt whitetails?" With a puzzled look on his face,
young Bethge strained to come up with an answer that
would make him sound like a knowledgeable woodsman.
As he said, "during the first few moments of daylight,"
he knew he'd guessed the right answer. "That's
a good time to hunt," the old man agreed. "But
during a snowstorm is the best time to hunt." Because
Bethge's parents had forbidden him to go out whenever
the wind howled and the snow fell heavily, he asked,
"Why do snowstorms provide the best hunting conditions?"
Today, I'll share with you what the old grizzled hunter
taught Bethge how snow enables you to become a better
deer hunter.
A grizzled hunter in the Berkshire Mountains of New
England once asked the young Gerry Bethge, "boy,
when will you find the best conditions to hunt whitetails?"
With a puzzled look on his face, young Bethge strained
to come up
with an answer that would make him sound like a knowledgeable
woodsman. As he said, "during the first few moments
of daylight," he knew he'd guessed the right answer.
"That's a good time to hunt," the old man
agreed. "But during a snowstorm is the best time
to hunt." Because Bethge's parents had forbidden
him to go out whenever the wind howled and the snow
fell heavily, he asked, "Why do snowstorms provide
the best hunting conditions?" The old man, full
of wisdom, smiled and answered, "When you hunt
in a snowstorm, the deer can't hear you or see you.
You can walk right up on them without spooking them."
Many years later, after the boy had grown into a man,
the advice of the old hunter produced one of the greatest
days of hunting that Bethge ever had experienced when
he hunted the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York
with Ralph Stuart, an editor at "Outdoor Life Magazine".
"We just barely made our way to camp before a snowstorm
blew in from the northeast," Bethge remembered.
"The snow fell heavily as we unloaded our gear
and got to our camp." The next morning when the
two hunters woke up, they saw snow had covered the trees.
Fourteen inches of white powder lay on the ground. The
wind howled, and the snow continued to fall.
This type of weather would have made hunting tough
at best. But since
the two hunters carried muzzleloaders, they also worried
their powder might get wet. At 10:00 a.m., they decided
to brave the elements and go into the storm to search
for deer. Since both had taken a day off work, not hunting
seemed almost sacrilegious, even if the weather conditions
did not favor their hunt. I had tramped through the
woods in the blowing snow only about 15 minutes when
I walked up on six bedded deer about 20 yards away,"
Bethge recalled. "We had doe tags for the muzzleloading
season and wanted to take some meat for camp. I brought
the rifle to my shoulder and sighted-in on the big doe
standing by the bedded herd." At the report of
the rifle, the standing deer did not go down nor did
the loud crack alarm the bedded deer. The thickly falling
snow and howling wind caused Bethge to misjudge his
shot. But because the wind and snow blew so fiercely,
the deer couldn't tell that the loud boom they had heard
had come from the firing of a rifle.
"I reloaded my rifle," Bethge said. "When
I rammed the bullet home, the deer spotted me and broke
into a run." As Bethge pursued the herd's tracks,
deer got up all along the trail he followed. "I
couldn't believe how many deer I saw," Bethge reported
later. "The deer would run, and I'd take a shot.
In the distance, I could hear Ralph firing too. By day's
end, I had spotted more deer than I'd ever seen in my
life. But I also had missed six deer. Although Ralph
had shot almost as regularly as I had, he, too, had
failed to connect. On the walk back to camp, I remembered
the words I'd heard so many years before, 'always hunt
in a snowstorm because
the deer can't see you or hear you, and you can sneak
right up on them.'" In two days of hunting, Bethge
and Stuart saw a total of 35 deer. Large patches of
mountain laurel grow in the Catskills. In these thick-cover
areas, the deer can bed down and remain unseen by hunters.
However, when a heavy snowfall comes, much of the laurel
breaks down. Then hunters can move through the laurel
because the snow and the wind help muffle the sound
of their breaking limbs as they walk and prevent the
sound from traveling.
"We could walk right up on the deer in the snowstorm,
because they were much easier to see," Bethge emphasized.
"Against a white background, a brown deer stood
out like a sore thumb. We also could track them much
easier. We knew we would find only fresh tracks in the
snowstorm because with the rapidly falling snow any
tracks left by the deer filled up quickly. So when we
found a fresh track, we could walk it until we jumped
the deer."
TOMORROW: HUNT THE CALM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STORM
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