There are benefits and drawbacks to hunting in cold, snowy conditions. AccuWeather's Dave Dombek breaks down some of his best tips for your hunting plans.
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00:00Hunting this time of year can bring some weather challenges for the bitter cold to the snow.
00:06But in some cases, winter weather works to a hunter's advantage.
00:11AccuWeather meteorologist and regional expert Dave Dombak joins us now with more.
00:17Dave, what are the benefits of hunting with snow on your side or snow on the ground as
00:23we're seeing in the Northeast?
00:26That's a very good question.
00:28Think about this.
00:29You have a deer, which is basically a brown-colored animal, and if there's no snow on the ground,
00:35this time of the year everything is kind of dead and brown.
00:38The ground is pretty much some kind of a brown color.
00:42Deer tend to blend in and it's very tough to see them in certain situations with the
00:48background.
00:49But when you have snow, a deer will really stand out much.
00:53It's like a night and day difference.
00:55Also, you could track the deer.
00:56You could see the deer's tracks in fresh snow.
01:00And the other thing, too, is if you happen to get a deer, whether it's with a bow and
01:06arrow or with rifle, and you did shoot at a deer, it's much, much easier to track that
01:12deer and to find that deer and to retrieve it.
01:16Red blood shows up very well in snow.
01:19So it's very unlikely that you would lose that deer and not be able to find it.
01:25Dave, the wind often certainly contributes to the acuity of the real field temperature
01:28among many other variables.
01:30But how does that impact hunting conditions?
01:33Yeah, good question.
01:34Well, certainly from a human standpoint, if you're out in the woods and it's windy, it
01:40just makes you feel more uncomfortable in a cold situation, obviously.
01:45That's the effect on hunters, on people.
01:48What we found over time is deer tend to get a little nervous, a little more antsy when
01:54there is a lot of wind, so they tend to move more.
01:58Now, obviously then it also plays into the whole scent situation.
02:02So when, you know, deer have a very good sense of smell, and so if the wind is blowing, prevailing
02:09in one particular direction, you might want to consider that, where you want to post,
02:15where you want to stand for your hunting, so you're not, you know, in a case where the
02:22deer is going to be downwind of you catching your scent.
02:25When it's dead calm or very light winds, your scent will tend to more go drift upward rather
02:30than move in one direction or the other.
02:33But yeah, that's definitely, the wind definitely comes into play during hunting.
02:39That's a great tip.
02:40Really quick, are there any other tips that you can maybe give hunters to stay safe in
02:47the cold and the snow?
02:48Well, certainly a lot of the cold weather things are just common sense.
02:52Dress in layers, hat, gloves, good pair of boots, warm socks and so forth, just dress
02:58in layers and don't push it.
03:00If you're too cold, you've got to move, you've got to do what you've got to do.
03:04And if I had to pick my absolute worst case scenario, the two worst weathers, types of
03:10weather to be out in during hunting, one would be a driving, soaking rainstorm.
03:16It's miserable unless you're in a stand that's enclosed or has a roof on it.
03:20It's just going to be miserable.
03:21The other one is dense fog.
03:23It's just, you can't see anything and you might as well just hang it up and go hunting
03:28another day.
03:29All right.
03:30Good advice there.
03:31I can imagine.
03:32That first one sounds miserable, so I agree with you.
03:35Yeah.
03:36Can't argue with any of that.
03:37Dave Dombek, AccuWeather meteorologist, long-term forecaster here at AccuWeather and a regional
03:41expert.
03:42Dave, you're one of the best.
03:43You've been here for a long time.
03:44We appreciate your advice and expertise.
03:45Thank you, Dave.
03:46You betcha.
03:47Take care.
03:48All right.