Deer Forecast in Northeast Pennsylvania: Week of Oct. 16
Once again, our weekend turned into a rainout. Before you get the bad news from someone else, let me rip the band-aid off. Don’t go jumping off a bridge but, forecasters are calling for rain again this Saturday.
It’s a week away and, hopefully, things change; mid-October usually resembles a teen driver who finally got his high school sweetheart to go parking with him. What I mean by that is that this is usually the week where you see young bucks chasing and harassing doe with no direction or gameplan. The smarter fellas will normally lay back in the weeds until they get an indication of a doe being ready to go, hopefully in a week or two.
That doesn’t mean that there will not be doe primed for some loving, but next week and the following should be a little hotter and really start to get the plums boiling. Whether it is on or not, things are starting to change.
I am writing this article on Sunday and as I was doing it, I noticed some strange occurrences. First, I received an alert that a picture from my trail camera was taken at 12:30 p.m. I checked the picture and noticed a doe moving in the middle of the day.
Next, I saw a doe and two fawns cross my driveway at 1:35 p.m. and, lastly, I saw a decent buck cross the same path at 3:40 p.m. Sunday’s rating was a 2.7 all day, and major movement times were predicted to be at 1:25 p.m. An hour before the time and an hour after are considered major times of movement. ‘Tis the season that it can happen and it can happen at any time in any conditions.
Speaking of conditions, weather and forecast conditions this week are as follows:
Deer forecast ratings this week peak on Wednesday and that coincides with our highest barometric pressure in a long while; we have not had a barometric pressure above 30.1 since Oct. 5th.
Temperatures will be below the historical averages this week, but we are not seeing that sudden drastic change in temp that all of us would love. Wednesday morning and afternoon and also Saturday afternoon meet the 3 rating, but obviously, the predicted rain could throw a wrench in things on Saturday.
Friday night, I sat the afternoon and saw multiple good bucks and a ton of doe. The only deer that gave me a chance was a doe. She was a beauty, kind of like one of those stretch limos with a long rectangular body. I watched her for over 30 minutes and as I got antsy so did she. For over ten minutes, I just needed her to take five steps to pop into my shooting lane.
Unfortunately, she had plenty of soybeans to eat and she stood in one spot like a statue. She double-backed from my shooting lane and I picked out another shot opportunity between two trees and decided if my shooting lane was 20 yards, then so was this spot.
I drew my bow and let one fly and watched as my arrow sailed perfectly under her heart and under her belly with no connection. Let the cursing begin. Hopefully, I got my miss out of the way. I sat for three hours in the rain on Saturday and wound up seeing a few deer and a small buck.
Not a single one of the ratings would make me decide not to hunt this week. Why? Well, it’s the third week of October, and if you can get a sit in, then you better do it.
Share your experiences with me and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of this article. Good luck and good hunting!
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