Northeast Pennsylvania White Belly Deer Forecast: Week of November 27
Saturday was our rifle opener and conditions were nearly perfect. Cold temperatures, light winds and high pressure greeted our hunters. The results of the weekend, I have heard, have been mixed. From my personal experience, I heard plenty of shots and saw some great pictures of good buck harvested.
Saturday I got into my spot plenty early at about 5:15 a.m., and I waited in anticipation for first light. The moon was outrageously bright and I could somewhat see, but I couldn’t wait for daylight. At daylight I caught a body moving on the neighbor’s property, but I could not identify the type of deer.
I was shocked when I looked back from the neighbor’s property and a good buck was standing 80 yards away in a cut cornfield. There was just one problem, it just so happened that I could not shoot in that direction. The shot would have taken my bullet across a road and into an area where several people were hunting. I had heard some early morning shots from that direction and there was little doubt that this buck had been kicked up from somewhere.
The buck stood in front of me for a good time period and it was obvious that he did not know what to do. If he walked to my left, he would drop into an area where it was safe for me to shoot. If he went to the right, he would put himself in line with some houses. Well, you can take a f@cking guess which way he went.
I’ll tell you what, 2023 has put a beating on me. To make matters worse, I hunted the same spot but in the opposite direction on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. By changing directions, any deer that came in the cut corn would be fair game for the rifle. Surprise, surprise … surprise, surprise, not a damn deer either sit. While sitting in my spot on Sunday morning, I also had the added bonus of checking my trail camera in my archery spot and seeing a good buck at my stand. Surprise, surprise!
Alright, onto the forecast and expected conditions as we move forward in this hellacious 2023 season. The added pressure on our deer herd and the constant ringing out of shots will result in deer herding up.
It will become less common to see individual deer and packs of 5-to-10 will become the norm. While deer will be more skittish, they still have to eat. I found it to be very interesting this past week that deer who normally appeared at my camera around 5:20-5:30 a.m. suddenly changed their feeding time to 4:20 to 4:30 am.
I believe the added light from our full moon phase to be the cause of the change in feeding times. I don’t particularly like the full moon phase. Yeah, I know it kickstarts the rut in November, but the fact of the matter is that deer see in the dark much better than we do.
Whitetail deer see anywhere from 9-to-18 times better than humans do at night. The reason why is that deer have a much larger eye and pupil than a human does. The larger pupil allows more light to enter the eye. Light enters the eye and hits the retina, which converts the light energy into electrical signals that your optic nerve sends to your brain, which creates the images we see. On the retina are light receptors called rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to light and we use them to see in low-light conditions.
Rods are not good at picking up details and images; what we see from rods are black and white. What does a deer see better than anything else? The answer is movement, and while the details of the image are not very clear, a deer will see movement in just about any type of light. Deer have more rods than humans do, which allows them to see better in low light conditions.
An added advantage that the whitetail deer has over humans is a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum. If you have ever seen the eyes of a deer glow at night it is because of this layer. What the tapetum lucidum does is it causes light to get bounced back over the rods and cones a second time; the tapetum lucidum works almost as a mirror. This reflective layer gives deer a distinct advantage to see in low light conditions.
According to my data gathered over a number of years, deer daylight movement has always been decreased during full to near full moon conditions. When you add in the increased hunting pressure and the sounds of a war zone, it makes sense that deer would move more at night.
Alright, enough of the nerding out, let’s get onto the forecast. Forecast ratings this week range from 3.3 to 3.8, and while those ratings are not outstanding, they do present a good opportunity for success. As the week progresses, major feeding times align with an afternoon sit and barometer readings increase. Temperatures will remain below the historical averages, so the deer will need fuel to stay warm. Deer are going to look for a safe haven, so if you can find that out of the way thick area, slip in and see what pops out.
As always check out Vendettasportsmedia.com for all of your sports news and make sure you check out the White Belly Cartel shop for some Christmas gifts for yourself and your loved ones. If your wife already looks good, imagine how good she would look in just a t-shirt with a dead buck on it. Yowza!!!
I will tell you that I got my first shirt and the sizes seem to run a bit small. It is, however, a distinct possibility that I may have had a little too much to eat over the Thanksgiving break. The Tastykakes in the stand most likely didn’t help either. Good luck and like the band Journey once said, “Don’t stop believing…”
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