Winter hunting can be tranquil and restorative, but it can certainly be uncomfortable and challenging as well. It isn’t easy to wake up at 3 a.m. on a frosty Texas morning and head out into the wilderness, yet success rates of hunting on days like these make it worth the effort.
With proper preparation, you can adapt your hunting skills to suit any time of year. Avoiding the following four cold weather hunting mistakes will give you a great jumping-off point – but we do recommend that all hunters create their own custom plans for hunting in any weather.
At Nine Bar Ranch, our winter hunting packages include Whitetail Deer, Aoudad, Red Stag, and Fallow Deer hunts in addition to the Wild Boar hunts we offer year-round. If hunting options are slim near you, we invite you to join us in a true prize game pursuit! Take home your meat as well as your trophy and incredible photos to share with your friends and family. Hunting this winter here at the Ranch will be the most memorable hunting trip you and your party have ever had. We look forward to meeting you.
Four Cold Weather Hunting Mistakes to Avoid
1. Wearing the Wrong Gear
No one wants to be out hunting while cold or wet, so it’s natural to want to bundle up for comfort and safety. However, it is also possible to be wearing too many layers, resulting in clumsy movements or even overheating.
We recommend wearing wool base layers, then a Gore-Tex jacket, a wool cap, wool fingerless gloves, and a lightweight, synthetic or wool scarf that you can pull up over your mouth and nose to stay warm.
If the weather forecast predicts a late-morning heat spike, leave room to stash layers in your pack as you go.
2. Hunting Hungry
Cold weather can sap your strength because keeping yourself warm burns calories rapidly. Bring trail mix, jerky, dried fruit, hard-boiled eggs, or mixed nuts. These items are lightweight, calorie-dense, and full of a broad range of nutrients to fuel your hunt.
3. Zero Hydration Situations
You may have left home with a travel tumbler of coffee, but it’s 9 a.m., the sun is beginning to warm the ground, and your layers mean you’re getting thirsty.
Don’t get caught off-guard by this common mistake! Hunting while thirsty means hunting while distracted, and distracted hunts usually fail. Bring a full bottle of water and sip it slowly yet regularly as you wait for the game to cross your path.
4. Skipping Rainy Mornings
Very few of us wake up in the pouring rain and feel excited about heading outdoors. Still, we recommend persevering through weather challenges and wearing the proper outwear to make sloshy conditions bearable.
Deer love the sound cover, scent masking, and fresh hydration rain brings, so you are quite likely to encounter MORE deer in the rain than you would on a crisp, dry morning.
The Takeaway
Cold weather hunting is a challenge, but the rewards are well worth the extra effort required to persevere. If you’re a serious hunter, avoid our four common winter hunting mistakes, and bring home the buck you’ve been pursuing since October.