FIVE MOST CRITICAL INGREDIENTS FOR BAGGING A BUCK WITH A GUN

Bob Walker on Weather

Editor's Note: The five most-critical ingredients for taking a buck with your gun at any time during the season include the wind, the weather, hunting pressure, food availability and the rut. Most hunters will tell you one of these factors has more importance to successful deer hunting than any other element. However, you'll need to consider all these ingredients to develop a successful hunt plan. This week we'll talk with some of the nation's best gun hunters about their ideas. Bob Walker of Livingston, Alabama, a guide at Bent Creek Lodge near Jachin, Alabama, and owner of R & J Smokehouse, has lived in this deer-rich region of the country all his life. For almost three decades, he consistently has taken an average of five bucks per season with his gun.

You'll find the best times to hunt deer during, just before and just after a rain. When a cold front starts to move and rain begins to fall, bucks start coming out of thick cover and moving into open woods where you can see them better. The leading edge of a cold front often provides the best day of the year to hunt a big buck. I study the radar weather map on TV's "Weather Channel." I watch as a front moves across the country and try to determine when the front will arrive in my area. Then I go to the woods about two to three hours ahead of its arrival. During this time, I'll generally see the most deer movement and usually take my biggest buck. I've found the worst time to hunt, especially in my section of the South, is when our area has extremely cold weather. When temperatures drop in the teens, the cold weather will arrive with a really hard blowing wind, either from the northwest or from the north.

I believe the wind more than the cold causes deer not to move. When a hard wind blows, a deer loses its ability to see and hear movement in the woods. A deer then has only one defense mechanism -- its nose -- to warn it of danger. I've found, however, that deer often move in the middle of the day on extremely cold days, probably because the wind doesn't blow as hard then as at other times. Another time you'll see peak deer movement is just as a rain storm moves out of your area. Go to the woods two hours before you anticipate the rain will stop. The deer that have bedded down during a heavy rain often will get up out of their bedding areas and move toward feeding regions or breeding sites during the rut. If you hunt the pre-rut when deer actively work scrapes, go to a scrape line during the rain. Usually within one to two hours after the rain stops, you'll see a buck coming along the scrape line to freshen-up his scrape because the water washes away all signposting messages deer have left at a scrape.

Also during a rain storm, I often will see deer in open fields and pastures where I never may have seen them before. In the woods, bucks can't see and hear movement well. However, in an open field or in a young clear-cut, they can see danger coming from a great distance and feel more secure. Deer have learned they rarely if ever will encounter hunters in the woods during a rainstorm. Since most hunters don't like to hunt in the rain, hunters will exert the least amount of pressure on an area during a rainstorm. I believe deer take advantage of the decreased hunting pressure and tend to move just as the rain starts or right after it ends.

To learn more, go to www.rjsmokehouse.com.

TOMORROW: DAVID HALE -- HUNTING PRESSURE