Deer Season Predictions, 2022

It just turned over 13 weeks to the Rifle Opener. I do not usually make predictions on how the upcoming Rifle Season is going to go. I do have my suspicions, and when compared with reality, they’re usually wrong. I cannot help it. Every year, I start looking for the Rut Prediction and consult the lunar tables. It never amounts to anything. I am always up in the stand on The Opener, and I try to hunt as many days as I can.

This year is a bit of a head-scratcher from a bunch of perspectives. Let me explain.

PERSPECTIVE ONE, The Start Date

This year’s Rifle Season starts on 11/12. As you can see from the chart, compiled from our camp’s log, the most number of bucks are taken on this day. 11/11 is supposedly the region’s local peak of the rut. However, given the data from the past 20 years, our peak is a day later.

I discussed the effect the date of the Opener has on our success last year.

So when IS The Rifle Opener?

As you can see, the first and second quarter (New to Full) sees about 63% of our deer being taken. The 4th quarter has only 5%. This year, the moon will be just past Full on 11/12 and continue to wane until the New Moon on 11/24, Thursday of the second week.

PERSPECTIVE THREE, Historical

As the Patriarch of our deer camp, I have been keeping a log going all the way back. Back when I was a D&DH Pro-Staffer, I was much more concerned with moon phase than I am now. More out of force of habit, I’ve been keeping a sort of side log using the calendar with moon phases. Every year, I look at my stack of calendars and try to figure out how this year is going to fit into some bigger picture. Here is this year’s calendar.

The closest it comes to is 2006. I filled two tags. The Opener was a toad strangler. I was hit with a thunderstorm mid-morning and nearly blown out of the stand. Sunday, I managed to kill a doe at Newstand. Nothing happened on Weekend #2. However, I picked up my meat at Lenoxburg and it took me an hour to cram all that venison into my freezer. On Weekend #3, I went out dead-set on not killing anything, but a fat 6-pointer walked under my stand, and I couldn’t help myself. This caused me to have to buy a second freezer.

The shaman backs into a buck at Newstand

Earlier in the past year, the old freezer died. I’m not bitter; it had been around since 1989, and now I am approaching a year just like 2006 with only one freezer. How does that happen?

2006 was also a year where the acorns were hot and heavy and they were on the trees well into Rifle Season. This has turned out to be a key factor for us. The deer stayed in the woods and we hardly saw them in the field. This is similar to what we experienced in 2021. My buck was taken in heavy cover, and after that, we saw no deer out in the open fields.

PERSPECTIVE FOUR, Weather

This is my least favorite way of looking at things, but it is the most honest, and I think it has the most effect on anything. It is also the most unpredictable. It boils down to a simple mean truth: if the weather sucks, we do not fill tags. Rain on The Opener really puts a damper on everyone’s luck. It just so happens the biggest downpour I have ever encountered on an Opener was in 2006. Rain, snow and cold temperatures and especially wind really screw with deer movement. Another 11/12 Opener, this one in 2011 was way to windy, and wind dominated the whole first week of deer hunting. I held out as long as I could and finally nailed two large doe (170 and 174lbs) later in the month.

The long-range forecast says we will be experiencing warmer than normal temperatures and normal precipitation. That is just about ideal for Rifle Season.

I have had great luck and nailed big bucks going against a bum calendar and a bum moon phase. I have never nailed a buck where the weather was going against me.

PERSPECTIVE FIVE: Deer Demographics

When I first got on the land back in 2001, the entire area around me was a brown-it’s-down situation. My own patch had been treated by the locals as sort of an ad-hoc WMA, because the previous owners really did not care. In those days, there were not that many deer to be seen and the bucks we saw were pretty straggly. My first buck from this place was a little basket 8-pointer.

Just restricting access to the property paid huge dividends. I got my first 125-class buck in 2003. I shot the camp record, a 275 lb 10 pointer in 2007. Since then, it has been a seesaw battle. For a few years, we had poachers and encroachment from the neighbors, but by 2014, my neighbors had cleaned out the unwanted elements, and I sit today surrounded by landholders that are doing as much or more than I to promote the deer herd.

Starting in 2016, we started seeing larger mature deer visiting the property. I’d say that the overall trend has continued. Last year was a bit of let down, but a lot of that was the cold and rain we had in the middle of the season.
Based on the size and health of the herd, we could be heading for a banner year. However, last year was going to be one of those years and we ate mostly tags.

CONCLUSION:

Look, I may be Patriarch of this camp, but that does not give me a crystal ball. At some point, even though I am the guy with the logs, the data, the long range forecast and the decades of history, I’m still left with the basic reality that staying on the couch is the only surefire way to ensure consistent luck.

This post has already been read 338 times!