Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the mid-Atlantic as I write this.  My thoughts and prayers are with all those that potentially could be affected by the winds and floods.

If you’ve been watching the weather reports, you know there is a big high pressure system sitting on top of the central part of America. That high will slow Florence down and prevent the rains from making it all the way here.

The great thing about that high pressure sitting over us is that the wind will be pretty constant. Deer season opens here Saturday. With the wind blowing consistently in one direction it will make it easier to approach, hunt and exit a stand without alerting deer.

In the early season I prefer to hunt in the mornings. However, the main access road through our hunting property is right in the middle, down a valley. These Ozark Mountains have strong thermals in the mornings. It is virtually impossible to get out for a morning hunt without alerting deer. So even though I’m a morning person, we hunt only in the afternoons in the early season. By doing this, we will be more efficient with our time and tag more deer.

If you’re on a property where hunting in the morning is feasible, I recommend placing a stand and hunting in a transition area between a feeding area and a bedding area. The deer are probably already in the plot feeding. You need to be able to approach the stand without alerting those deer.

We have stands set up on food plots right now. Even though there are acorns beginning to fall, we have enough deer on a pattern coming to food plots to hunt those stands. We usually head out to hunt about 2 hours before sunset – when it’s still hot and the deer are in their beds. The deer have time to calm down from any disturbance then they can move to us.

That’s our strategy for early season. We’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

I hope that you are able to get out soon to scout, hunt and enjoy Creation.

Grant