First freeze

[Ski]

Lockdown, gun season..?

Good a guess as any. I suspect lockdown.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

My weather station at our family hunting property is linked via Wi-Fi to the internet, so I can see the data any time. But it also allows me to see every weather station of that brand in the entire world. What I like to do is look at the nearest stations to mine that are in different terrain, to see the difference location makes. My station (and my property) are hills above big bottomlands. But a couple of people in the adjoining bottomlands also have the same brand weather station, so I can see their data too. On those perfectly calm, cold mornings, where the coldest air settles in the lowest areas, the bottomlands can literally be 14 degrees colder than at my station 300 feet up in the hills.

Absolutely and I've seen up to a 20 degree change in the Jackson county area of the plateau hills and hollows. Didn't take me but a couple times not to make that mistake headed down to the bottoms before daylight.

 

[BSK]

Creek bottoms

Ha!

 

[BSK]

What weather station are you using?

Almost everyone in my family has an Ambient station. That way we can see the data from each other's houses and our hunting cabin.

The model I like best is this one:

Ambient Weather WS-2902 Smart Wifi Weather Station with WiFi Remote Monitoring & Alerts

Ambient Weather's best-selling Personal Wi-Fi Weather Station, the WS-2902, allows you to monitor your home and backyard weather conditions with a brilliant, easy-to-read LCD color display. Monitor indoor and outdoor conditions, including wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, UV, solar...

ambientweather.com

 

[BSK]

Absolutely and I've seen up to a 20 degree change in the Jackson county area of the plateau hills and hollows. Didn't take me but a couple times not to make that mistake headed down to the bottoms before daylight.

I've seen the temp in the low 40s at our cabin at the top of a ridge, but when driving down across one of the creeks, everything is frozen solid at the bottom of the valley.

 

[mcbuck58]

Saw first scrapes at my place this past weekend. That will get you excited!

Scrapes opening up a week ago

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

Noticed whether forcast on your post. Do you hunt the Moore/Lincoln counties line? I do.

Lincoln/Marshall/Bedford line, where they join. I just work in Moore.

 

[BSK]

It's about that time. Right now is when I see bucks really beginning to shift. There are always a few early and a few late but right now is when I begin to notice it most.

Since I live 7hrs away from my Ohio property I wanted to find a way to help me plan my hunts with actual intel, so I tore a page from @BSK book and made a graph. Since I'm only after 5.5yr+ wall hangers that's all I charted. The graph shows only October & November and each data point accounts for one day when there was at least one buck fitting that criteria using the property during shooting light. It doesn't account for how many cameras or how many times a buck was on camera or how many bucks. It's just if any big buck was on the property during daylight. No night pics recorded. I wanted to see a pattern that I could plan for, a span of time when I could plan a hunt. Sure enough that pattern showed up. Looks like if I had only a week to hunt it would be Oct 27 thru Nov 3.

It's very limited, narrowly focused data so not terribly easy to decipher "why" some days seem awesome and others are completely empty. Best I can figure is it has something to do with the estrus cycles of the resident does. Tomorrow is a significant spike surrounded by nothing so I assume that's an early estrus doe. Being only 100 acres it's significant to me that in a 5yr span a huge old buck was roaming the property in daylight to the day 3 of those years, but none the week before or several days after. Then again Nov 15 thru Nov 19 is empty. Could that be lockdown?

When I get time I'll do the same with my TN place.

View attachment 246126

Super data Ski! I too find that on a single property, there will be "traditional" dates of peak activity. From all of my trail-camera data, below are three graphs for buck activity caught on camera from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 over a 12-year period (2012-2023). The first graph is only for "older" bucks (those 2 1/2 or older). The second graph is only for mature bucks (4 1/2+). Both graphs show the average total camera events for that date as well as only those events that occurred during legal hunting times (daylight). The third graph is the day-to-day average number of buck-doe chases caught on camera. Although all 12 years of data are in this graph, the majority of the data is from just the last four years - since I switched to collecting all my trail-camera data with video instead of still images. It can be VERY difficult to assess whether a chase is going on from still images, but very easy from video. Notice in this chase data how there are very traditional dates of peak chasing. On my property, DO NOT MISS NOVEMBER 17TH! In fact, that brief window of November 15-21 are the peak dates for chasing almost every year.

 

[TheLBLman]

I've seen the temp in the low 40s at our cabin at the top of a ridge, but when driving down across one of the creeks, everything is frozen solid at the bottom of the valley.

I've many times experienced similar just a few miles north of you.

But, one of the most dramatic temperature changes I personally experienced while deer hunting was on the Catoosa WMA in late October, some time back in the 1980s.

I had a thermometer on the back of my backpack. When we left the high-ridge camp, the temperature was in the 40's. When we got down to the Obed River the same thermometer read 13 degrees. I believe the local Crossville forecast was for a low of 38 that morning, which was likely about right in nearby Crossville.

 

[BPhunter]

Got home last night from 3 weeks in WY mountains & never saw the first frost. Never put on base layers & warmest piece of clothing I put on was a vest. Weird weather for sure.

Actually that's kind of normal. Usually don't get a hard freeze until end of Oct., Early Nov.

 

[BSK]

I've many times experienced similar just a few miles north of you.

But, one of the most dramatic temperature changes I personally experienced while deer hunting was on the Catoosa WMA in late October, some time back in the 1980s.

I had a thermometer on the back of my backpack. When we left the high-ridge camp, the temperature was in the 40's. When we got down to the Obed River the same thermometer read 13 degrees. I believe the local Crossville forecast was for a low of 38 that morning, which was likely about right in nearby Crossville.

That's a crazy elevational difference!