What a winter?

My hats off to you cold weather members. Its little hard for me to relate to the cold conditions some of you guys are subjecting your bodies to. I have been in minus degree temps before when traveling on business to Canada but never dreamed about hunting it it. I hunted before when the temps were in the mid teens before but now I can be more selective since I retired.
As for this winter the past two days have been cold for here in Arkansas with overnight temps in mid teens with a wind chill close to 0 F.
Hunting in ground blinds becomes very attractive in extreme cold weather with a space heater or the extra special extreme clothing. Since deer hunting is now closed my options for hunting have melted away to maybe predator hunting such as feral hogs.

I grew up in north central Arkansas, went back on hunting trips many times,for deer and turkey. Still have friends there. Love that country.

Far Sighted said:

My hats off to you cold weather members. Its little hard for me to relate to the cold conditions some of you guys are subjecting your bodies to. I have been in minus degree temps before when traveling on business to Canada but never dreamed about hunting it it. I hunted before when the temps were in the mid teens before but now I can be more selective since I retired.
As for this winter the past two days have been cold for here in Arkansas with overnight temps in mid teens with a wind chill close to 0 F.
Hunting in ground blinds becomes very attractive in extreme cold weather with a space heater or the extra special extreme clothing. Since deer hunting is now closed my options for hunting have melted away to maybe predator hunting such as feral hogs.

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A friend and I hooked on the boat on Saturday morning when the temp was -13 degrees and supposed to warm up fairly quickly. We drove the 45 miles to the Mississippi River, loaded the gear in the boat and slid it out on the ice pack and dropped it in the open water. Once the engine was running it was never shut off. Backsplash on the outboard would freeze instantly and I had to continually rap if off with a plastic mallet. We drift fished all morning and caught lots of walleye and sauger but when the last couple beers were opened and found froze solid we figured we should maybe leave. After loading up and getting the heavy clothes off to get heat to us, the cold really made itself known. We stopped at a tavern and had a couple beers and chatted with the pub owner [we are friends] for a half hour we figured the truck had plenty of heat for the road home. I think that that is the coldest I have ever been and not really felt it while fishing. It took two hours after getting home to really get the chill out. The fish I kept were frozen so solid I had to wait until the next morning to fillet them. As for the weather, the warm air never showed up that day and it never got above zero. We were on the water five hours but in hindsight I think we should have stayed home. lol I have shot deer when its well below zero and by the time I got the drag to the vehicle done they were already froze. I just don't have much use anymore for the cold or the snow. The cold I'll tolerate for a while. The snow? As far as I am concerned the only snow I need to see can be found on a post card.

Here in Delaware weather is usually not bad this has been a hellacous one, very cold today in the 20's wind 30 miles an hour Have 3 new ML'ers to shoot

So good news - we're supposed to make it just above freezing this weekend. Bad news is they're saying 10-16" set heavy snow. And then another 6-10" of snow a couple days after that.

We're at 14 degrees already today so I'm in short sleeves.....don't want to get over-heated thinking about the snow being called for this weekend ya know.

A friend of mine bought a heater body suit and he stays warm in the coldest temps even with the wind blowing. He hunts strictly from the ground. I'm considering it but I bet they're pricey.

Sure is nice waking up to single digit numbers instead of it being -10°

I hear you Encore, you guys up north need a break for sure. We have a promise of 66* next week, hopefully it will happen. I’m almost ready to start crappie fishing.

herschel conyers said:

I hear you Encore, you guys up north need a break for sure. We have a promise of 66* next week, hopefully it will happen. I’m almost ready to start crappie fishing.

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It'll be awhile before there's any boat or bank fishing around here. The lake (8,850 acres) has 21" of ice. Not the most I've seen. They have though been doing very well on the walleye
The ol'sun is getting higher for us up here. New storm coming through tonight..

With this next storm coming, folks in these parts are scrambling to get the current snow pack off their roofs that hadn't already done it. Most of those are people with cottages on the lake that haven't been up all winter. We did ours earlier and sure glad we did.
I use this product: https://www.minnsnowta.com/
We have a very large and high roof, so we purchased extra handles. Works like a dream.

Supposed to hit 40 today!! First time in a long time. Rain the next few days so now we're on to flood warnings.

Yahoo…….. it hit 44° here today. The grill came out and brought forth a medium rare New York Strip, along with cubed taters fried in butter and a tablespoon of A1 mixed. Better days are coming

47 here today, 65 tomorrow, 71 Thursday, then lookout for another blast of winter. Hang on guys it will be spring sooner or LATER!

ENCORE50A said:

Yahoo…….. it hit 44° here today. The grill came out and brought forth a medium rare New York Strip, along with cubed taters fried in butter and a tablespoon of A1 mixed. Better days are coming

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New York Strip, red potatoes, asparagus for us yesterday. It sure was nice to fire up the grill and not freeze to death

The other day I thought I would be smart and walk out back to pull cards and put fresh batteries in my trail cams. I worked on it for about an hour and made it maybe 400 yards before turning around and giving up. By the time I gave up and made it back to the house I was wet up to my waist. I think that may have been the deepest snow I've walked in, or rather waded in. On the plus side we've had a couple days of mid to upper 30's and some rain, so we've lost some snow. It's cold again today but then we're back up to 30's and 40's with one day in the 50's next week, so maybe by my day off Thursday I might be able to make it out there. I'll certainly give it my best.

Mowed the yard today, actually was mulching leaves. Feels good to get outside for a couple hours.

You mowed. lol I fired up the new snow blower and blew snow off my garden, across the fence and onto park land. This new blower tosses snow like 70 feet so that which went into the park crossed a paved walking trail and some actually made it to the stream. At least its out of my garden. Then I burned some scrap wood and other combustibles in a portable fire pit and cooked our sirloins using a fish grilling basket over those coal for supper.

After returning from our cruise I got socked with some major-league upper respitory crap. I saw the doc late Weds and he put me a z-pak of antibiotics and a steroid of some sort. The steroid I took on Thursday and again today as prescribed. Sure glad I didn't have to take it for all four days or I'd be nuts. Makes me hyper. I took it at 7 this morning and I'm still looking for things to do and wide awake yet. Maybe I'll go blow the snow off the front yard now.....put it across the street. lol

Its finally going down here, but slowly. The 2" of solid ice under that snow is likely slowing it down.
In the center of the photo, there's a whitetail

Never under estimate living between two of the Great Lakes.
2+" of snow, still snowing