Ohio Deer Season Is Open: How I'm Picking My Early-Season Sits

By Jeffrey Cote

Ohio's deer season is open, and like every year I had to talk myself out of hunting the first three evenings in a row. Early season is when I have done the most damage to my own hunting. The bucks are still on a summer pattern, the leaves are still on, the temperatures are still warm, and it is very easy to walk into a stand, sweat through your shirt, blow a doe group out of the bean field and never realize you just educated every deer on the property.

So this year I am leaning hard on the deer movement forecast on Buckeye Hunter Hub. It is free, and I set it up right on my saved hunt zone, so it is rating every day using the wind, temperature swing and barometric pressure at my actual stand location instead of a generic county forecast. That matters more than it sounds. My best stand sits in a creek bottom that holds thermals completely differently than the ridge a half mile away, and the tool lets me pin the forecast to that exact spot.

How I'm Picking My Sits Right Now

I only sit the green days

When the forecast rates a day high because of a temperature drop or a pressure rise, that is when I go. Right now I am looking for the first real cold front after a warm stretch. Those evenings are when the deer that have been holding tight in the shade finally get up early and hit the food before dark, and it is the single best early-season window in Ohio.

Bad wind days are scouting days

If the wind is wrong for my stand, the forecast shows it in red and I do not go. Instead I glass fields from the truck, check trail cams from downwind, or move a camera. Early season is about information, not forcing a sit that pushes deer off the property.

I am protecting my best stand

I have one stand that produces in late October every year. I am not hunting it right now, even on the good days, because I do not want the deer to associate that corner with human scent before the rut. The forecast makes that discipline easier, because I can see the marginal days for what they are and skip them without feeling like I am missing out.

I log every sit

After each hunt I mark what I saw and what the conditions were. Over a couple of seasons that turns into a record of which stands actually produce under which winds and temperatures, and I stop guessing.

The Season Is Long

Bow season in Ohio runs into February, and the rut is still weeks out. My goal right now is simple: hunt fewer, better evenings, keep pressure low, and have my stands fresh when the calendar turns.

If you have not tried the movement forecast yet, set it up on your own zone and compare it to what you actually see. It has saved me a lot of wasted sits, and it has probably saved a few of my stands too.