Thumbing through my memory bank of Novembers, I recall that the best deer hunt took place in the nastiest weather you can imagine.

Three of us, me, my teenage nephew Pete and another young lad, Craig, the son of one of my closest friends, had been hunting a large clearcut that had begun its regrowth. There were some open places interspersed with tangled grids of beech whippets. It was a dark day, cold for mid-November, not cold enough to snow, but almost. By mid-morning the light drizzle had turned to a hard-driving rain. My slicker was wet through, and I was dog-tired from slogging through wet ground and beech whippets. There had been some decent, fresh sign of big deer activity, but camp was looking better and better.

“Well, let those young guys beat themselves up,” I thought to myself. “There’s always tomorrow. Back to camp for me and a cup of hot coffee.”

Stepping out of the clearcut, I ran into my nephew. He asked me where I was going. “Back to camp,” I said. I’ve had it, Pete.” The rain was coming in sheets and, at times, wind-driven. Pete’s eyes got big, as they did when he got excited. Tobacco juice clinged to the edges of his mouth. He looked like I felt, a drowned rat. “Unc,” he exclaimed, “You can’t leave now. There are two big bucks hanging out in those darn beech whippets. Honest to God. Craig saw the rack of one, and I moved another. Saw his tracks in the mud.”

Decision time. There I stood soaking wet and chilled to the bone, a middle-aged guy and prideful deer hunter, torn between the lure of the warm hearth and the passion for the hunt. Hmmm. Pete looked at me with those wide, beseeching eyes and raised brows. How could I let down these young guys who exhuded the diehard passion for the hunt that I once did. They wanted a crack at these heavy-antlered old bucks, and they wanted the benefit of my experience, or so it seemed. And a third shooter to increase the odds.

“OK, Pete,” I sighed. “Let’s go shoot a buck.” We devised a plan and it worked. The driving rain held down our scent and dampened our noise. They saw us coming at the last minute, but it was too late. It was my nephew’s first deer, and a wonderful old, thick-necked swamp buck. Funny how personal discomfort gets forgotten in the heat of the hunt.

Since that hunt in the heavy weather, the expert theories on weather and its affect on whitetail behavior have always interested me. By the conventional wisdom, those bucks were supposed to be bedded down during that cold, heavy, hard-driving rain. If you share my interest in weather and whitetail behavior, I urge you to check out a new book just released: “Trophy Bucks In Any Weather” by Dan Carlson.

Dan is a career meteorologist, who just happens to be a dyed-in-the-wool big game hunter. When he is not hunting deer or studying the weather, he writes much of the copy you read in the Cabela catalogs.

Despite the multitude of deer hunting books on the market, Dan manages to plow new ground. He is a fine wordsmith as well. For my money, any book that imparts new knowledge about deer behavior and hunting strategies is worthy of my library. I learned for example, that deer, fleeing danger, don’t always run into the wind. Weather conditions can change this behavior. Here’s another. There are times, depending upon weather conditions, when you need to adjust the height of your tree stand. Most hunters know that barometric pressure effects deer movements. Dan gets into this in detail and really helped me understand how to work those fast-moving weather fronts that are so common in Maine during November.

“Trophy Bucks in Any Weather,” by Dan Carlson. Published by Krause Publications, $21.99. You can learn more at www.krausebooks.com. The book is also available on amazon.com or can be found at Border’s and other fine book stores.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].