I’m fascinated by this guys research so I’ve registered for his October 2020 class. Pretty good deal, $900 gets you room and board, 5 hunts on Bent Creek Lodge property, plus intensive class time. Some of y’all come do this with me! Deposit is $425

Is this the guys with the book that says only hunt your stand on cold days after a front comes through? I would agree 100% and I am sure his Stats will back this up.

If this is the same guy I read that book it really is good and I think anyone serious about hunting needs to read it.

Too bad I can't just hunt on any random day so I'll have to put his book to the side and figure out how I'm going to hunt tomorrow when it is 65 degrees.

Because that's when I can go and I don't play golf.

The Class sounds like a deal though if you get 5 hunts.

Something like that. He has taken years of meteorological data and correlated it with deer sighting reports from the lodge. Best time to hunt according to him is cold, windy, clear skies. He says the relationship of sightings to wind speed is linear when its cold. Also cold is better when it was recently warm.

Anyway, he says that the best timeS to see deer are the most miserable times for human comfort. This jives with my long duck hunting career, when it’s miserable outside the ducks gotta get up and move to keep warm

I’ve met him and was in a bow only club that sub leased land from him. You should see the pile of racks at his house. He knows his chit. I started to do the bow school when he did it at Westervelt Lodge about 20 years ago.

I think he is 100% correct. That book is a good read and there is some fluff in there but it doesn't ruin the point he is trying to make.

I have read a lot of books on deer hunting and most are pretty good until you get to the Author's real secret and it is always something off the wall. You'll think you are reading a great book until they wind up giving away their true secret. They almost always wind up saying they put their clothes in a bag full or pine needles and don't drink coffee before they hunt so their breath doesn't smell. Or look at all these huge deer I've shot just find a place like I have next to some forest land where hunting is not allowed.

Serious. Read a bunch of them I've read about every single book on Amazon and so many I have probably got 2 Xerox boxes full of paperbacks.

And then you realize maybe they are just hunting somewhere there are a lot of big deer. We can't kill a big one if they don't exist where we hunt. That's not everyone's situation. Some have big deer and some have more than a few. Location can have more to do with this than actual hunting skill.

I would have a hard time recommending any of them without qualifying something first.

"When you get to the part where he says he drinks fox pee so his urine smells like a fox... just ignore that part., ok?....".

Shaw I came to aldeer 7 years ago to learn to deer hunt and you were one of the most influential folks here that helped me out. I’m betting you’ve got a good sized stash of bone yourself. Thanks for all the help over the years

I've read some of his stuff..hes good

I’ve killed a few. But I’m little league compared to Dr. Sheppard. Seems the fad nowadays is hunting from a tree saddle. He was doing that 20 years ago when I met him and still does as far as I know.

Dr Sheppard is a great guy and heck of an outdoorsman. I went to his bow school when I was 17. Very informative and had a blast. He does have quite a collection of antlers. I know you’ll enjoy it.

I’ve said for years on here that strong windy cold days that are unbearable are the best days to hunt. I’ve killed more big deer on those days than any other. Strong N or NW wind blowing 20+ mph and right off the edge of precipitation or clouds, as it clears up. That’s money. Most folks aren’t willing to hunt in that.

I hunted in Woodville one day. It was 20 deg, I was 20 ft up a tree, and the wind was NW 20 MPH. I Didn’t see a thing! I’m going in with an open mind though ... back then I was new to deer hunting ski probably scare them all off

Dr. Sheppard is the man. He does still hunt from his home made tree saddle that he's been using for years. He is an incredibly analytical no nonsense kind of guy, especially when it comes to deer hunting. You won't hear anything very off the wall from him. No gimmicks, no pushing scents and attractants or other products. He taught one of our courses when I was in school, we would often get very side tracked on hunting conversation. He is all about hunting the wind, I used to argue with him about how that hunting the wind stuff doesn't work very well in Northeast Alabama. He admitted the only "ridges" that he was familiar with hunting were places that didn't hold standing water after a rain. He has a wealth of knowledge and has laid his hand on more antler than many in this state will ever even see on trail cameras.

I met him while working at DCH 15 years ago. He was rounding on patients on my floor. I noticed his name and still didn't connect the dots. I actually had one of his books on my shelf, still do. He used his own laptop when rounding. I was close enough to him to notice his screen saver was a trail cam pick of a big buck. I complimented him on the pic and the next 30 minutes was all deer talk. Super nice guy. He had pics of a place in Texas he was hunting at the time. He also showed me pics of some of the bucks he killed over the the years. There were A LOT of pics of some BIG bucks. Most all were bow kills if I remember right. I may have to go to this thing. He was a fountain of knowledge for sure.

Is it the fact it's windy or is it that after the front passes and there's barometer movement ? It's almost always windy just after a front passes , stronger fronts usually have stronger winds behind them. I think it has more to do with the front passing and it just happens to be windy.

I can tell you as a flat lander that when we have a 20-30 mph wind after a front, it is consistent. If we have a 5-10 mph wind and you don't like it's direction, just wait about 2 minutes and it will change. I don't know if that has anything to do with deer movement but it does have to do with actually killing them.

No one has mentioned WHERE the deer move in high winds. I see fewer in fields with high winds and more in swamps and woods. I would like to see the "where" added to the info.

I was lucky enough during medical residency to spend several months on his service. His knowledge of deer hunting is second only to his knowledge of medicine. He literally invented his on electronic medical record a good 10 years before everyone else got on board and the hospitalist service at DCH may still be using his system.

The amount of data he was able to enter into his probablilty analysis calculator for deer hunting success was amazing. He told me pretty much if everything he factored in lined up in a certain direction there was over a 90 percent chance he was going to see a mature buck on his feet during daylight hours. He was also one of the most godliest men I’ve ever met and just a really nice fella.

i agree with you and dr Shepard. Two biggest I’ve ever pulled the trigger on were just as you described. Ones on the wall other I missed last year.

Little off topic. Bent creek is on my FB feed. Looks like someone killed a stud there yesterday. 10 point I would guess by the pics they posted at least 150-160 inch deer

That’s awesome.

Whuh?