Because a deer's patterns change based on the intensity of the storm, yours should as well.

NO CALM BEFORE THE STORM
From cell phones with Internet access to satellite TV to a good old-fashioned AM radio, with the number of tools we have at our disposal for predicting weather, there should no excuse for hunters being caught unaware of an approaching storm. A deer's early warning system is much more primitive, but it's also much more accurate. So if you know when it's going to rain, you can bet they do too.

"Falling barometric pressure before a storm will stimulate them into action," Myers said. "That's the ideal time to get out there."

Renowned hunter and Mossy Oak pro staffer Bob Foulkrod agrees. "Any front coming in makes everything more active. They will get up and start to move toward their feeding ground because they know it's coming," he said. "If I've got a front coming in, I'm going to be out there."

Because of the lay of the calendar on my wet hunt, hitting the field before the storm wasn't possible. If you find yourself in a similar situation, don't despair. The rain might make your hunt a little more challenging, but it also provides you with some advantages that bright, sunny skies erase. Seeking those advantages shouldn't be your first order of business, however

SEEK COVER
The first tactic that you might need to adjust if you find yourself hunting in a downpour is your movement. When it's raining our natural instincts aren't far removed from the deer's. Heed it, and do what the deer do -- find cover. Once you find a good vantage point with relatively good protection from the rain, sit down, pull out your binoculars, and, once again, look for cover.

Normally when you glass, you're looking for movement, the tips of an antler, or a hint of white that might be a rump patch. Keep in mind, however, that in a downpour any cover that is going to afford the deer protection from the rain will be thick enough to cover most of its body. Don't start off looking for the signs you normally would. Instead, look for likely cover spots.

"Look at north-facing or west-facing slopes in heavy stands of timber, because these are the places the deer will look for," Myers said. "Especially timbered fingers surrounded by open spaces."

If you're hunting the sage country, concentrate on looking toward the bottom of the thickets since they will provide the biggest openings and the best chance of seeing through the visual wall they create. Because movement is lessened dramatically during a rainstorm, the standard slow scan method isn't going to be effective. When you find a likely spot, it's important to study that area for a while.

"You can glass a spot over a dozen times and not see anything," Foulkrod said. "There are times when you stop and study a spot that a deer will materialize out of his surroundings, and you realize he had been there the whole time. A lot of it has to do with how the light changes."

Be prepared, however, to work a little harder to get to that point when it's raining. Because the light doesn't change as much, you can't hope for the help of moving shadow to uncover a bedded buck. And there's one other dilemma. The glass of binoculars seems to have a magnetic charge in the rain and will pull a raindrop completely off course and directly onto the lens. (Although this theory has never been proven, anyone who has carried a pair of binoculars, a scope, or a camera in the rain knows it's true.)