How HuntCast Helps You Plan a Better Whitetail Hunt

Having HuntWise (and specifically HuntCast) as another tool in your toolbox is unmatched, especially for hunting whitetails.

Let's look at how HuntCast helps you plan a better whitetail hunt, so you're ready for fall.

Why Use HuntWise?

HuntWise is an all-around great app for the outdoors with so many benefits, including maps with multiple available layers, deer movement predictions based on the weather, barometric pressure, and more. You also have access to informational hunting articles and blogs (like this one), and if that's not enough, you can take advantage of subscriber-only discounts on top-of-the-line gear.

However, today I want to discuss a few features that primarily pertain to hunting whitetails. These features are HuntCast, RutCast, and WindCast, and all these tie together in an attempt to give you the best chance to be in the stand when your target buck is cruising by.

What Is HuntCast?

Let us start with HuntCast as a whole.

After you create your HuntWise account, you will have full access to the app and the website, which allows you to access the HuntCast feature.

HuntCast is an amazing feature that combines a multitude of environmental variables and spits out a percentage for how likely it is that deer will be moving during that time. It will even break this down by the hour of the day.

Narrow Down the Ideal Time to Hunt

Inside HuntCast, you'll see the predicted movement percentage for a different number of days, depending on the level that you subscribe to (like Elite or Pro). It factors in temperature changes, wind speed, moon phase, barometric pressure, and weather fronts moving through your area, and then tells you the peak whitetail movement time.

It also acts as a weather app and shows the current temperature, sunrise, sunset, wind speed and direction, along with the percentage of precipitation. The HuntWise folks combine everything that you need into one app, and most of it on one screen, to make it simple for us hunters.

What's the Best Part of the HuntCast App?

One of the best parts about HuntCast and all these awesome features is that it will give you all of this information for every property that you hunt.

So, say that you have permission to hunt three different properties, and you have several stands hung on each property, HuntCast will give you a separate page for each property with a prediction on the whitetail movements. This is something that I watch very closely to plan when I want to hunt certain stands or when I want to stay out of the woods entirely.

If there is an evening predicted to have a high amount of movement for a stand I want to hunt, then I will be sure to focus on hunting that day and not disturb it on non-optimal days.

What is WindCast?

Another feature inside HuntWise that I already touched on is something called WindCast. WindCast will show you which direction the wind will be blowing, along with the mph (miles per hour), similar to a weather app. However, it will show you a map of the property or properties you are hunting, with all of your stand location pins that you previously set and a representation of how the wind will be blowing through the woods.

You will be able to see exactly where your wind will blow every hour. It will also give you a comparison of which of your stands will be the best one to sit in based on the wind direction. It knows this because when you put a marker down on the map of a stand location, it asks you to click what the ideal wind directions are for that location.

In the early season, when you may have a big mature buck still in his summer patterns, you want to get the drop on him before he disappears during the rut. Utilizing WindCast to plan which treestand to set up can be a huge asset. If you know his general pattern, you can compare all your treestand sets and see where your scent will be carried for each stand so you have the best opportunity to slip in and slip out without disturbing your target buck's routine.

What is RutCast?

Now, the feature that I think most whitetail hunters will love is their RutCast feature.

Obviously, whitetails come into the rut at various times in the fall and winter, depending on what part of the country you’re in. It probably seems like every year, you’re trying to guess when the pre-rut is going to start, and bucks will start traveling more and being a little more reckless.

Then, how do you know when the peak of the rut is, when everything should be going crazy? What about the post-rut and the secondary rut?

Well, with HuntWise, they’ve made it pretty easy to dial in when you can take more chances and be more aggressive and what days you absolutely need to be handing in your PTO.

Map Out the Rut

The RutCast will map out all of the stages of the rut so that you do not have to guess and potentially blow that big buck you’ve been hunting over to the neighbors. This feature will factor into the overall HuntCast and boost the percentage chance a deer will be up and moving around during the day.

This will give you a much better chance to arrow a buck during that second rut that you always miss because you think they are hunkering down for the rest of winter.

Don't Forget the In-App Markers

I think one of my personal favorite features about HuntWise is the marker system that they implement into their map.

Having an overview of the property you’re hunting is already an advantage, especially if you have elevation changes where you hunt. Still, when you add on the ability to put markers where your stands are, where water sources are, where you find scrapes, and where you think they are bedding, this lets you paint one massive picture. With that level of insight, hopefully, you're pointing an arrow toward where that big buck is living or traveling through.

Experience Better Whitetail Hunts with the HuntCast App (HuntWise)

So, can you be successful as a hunter without HuntWise and HuntCast? Sure. But, having these tools with the level of insights and forecasting I described today just helps give you that extra edge against those sneaky four-legged animals we wait all spring and summer to chase after.

Why not be more efficient and successful at outsmarting the weather (and whitetails)? Plus, you'll have an advantage over other hunters who don't have HuntCast when hunting public and higher-pressure land.

Now is the ideal time to download HuntWise and start your free Elite trial, where you'll have access to the most features (and the best gear discounts). 
Your first week is free (on us)!