Hunting Hill Country in Extreme Wind

[I_Love_Scotch]

As I try to keep honing and trying to master my skills as a mature buck bow hunter I thought of something this morning that I always seem to run into during the fall and wanted to see what the solution is, if there even is one.

Just to paint a picture, ALL of the private ground I have to hunt is in hill country or farm country with very steep ridges and bluffs. I hardly ever play the prevailing wind in the mornings because it is usually dead silent and what wind there is, the thermals are usually stronger and carry my musk downhill anyways, so I can predict that and its easy. I've shot some nice deer in the mornings during rut. When I run into trouble in the bluffs is when the wind picks up mid morning and into the afternoon.

So here is one example where I got busted by a BIG 11 point last year. It was an afternoon rut hunt, can't remember what date, but it was in that 10th-15th of Nov. dates where you get some good cruising action around doe bedding. I couldn't hunt that morning due to an appointment. Anyways, the wind was blowing SSE 20mph and gusting to 30mph and I had a tree pegged from spring scouting on the edge of an awesome doe bedding area that I hadn't touched ever on the tip of a big north facing ridge. At the tip the ridge drops off probably close to 80-100 feet down into a river bottom and the river runs west to east. I made my way in, probably a 15 minute walk through a deep drainage ditch, got the lone wolf up in the tree and was hunting by 1:00pm. The wind was howling from the SSE. If the wind did shift it felt like it was maybe sucking up a bit in the drainage ditch to my east but from where I was expecting movement I felt I was OK. Anyways, about 2:00 I catch a glimpse of a huge rack coming up the ridge right to me, bobbing his head with nose to the ground. I got the bow ready and he's cruising perfectly down the trail I had expected. He gets about 10 yards from where I'd have a shot and just stops, throws his head and tail up, and bolts back down the ridge, and I mean he didn't stop...he just kept running. He obviously winded me and I about threw my bow out of the tree. I knew that spot was shot so I tore my stand down and headed back to the truck.

This has happened to me on too many times to count in hill country on windy days and I need to know how to do better. This spring I found some awesome buck bedding and have already confirmed that they are there through trail camera surveillance. Cameras have been pulled already to alleviate pressure and now I'm just waiting for the right conditions in October. These bucks will be hunted in the evening and with it usually pretty windy in Iowa, I'm going to have to master these wind currents otherwise I'm going to get busted and will be wasting my time. So, in the scenario above my wind was sucking up the east drainage (I think) and the west. I'm guessing it had something to do with the SE wind mixing with the river wind currents behind me, basically creating a bunch of turbulence and wind going every which way. I'm not so sure it was even wise to hunt the hills on this day. I'm almost thinking that I need to save hunting the hills for early mornings and the last hour of light in the evenings, and then hunt the public marshes in the afternoons? Do I even have a chance in hill country when wind is blowing above 10mph?

Here is a topo with the scenario I described. Red is the wind, blue is the stand, pink is my entry in a deep crick bottom, yellow is the buck, and the baby poop is thick doe bedding.

[BassBoysLLP]

No pic?

[tim]

i feel your pain on this one. i hunt bluffs also. last year it was my first sit of my vacation and i had mph winds from s.e.. i have a waterhole at top of ridge right along woods edge in the open and deer willl cut this corner and go right to it. but this day i knew was calling for heavy winds so i thought the deer would parallel the pond from below and come up into it si i dropped down the hill from the pond- yards for sure. the wind was howling up top and i was just sure on this virgin sit i was going to get a crack at my target buck. everything was right and i felt i made the right adjustment....to my surprise this deer skirts me right along the top of the ridge and goes straight to my pond where i had a tree stand set for the morning......i was disgusted and that was my only sighting of him. i had dozens of photos of this whopper all summer right into fall and made the wrong call on my placement. if i would have stuck to my original setting ida had a 5 yard chip shot.... the hills are humbling like that.

[tim]

that should read 30 mph winds

[Bigb]

You must hunt the property next to me because this is identical to what happens to me. Half the time I have no wind and try to pick out spots where my rising thermals won't be caught by the deer. I hunt way to many days where the evening hunts are gusting winds and I try to get a little lower than normal, it seems like bucks try to stay out of the heavy wind up top. I'm curious to see what people say where and experiences they have.

Also, wouldn't the thermals carry your scent up in the mornings rather than down?

[I_Love_Scotch]

First hour or so of shooting light and thermals are still traveling down. Once the sun hits the ground is when I usually start feeling the thermals going up.

[JoeRE]

The topo you tried to post doesn't show up, try posting it again. I love hunting extreme winds in the hills because it concentrates the deer in out of the wind spots but it does make for some difficult winds! In my opinion you absolutely need to test out how strong winds funnel and eddy through the hills when hunting low (it sounds like you were hunting low with the ridge above you?)

For instance I hunt a spot where I need a strong south wind so I can hunt down low in the mouth of a valley and the wind will eddy through that spot consistently out of the NORTH...but that's only with a hard south wind hitting the ridges above. A couple other winds I tested out at that spot were highly variable. My guess would be your scent was blown the right direction at first, that's what you were observing at the stand, but then pulled back up to the buck in some kind of eddy effect just like you can see in a stream. Don't give up on spots like that though, I would just test them out with milkweed beforehand. Maybe if you went 10' higher in the tree you would have been OK, who knows?

[I_Love_Scotch]

For some reason the site isn't letting me 'continue' after I upload a picture so that's the reason you're seeing the 'X Factor'. I'll try again. But yes Joe I need to use the milkweeds in these types of scenarios to see if I can get by. Good call.

[I_Love_Scotch]

Yeah I select the image and hit continue, then get hit with an error saying I don't have permission to perform this. I'll PM a mod and see if I can figure this out.