Thoughts on this...

[chadwick9]

When you guys talk about the top 1/3, is there an ideal elevation footage? Where I hunt goes anywhere from 50' to 200' normally with the tallest point around being 400'. Mostly gradual hills and not the steep bluffs I assume would be most helpful to the top 1/3rd rule.

[Velociraptor]

I work in a career that has a lot of minutiae and detail. My critical decisions are based upon small factors so, that affects my thinking/planning.

When the floor of the valley changes in elevation, does it change the one third from the Ridgeline rule? Because here I am subtracting say 1400 foot elevation (and that summit maybe a quarter of a mile to a half a mile away) from a 2200 foot elevation, and I drop down to 1925 or thereabouts. Does that thermal tunnel change with the topography below me or does it stay the same?? even though the floor elevation may go to 1350 or rise to 1550!
Basically ....where IS the bottom elevation? If it changes?
Is it the elevation "just below" ?
and believe me I get it with the heat of the thermal rising versus the speed of the wind over top I get all that coupled the steepness of the slope... My question is pertaining to the base where The thermals are originated from "changing in elevation"..what is the lower number?.

[Huntress13]

Velociraptor, I'm not even close to being an expert, but just elevation doesn't give you enough information. It's not static because there are a lot of other factors.

[SplitG2]

If you have a day where the wind is calm, will the lesser wind and strong thermals drive the wind tunnel up farther on the ridge?

Depends on the shape of the hill. But, yes, in some cases it can.

Dan is right on with this. I have a firm believer that when bed hunting, wind speed is key and it can take you right outta the game but hill shape is a factor too. The steeper the hill, the less wind speed becomes a factor, it’s those slow to medium rolls in which the wind speed can really bite you in the but.

A perfect example of this is the buck I killed this year. I was hunting within 43 yards of his usual bed for WSW and SW winds. The morning I went into kill him, we only had 4-5mph WSW wind when we were supposed to have 10mph winds. The buck still came back into his original bedding area but instead of bedding on the shelf, 1/3 down from the top at the base of 2 poplars like usual, he bedded 50 yards farther up the hill, nearly at the ridgetop, almost directly above his usual bed. Eventually after a 5 hour wait watching him in his bed and a spot stalk it all came together for me but overall the wind speeds took me outta the game that morn. He’s not the first buck I’ve seen do this very thing. I’ve been taken outta the game a few times because the wind speed wasn’t what was forecasted.