Let's Talk Playing The Wind

[csoult]

So everyone who wants to kill big bucks plays the wind, but how close do you cut it? Give me examples if possible. Are you one of those people that will only hunt when the wind is perfectly in your favor, or will you make the deer feel like they have the wind in they're favor.

The reason I ask is because I hunt almost exclusively in hill country, buck bedding is fairly wind dependent, and I feel like most of the time in order to hunt the bed I'm always cutting it close. I believe it's costing me encounters.

[ Post made via iPad ]

[Brad]

In my opinion, and experiences, you need to cut it close. If you are not getting busted, your not generally in the game. i think this also goes along with being aggressive in general. The times I think I am too close to a suspected bed , I generally go juuuuust a little further. Some of those end up blowing up in my face, but I have been oh so close on a TON of encounters leading to shots, and usually I dropped the ball and missed or screwed something up. Hunt high when in doubt, but most of the times if the wind is in your favor, its against theirs and they wont be there. They need to feel secure , so setup so you can be darn close to blowing the whole works up.

Lets say you do 20 hunts a year, and you get busted on half of them. That still means there are 10 you didn't. You will get encounters on some of those other 10.

[Bigb]

Lets say you do 20 hunts a year, and you get busted on half of them. That still means there are 10 you didn't. You will get encounters on some of those other 10.

Agreed with this. Wind can't always be 100% perfect so you need to push the envelope sometimes. Those ones where I push the envelope are usually the ones I see the quality of bucks I'm after.

[DaveT1963]

I look for those areas where the buck will not have a wind advantage. It is a myth that they only travel with the wind to their face. A creek bend is one classic example

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[Brad]

I look for those areas where the buck will not have a wind advantage. It is a myth that they only travel with the wind to their face. A creek bend is one classic example

[ Post made via Android ]

The OP was referring to Hill country though.

[DaveT1963]

There are ravines in hill country, hour about a bend in a ridge line, saddle, there are all kinds of places that force deer movement just have to look for them

[ Post made via Android ]

[Mathewshooter]

Hunting the wind where I live is pretty tough. I would not consider my area "hill country" but there are some hills and ravines where I hunt. If you get up on top of a hill you can get a pretty consistent wind, provided theres no change in cover. Anywhere else is a crap shoot. I guess you could sit out in the middle of a field and have a consistent wind. I have been using Milkweed for over 20 years to show the wind direction and have learned a few things. If you hunt any type of edge or change in cover type, the wind will do weird things when it hits this change. I hunt the edge of pine thickets a lot and have noticed that when the wind blows from the open woods towards the pines it will swirl where it hits the pines. I also have a spot that is a 40 yard wide Oak Tree line that cuts into a pine thicket. When I sit in this spot and the wind is the perfect speed and coming across the tree line, it almost has the "wind tunnel" effect. The wind will swirl and pull your scent up and over the thicket. If the wind is off just a bit though, it will swirl your scent around in every direction. For this reason, I usually only sit there when the wind blows down along the tree line...blowing my scent out into the open woods. Another spot that the wind does weird things in is the corner of fields or the corners of CRP/brush thickets. The wind seems to like to swirl in these spots too. I think it again has something to do with the change in cover between the low brush and the taller hardwood trees. Its amazing what those milkweeds can teach you. The biggest thing I've learned where i hunt is the wind rarely ever blows one direction the whole time I'm sitting there. In fact, a lot of times it will blow almost every direction on the compass at some point during the hunt. Couple this with the fact that the deer can show up anywhere and it makes "hunting the wind" extremely difficult. Another thing...I dont even bother to go out hunting when the wind is blowing hard and gusting. Those gusts will create sort of a backdraft and blow your scent one way and then the exact opposite direction 20 seconds later. My approach has always been to pick out what wind directions I think would be best to hunt a spot on and go in there and keep your fingers crossed. Like someone else said...if you're not getting busted once in a while, you're not in the game.

[Bubbles]

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21883

I just read through this one recently, and I think I'm more confused than I was before.

[ Post made via Android ]

[dan]

So everyone who wants to kill big bucks plays the wind, but how close do you cut it? Give me examples if possible. Are you one of those people that will only hunt when the wind is perfectly in your favor, or will you make the deer feel like they have the wind in they're favor.

The reason I ask is because I hunt almost exclusively in hill country, buck bedding is fairly wind dependent, and I feel like most of the time in order to hunt the bed I'm always cutting it close. I believe it's costing me encounters.

[ Post made via iPad ]

If your below, your thermals rise to him, if your above they drop to him in the eve, if your at the same elevation wind is blowing towards the bed... Yea, you gotta split hairs in hill country and your right, its probably costing you, but, its also probably putting you in the game. I used to get down and move, if the wind switched or got iffy, sometimes I still do, but once I am at a spot I now tend to hunt it any way since I burned the spot. I have killed a few and seen many more bucks come in from down wind. Not something I would do on purpose, but no sense on spooking the bucks and moving... If its a spot I can't hunt with any wind I like to bump the deer if the property is big enough, and hunt him somewhere else where he is more killable.

You need to hunt or burn all the bedding areas in order to not give the buck a "free space" then you stack em in the spots you have not yet hunted.

[csoult]

There are ravines in hill country, hour about a bend in a ridge line, saddle, there are all kinds of places that force deer movement just have to look for them

[ Post made via Android ]

This works just fine during the rut, but here in PA there is so much pressure that in early to mid season mature bucks truly only move a short distance outside of dark. Therefore I have to hunt bedding to even have a chance.

What you see in the Hill Country DVD's hold almost true 95% of the time. So in farm and flat country you can play the wind in your favor, but here the bucks bed almost exclusively with the wind in their favor. So if you try to play the wind they are not there. Your only hope is to set up off to one side or another and never cross the scent stream.

Below you will see an example of what I mean.
Oval=Buck Bed
Square= Potential Stands
Arrow= Wind

[JoeRE]

Dave I don't think anyone was suggesting bucks only travel with the wind in their face. I think the question was more about trying to target wind specific bedding where bucks typically lay down with the wind at some angle across their back and also often J-hook into the bed from downwind, so setups near bedding often end up cutting it pretty close.

To me personally in hill country a "good, consistent wind" is anything that varies back and forth less than about 45 degrees over the length of a sit. In other words, 1/8th of a circle. That is still a lot, and like I said the best I would hope for around here! Based on that I try to pick a setup for an air current outside of that 45 degree quadrant off of the direction of travel, just KNOWING its going to vary some over a several hour period. Yea sometimes I get it wrong but like Brad mentioned its about putting yourself in a number of high-odds situations so even if you get busted once or twice, you are still in the game.

There are other situations obviously where maybe you can get high and just have your scent blow right over the buck as it approaches. If I can't keep my scent above a buck I am really hesitant to play something closer than mentioned above. If its the only possibility I might try it but tends to come back and bite me. The stronger the wind, the more consistent....most of the time.

[JoeRE]

I made up this hypothetical setup in some random area I zoomed in to to give an example of the closest I would want to play it with a forecast straight west wind. Blue circle would be my setup...if there was any north in the westerly wind at all I would not try it.

[DaveT1963]

Dave I don't think anyone was suggesting bucks only travel with the wind in their face. I think the question was more about trying to target wind specific bedding where bucks typically lay down with the wind at some angle across their back and also often J-hook into the bed from downwind, so setups near bedding often end up cutting it pretty close.

To me personally in hill country a "good, consistent wind" is anything that varies back and forth less than about 45 degrees over the length of a sit. In other words, 1/8th of a circle. That is still a lot, and like I said the best I would hope for around here! Based on that I try to pick a setup for an air current outside of that 45 degree quadrant off of the direction of travel, just KNOWING its going to vary some over a several hour period. Yea sometimes I get it wrong but like Brad mentioned its about putting yourself in a number of high-odds situations so even if you get busted once or twice, you are still in the game.

There are other situations obviously where maybe you can get high and just have your scent blow right over the buck as it approaches. If I can't keep my scent above a buck I am really hesitant to play something closer than mentioned above. If its the only possibility I might try it but tends to come back and bite me. The stronger the wind, the more consistent....most of the time.

Got it - I think I misunderstood the OP question. I had thought he was asking about other techniques, not just bed hunting. I need to read more carefully.

But to my post, I seldom hunt solo beds - the odds for me are just to low for a buck I want to kill to actually be bedding there the day I want to hunt and/or that they will use the entry /exit point I set up on. I typically focus on where several factors increase the odds (corridors between bedding areas not beds, funnels into/out of bedding, convergence of doe trails during rut, double edges, etc.) and the set up accordingly. One thing that helped me in MT was where I could find an obstruction, travel corridor, obstacle that would slightly re-direct the direction the buck was heading and give me a wind advantage. Sometimes I found these, sometimes I created them with fallen trees/brush, wire fences, etc.

For me, outside of these deviations to normal buck travel, playing the wind was too fickle and unreliable in the rockies. That was one of the reasons I started mobile hunting years ago, the wind/thermal would shift and I made a move even if it was 50 yards to the other side of a bench, ridge, trail...... The idea of thermals staying constant (i.e. wind tunnel) for more then an hour just was not my experience in the rockies. Lower altitude hills where temps don't fluctuate so much might be different?

[Stanley]

Great illustration Joe. I think a couple of things come into play; hills are arguably one of the easiest terrains to find buck bedding. Hills are also one of the toughest to set up on a known buck bed. This is because of the wind and what it does in the hills. I have the best luck with stronger winds like Joe mentioned. I also think in hill country those calm no wind days are more huntable than on flat ground. This is because, if the thermals are in control of the wind current you have a better idea where your scent will go.

Getting a certain wind is more critical in hill country because the off wind direction is often the only option rater than the preferred option. Lets face it, you can't hunt certain beds, with certain winds, you are wasting your time. I do think having many options as far as buck beds are concerned is crucial so a hunter doesn't have to rely on one or two beds to hunt. Great topic for discussion.

[csoult]

Great illustration Joe. I think a couple of things come into play; hills are arguably one of the easiest terrains to find buck bedding. Hills are also one of the toughest to set up on a known buck bed. This is because of the wind and what it does in the hills. I have the best luck with stronger winds like Joe mentioned. I also think in hill country those calm no wind days are more huntable than on flat ground. This is because, if the thermals are in control of the wind current you have a better idea where your scent will go.

Getting a certain wind is more critical in hill country because the off wind direction is often the only option rater than the preferred option. Lets face it, you can't hunt certain beds, with certain winds, you are wasting your time. I do think having many options as far as buck beds are concerned is crucial so a hunter doesn't have to rely on one or two beds to hunt. Great topic for discussion.

Those are great points Stanley