Calm Mornings and Rising Thermals

[funderburk]

So, as I’m reading through Mapping Trophy Bucks and as I’m always reading on the beast, have I understood correctly that on calm mornings in hill country the thermals trump the wind filtering gently over the leeward side?

[Singing Bridge]

It is terrain dependent and something to be studied and learned in your hunting area. As an example of the variables a 330 foot bluff on a calm morning may have thermals that blow back your hair and override light and variable winds. A short ridge may well have the opposite. The point is there are many variables but you can learn to predict what will often be the case in your hunting area through observation.

[funderburk]

That helps. Thanks!

[brancher147]

Yes, the thermals can trump a light wind. For instance in mountains I hunt a west wind is predominant making the east side leeward. But on a calm or light west wind day that is sunny and temp rising the thermals can blow a fairly strong wind up the east side overriding the west wind. This is common and makes both sides of the ridge behave as windward. Probably part of the reason why I see as much windward as leeward bedding because We have a lot of calm or light wind days.

[backstraps]

x2 on both Singing Bridge and brancher147

I hunt some really continuous hills that are combined with really tall elevations and then shorter peaks..I suppose they're calling rolling hills? At any rate, the thermals can be so independent from place to place, I always make notes of stand sites on how the thermals reacted with the current wind speeds, temps, and what time the bottoms should have started to warm up in the mornings.

Point being, just because the winds are blowing at a certain direction (especially light and variable winds) once you get to where you are planning to hunt you can literally have a 180 degree different wind.

[PK_]

I don’t even pay attention to wind direction on bluebird days with light wind. Once those thermals start sucking up you are pretty much bullet proof.