Hunting with the wind... When decieding which stand to go to each morning I'm assuming most of us check which direction the wind is coming from and go from there. In years past my budget and space has limited me with the number of stands I could have placed throughout our property. I would try to have stands set up so I could hunt around the wind. I will admit that I snuck into stands under some conditions when they weren't 100% ideal. This year I have nearly doubled my stand sites. My question to you is this: Would you rather hunt a less desirable stand site with a perfect wind, or a stand that is red hot with an "okay" wind?. In years past I would ignore the caution of the okay wind scenario and hunt the hot stand anyways. This year with more stand sites I have multiple stands for multiple winds. I am also going to be keeping a journal of each outing I have this year with weather, deer sightings, and other varying factors.
Yes...although I hunt bigger timbers which better allows for OK winds as many times deer are moving on any particular side of my stands...just know - the downwind side won't be your best bet...
If I had a slammin' location where I knew I had a good chance on a nice buck, there's no way I would risk it. I have 3 stands with this exact situation that I haven't even got to sit yet. Remember, the wind is mother nature's best cover scent. You need to take advantage of it and don't risk ruining that "slammin" spot, you only have so many of them. JMO
My reason for asking is that I have 2 stands that are in what I consider "okay" spots. They aren't anything that I look at and think WOW I cant WAIT to hunt here, but I am stilll fairly confident that I will see deer there on most sits. Meanwhile on opening day I have a spot that I am just dying to get into. However if the wind is not perfect I like having the security blanket to fall back on one of these spots.
Perfect wind. UNLESS it is within the 8 day period that they are going bonkers. Then I can settle with an ok wind.
Very few of my stands have the deer only coming from one direction. Some stands they come in from 360*, so a lot of my sets I'm giving up some area to the wind. It's kind of a crap shoot to which direction I hope they come from. So I can live with an OK wind most of the time. Besides, unless you have a really strong wind, it's usually going to switch directions a couple of times during the anyhow!
