This might be a stupid question, or a good one. I am fairly new to the wind game. I have played it a little the last couple years but not as much as this year. This got me thinking. We try to sit where the wind is blowing our scent away from where we expect (or hope) the deer to come from. But at the same time deer like to walk into the wind in an attempt to sense danger. Is there something I am missing?
lol, you are correct. Generally speaking, deer are going to go where they are going regardless of wind direction. Your job is to find a spot where you can cut them off and still keep your wind out of their nose. They won't walk into the wind when it blows from every direction, that's why it's important to find spots that you can hunt on different winds.
Deer definately use the wind to their advantage but it doesn't mean they are walking into it. If they walk with the wind they know if something is behind them. They also like to use cross winds to scent check areas as they walk. If they only walked into the wind they could only walk in one direction until the wind changes.
OK, that helps me out. I am trying to be more tactical this year rather then just going out and sitting like I have before. But I have noticed that my deer sightings are down this year and I wanted to make sure I was playing the wind game right.
Playing the wind correctly often times means you're sitting spots you wouldn't necessarily have sat that day... Perhaps you'd sat in a more compromised spot and seen more deer, but those that you did see may bust you. And nothing makes a spot go cold long-term than that. Like most of us, I don't have access to 1,000s and 1,000s of acres (well, I do... but I like to hunt my "favorite" little spots)... and I want to keep them "fresh" as long as possible.
I remember the early years as a teenager questioning this same logic by the old timers...my thought was "if we get a West wind for a month...all the deer will end up on the west coast since they cannot walk East on those days"... The more I hunted...the more I witnessed deer walking with wind to their back...they're going where they want to go...wind/smell is only one of their defenses...especially if not highly pressured.
This is what I was going to say. Dubbya hit it. (example) one of the spots im hunting now. Its a bottle neck between two high wall strip pits and its squeezed down pretty good. There beds are after the bottle neck and these Deer want in there beds bad, comming from the food (corn) about 500 yards back. My wind is good for my stand, but on the side they should be using to have the wind at there advantage is a quad trail thats pretty open. They wont use it but instead are comming in on the other side where they are screwed on the wind, but its thicker and they are hugging the edge of the other highwall. They can then slip straight into some nasty pine thicket. They cant do this on the other side. Im seeing Deer everytime in this stand and the wind is never in there favor. See our team thread to see what i passed on this morning there
