Specifically related to hill country terrain: If the wind is predominately blowing in one direction, and thermals are pulling in another, what happens to your scent? One of my best spots is situated on a bench hillside, often times the wind blows down into the holler, but in the mornings thermals pull up the hill in the opposite direction of the wind. Deer travel both from up top and down below. Any thoughts on if one is a stronger pull than the other for scent travel? Thanks.
Another thought is which setup is gonna be more consistent and keep you from getting busted?...those high ground benches you described are really good at allowing you to hunt and have your wind blow over or pushed above the travel corridor by the wind and thermals. The lower ground set ups make it much more difficult in my experience.
I would say there are alot of factors in play here. For thermals they are not a consistent factor. It will depend on surrounding temperature changes. Usually a fast temperature change gets them moving, and mostly happens in the first couple hours of sun up and last hour or 2 of sun set. But wind can over take it if blowing hard enough. Also sometimes the wind will be dead at first or last light, so thermals seem more drastic. For me I enter my hunting area with the wind given for that day and setup for what I predict the thermals will be doing later when deer start moving. I setup so thermals will pool in a place were deer won't be. If this can't be done, then most likely I will get busted. For the most part deer seem to like moving when the thermals start. Unless during the rut. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Our wind swirls here so much I never know what's going to happen. That said we are near the top of a NW facing hill when the winds are coming from that direction in the morning and the sun is rising in the east the deer tend to travel from the east down the hill into the wind. I always say the sun is chasing the cold air down the hill in the mornings. The deer seem to be pushed along with it. It always gets way colder as the sun starts cresting the horizon. The opposite happens in the evening. Here I can sit at the base of a steep incline both morning and night and have deer come right at me. The morning sit with deer coming down at me, I've never understood. Some of it is just catching the cross wind.
The wind will follow the lay of the land as well. I own part of a tall ridge that has several draws coming off of it. One day I was walking on one of my trails with the wind at my back when a couple hundred yards later if was blowing in my face. The wind had went along the side of the ridge, then swung around and came back out along the opposite side of the draw. Over the years I have logged predominant wind direction and then again the wind direction from each of my stands. Of course the most consistent wind direction is on top of the ridge.
Wind will generally override thermals when the wind speed is around 8+mph. However, sunlight also plays a roll. Being in the shade will almost always pull the thermals down and it will take more wind to pull the scent away. Once in the sunlight, the thermals will tend to go up. Randy Newberg offers a great explanation of how this works in the mountains of the western states. The same principals apply across the midwest and eastern part of the country. But, it can be more subtle because the changes in terrain are not as dramatic as in the mountains.
After 30 years of hunting mountains here in PA.. I will say this. Its super hard to hunt the wind effectively. I have come to conclusion that the best I can do is pick a stand that gives me the best wind that is forecasted and hope it works out. The problem is swirling winds in the hills and mountains. No matter how hard to you try and how much you pay attention to what the forecast calls for.. the wind swirls. Even worse is those really light, almost non existent winds that seem to let scent float and linger in all directions. Here in mountain country and bigger woods areas such as I hunt, deer come from every direction as well. I used to drive myself nuts trying to pick the perfect tree for the wind and realized that its difficult at best. A good example was a sit I had this year in the rut that I chose the stand because of wind and where the deer tend to filter to and from. Nope... all the deer I saw that morning were directly downwind of me on this day..lol.
I just hunted some strip mines last weekend. Every spoil pile I crossed over the wind was doing something different. All I can say is milkweed or wind checker. Use it often. I go through about 8-12 milkweed pods and a bottle of 2 of wind checker every season.
