Hunting the wind?

[Fever]

Good luck to you as well Blackjack.

[Bear55]

Just stating the case for the common hunter here, hunting the wind is a long standing proven tactic dating back to the beginning of time. Scent control is what 10-15 years old and costs $$$ and a fair bit of time if you are going to do it right. It also doesn't (in my opinion) work all that well on mature deer.

Hunting mobile you really only need one stand and you can adjust every setup based on the wind.

Again no right or wrong way to do things, just throwing out ideas to help your average joe.

[bigbucks]

I try not to stink, but in the end I'm like blackjack & bear said. I'm NOT going to bow hunt a stand if the wind is wrong, so often I could stink & be okay. I'm going to TRY not to gun hunt a stand with the wrong wind, but my opening day gun stand is the same stand no matter what the wind is. There's so many guys in the woods then, you go where you have a spot. I try to control my scent, but opening day is more about being ready in a good spot than anything in my opinion. After that I hunt the wind...

Getting back to paceman's question, & he probably pretty much knows my theories having hunted with me a butt load of times, but here's my approach:

I determine where the deer are generally coming from & going to in the morning or the evening in a particular location, by observation & experience. Once I know, or think I do, I hunt that stand only when the wind is basically coming from the direction the deer will be coming from. Some spots the exact opposite wind is right for an am hunt vs a pm hunt, some spots it's generally the same.

The deer don't use the wind to determine where they are going, with the exception of when they are pushed or perhaps when a buck is scent checking a bedding area for hot does. The deer gets up an hour before dark & thinks, hmm time to start heading for that cornfield, beanfield, hayfield, super productive oak tree, or whatever. It knows where that is, so it goes that way. It might want a drink first & need to go a slightly different direction to get water, but basically it's going where it wants to go. Now maybe sometimes it gets spooked out of it's normal routine by a person, dog, coyote, etc. or it just gets curious about something else, but pretty much it's going where it's going.

I agree on funnels, if you have access to them, especially during the rut, the deer can come from anywhere. I have spots where some winds are definitely better than others, but almost any wind can be productive.

There is one other exception to deer's reaction to wind, in that if it's really wind at least 15mph, probably more like 20mph or more look for the lee side of woods where there's food. They will almost always be there in those conditions, especially if it's behind a hill. They don't like that strong wind much better than we do.

Sorry for the length.