# Myth of prevailing winds



## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

Wind is one of the most important things people consider when doing habitat work related to entry routes, stand placement, food plot locations, and sanctuary locations. But I think most people do not take into account the fact that more often than not, in the northern areas of the midwest, the wind is not coming from the direction that one would point to as being the "prevailing wind." "Weather" almost always comes from the west but wind only does so about half the time or less during the months we are in the woods hunting.

Here is a chart of the main wind direction gathered from Weather Underground for Hillsdale Michigan during the months of October and November. Green boxes are days when the wind was mostly from the west, between SW and NW. The winds were mainly from the west 43% of the days. Red boxes are days when there was no westerly component, which was 36% of the days. Yellow are days when there was a slight westerly component, but winds were mainly from the north or south. It is easy to see from this if you set up most of your stands, access routes, etc., anticipating westerly winds, they will be useful less than half the time. While most of our "weather" comes from the west in MI, the direction the wind is going to blow is subject to a lot of different considerations. When low pressure is coming, you will often get easterly winds--a great time to hunt. When cold weather comes, the wind often blows from the north--a great time to hunt. In fact, many people set up their properties backwards because of the myth of prevailing winds.










The aerial is a new 47 acre property I bought in February of 2010. The entire eastern part of the property is bedding areas. This goes entirely against the standard doctrine that it is best to approach a property from the east because of the "prevailing winds." 

To the north is a Bean Creek co-op property with little food but lots of bedding. To the west is another co-op property with lots of food. The arrows show the usual evening travel routes of deer moving towards food. Morning travel routes are opposite. There is little reason for a deer to move to and from the east in daylight because there is nothing there for them except sharp sticks, lead projectiles, and lots of human scent, plus an almost impenetrable barrier caused by a chainsaw tornado. I put in yellow the number of days I could have hunted each stand (white dots) in the accompanying aerial, without having my wind blow into the bedding areas. The possibilities range from 22 to 41 days out of 61 possible during October and Novebmer. 

Folks, if you are mainly setting up your property for west winds, you may be making a mistake. The best winds to hunt, the ones that bring bad weather and cold weather, are east and north winds, and it is a good idea to have plenty of stand set-ups to accommodate them. This is an unusual property and I am lucky to have other places to hunt west winds, but whenever possible, you should realize that *more than half the time, the prevailing wind direction is not the direction the wind will actually be coming from.*

More than 50% of my stands are placed in a positions that capitalize on east winds and north winds. I have the luxury of being able to hunt any days I want to and therefore, am more likely to be hunting an east wind or north wind than any other. Fair weather (westerly and southerly) winds do not usually get me too excited. 

Let me just take a moment to discuss walleye fishing here. If I go out onto a lake, especially in weather with water temperatures below the ideal for a walleye, and there is a brisk wind blowing, you will find me, and other successful walleye fishermen fighting the elements on the choppy side of the lake because that side of the lake is going to produce a warmer temperature gradient, the chop is going to break up light, causing the fish to move shallower and causing them to be more active. The majority of fisherman will be busy looking for slack water in lee areas, thereby being more comfortable but greatly reducing their chances of catching a fish. Read more on this topic here: http://www.boois.com/fishing-protected-bays.htm. 

Deer hunters are much like fishermen. The majority are looking for fair weather conditions, setting up to hunt westerly winds and having to face the disappointing fact that about 60% of the time, the wind is not blowing from the prevailing direction, and often hunting anyway, compromising the hunt because they hunt the wrong wind because most or all of their stand set-ups are for the "prevailing winds" which are the worst winds to hunt, just as the lee, flat side of a bay is the worst place to fish. It doesn't mean you won't get your deer or fish in the "comfortable" lication, it simply means your odds of doing so are greatly reduced. 

This myth of the prevailing wind causes hunters to make even more problematic mistakes. One of these mistakes is illustrated in a recent thread, where a video discusses putting buck beds down wind of doe beds (using the "prevailing" wind). Let's imagine a place (almost non-existent in MI) where the wind comes from the same direction every day. *Would you really want to place your bucks in a position where they don't ever have to move in day time to scent check the does?* Wouldn't it be better to have the bucks in a position where they have to move to scent check the does? Luckily, if you have placed your buck beds "downwind" of the doe beds, you are not going to suffer that much, because most of the time the wind does not blow in the direction of the "prevailing" wind, even though the wind comes from the "prevailing" direction more than any other. This may seem contradictory, but it is not. So this whole concept of using the "prevailing" wind as a decision factor on where to place beds is based on myth and a lack of understanding of what the wind is really doing. 

Below is an example of what is called a wind-rose. It is a compilation of where the wind is blowing over a period of time, usually using daily data over a 1 month time. 

In this case, I am showing 30 year data for Lansing MI on wind direction and speed for the months of October, November, and December. Data are available at this site: http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/climate/windrose.html The estimates are rough because the charts don't show the exact percentage for each, but I would guess I am within +/- 2%. What these charts show is that the wind is westerly (stretching it all the way from SW to NW, about 40% of the time during our hunting season. That means that about 60% of the time, the wind is blowing from some other direction. So even though the wind comes from the westerly quadrant more often than any other, the wind is coming from one of the other three quadrants more often than from the "prevailing" quadrant. 

October SW to NW 40% of the time, N, S, or Easterly 38% of the time:









November SW to NW 42% of the time, N, S, or Easterly 40% of the time:









December SW to NW 43% of the time, N, S, or Easterly 34% of the time:









Most hunters could use more stands that are placed to capitalize on easterly or northerly winds. I have a mix of stands that I can use in any wind. This approach is most important for those guys who do not have the luxury of choosing which days they hunt. If you can only hunt on weekends, it is unwise to have stand set-ups that only are good for westerly winds. 
__________________


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Here's a great post that many can learn from. Far too many guys set everything up for westerly winds and that's a big mistake. This should probably be made a sticky...



Half of our stands are set up specifically for easterly winds. Some for NE, some for E and some for SE. There's many instances at peak dates when you could have a better part of a week of east winds.

Typically, when we get a storm front coming in during October, NE winds precede it. Often, deer movement can be pretty good right before a new front moves in. 

I don't know if the winds are a bit different in western Michigan, but from my anecdotal observations, setting up many stands for NW winds specifically for prior to mid-November is about folly, since NW winds in October seem so infrequent. While we do get NE winds in the first 40 some days of bow season, it seems to me, from my experience, that most winds are from some southerly direction. 

I'm not saying don't have any NW wind stands, but you'll get more use from SW, S , SE, E and NE stands than you will NW and N stands, at least in my area of the SW part of the NLP.

While your list didn't show many straight south winds, I'd suggest having a spot or two for a WSW, S, ESE varible winds. I seems like we get lots of those in both October and November.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

The fact that the direction of the prevailing winds are not the direction the wind usually comes from is one issue, but a much larger and more important one in regards to successful hunting is that the direction of the wind changes through the day, almost every day. Below is a table from weather undergound, it is from Hillsdale which is a few miles away from where I hunted on this day, but makes my point. On Necember 13th my friend and I did an all day hunt. It was only two days to gun season and we took some risk by putting him just east of a bedding area, but I really wanted to get him a chance for a good buck. The weatherman called for SE winds that day. However, by the time the day was over, I noted that the wind blew from every major direction on the compass for as long as 15 minutes. At one point in the afternoon it was due west into the bedding area for about 15 minutes.

Up until 1:15 p.m. I saw 7 bucks (all but one in bow distance), 5 does, 3 fawns, and 2 unknowns. 

After that wind shift, I saw 2 deer the rest of the day through dark.

Things to notice in this chart. The wind started in the east when we got to the stand, which is straight up the creek bed from the food source, not a good thing. It shifted towards the southeast as the day went on, but as we were ending the hunt and walking out it was from the WSW and west. Notice the temperature went up, which thermally affects the rate of rise and fall of the air, humidity went down, and the barometer was falling through the day. Now this does not reflect exactly what happened at our location, but gives you some idea of the variability of winds. As I settled in in the stand in the morning, the wind actually blew right from the NW for the first half hour or so, then shifted to the east. As I said, through the day, it was steady in every direction at some point in time. Notice too that we changed from clear to scattered clouds. A single cloud crossing in front of the sun can cause a local wind shift for a few minutes. 










The moral of this story. The weatherman tells you which way he thinks the wind will blow up above your head. Trees, wood lots, stream beds, hills valleys, thermals, ponds, clouds, barometric changes, all will affect the wind through the day. 

Although consideration of wind is important, "playing the wind" as a sole means of scent control is almost meaningless where most of us live and hunt. This is why you will find few professional whitetail hunters who depend on "playing the wind" as their only method of scent control. It is also why we all have to regularly move our chairs around a fire when camping in the woods:lol:. 

One thing you can do to help is to get the hour by hour wind from some source. I use www.weather.com

Here's an example of my area:
http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/49220 

It helps.

I have one friend who is a very successful mature buck hunter who will watch for days when there is an abrupt shift in wind predicted. He sets up in such a way that bucks repositioning themselves to track doe bedding areas will possibly move past his location. Such a wind shift is one thing that can get a mature buck up on his feet in day time. You want it to be because he wants to keep track of his girls, and you want it not to be because your scent trail shifted in his direction and alerted him to your presence.


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## 88luneke (Jan 13, 2009)

Thank you for doing the time to post this once again this year, this is something everyone should consider when preparing their stands for the upcoming season.

You said you get hour/hour updates from weather.com (as do I) - Have you ever sat for most of the day then moved to another location or stand because of the wind shift or the weather conditions? Or would it be better, rather than making noise leaving, to just sit it out?


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

88luneke said:


> Thank you for doing the time to post this once again this year, this is something everyone should consider when preparing their stands for the upcoming season.
> 
> You said you get hour/hour updates from weather.com (as do I) - Have you ever sat for most of the day then moved to another location or stand because of the wind shift or the weather conditions? Or would it be better, rather than making noise leaving, to just sit it out?


It depends on your scent control level, and where you are hunting. If I am going to sit all day, I expect my scent to get stronger and stronger as the day goes on. Without question, I am more vulnerable to a scent bust at the end of the day than at the beginning. Therefore, on an all day sit, I try to have the evening wind dictate location. 

A number of my locations do not allow a move once settled in. Deer will move in and bed within 50 yards or less, so I am stuck there for the day. In other locations, I can slip in and out and move to a different stand location. It just depends on where I choose to sit. I typically only do all day sits close in on bedding areas or in areas that are used by deer all day long.


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## turk877 (Mar 10, 2010)

In our camp at least for bowhunting we now stay home on east winds. every time we attempted a hunt the deer were far spookier and nervous then a west wind or sw,nw . Maybe others have success but its good to give a break and EVERY east wind ended in frustration so we use the time to target shoot and be ready for that west forecast.


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## Jeff Sturgis (Mar 28, 2002)

Always love these posts you give us!

On my property in WI and the UP @ one time I had over 50 stands between the two combined, for all winds on both. Depending on the morning or evening...early season or late, there would typically be less than 20% of stands that could be used due to wind direction, and often that # was 10% depending upon stand roatations. 

There is nothing better than an east wind backdoor morning approach to a bedding area! Plan for it and use it to your advantage...you will find that you can use it at once every several days throughout the season.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SPITFIRE (Feb 10, 2005)

One of my best stands is for East winds and when I get to hunt it,I usually have good sightings.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

turk877 said:


> In our camp at least for bowhunting we now stay home on east winds. every time we attempted a hunt the deer were far spookier and nervous then a west wind or sw,nw . Maybe others have success but its good to give a break and EVERY east wind ended in frustration so we use the time to target shoot and be ready for that west forecast.


The east wind in and of itself should not cause deer to be spookier or more nervous. In fact an east wind is an indication of approaching weather and often causes deer to move to load up with food before the storm. They tend to be more bold and actually take more chances moving in daylight when weather is approaching.

If in your particular camp the east wind is causing a problem I would look at specific sources of scent or movement. For example, if your cabin is on the west end of the property an east wind might cause the deer to be more nervous. Same deal if your travel routes are along the east end of the property. Most properties are set up based on the myth of the prevailing wind and so access routes are often from the east end of the property. I'm not saying that is the case for you, but on those properties where parking areas, cabins, access trails, etc. are set up mainly on the east end of the property because of the expectation that the wind will usually blow from the east, well then deer on that property are liable to be more skittish during an east wind because they are picking up scent that they would not normally be aware of. 

In short, I would look for three things to explain why these deer are more spooky during east winds:

1. Scent
2. Scent
3. Scent

It may be from your camp or adjoining areas, but it is most likely human scent that is the cause of the problem.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

Jeff Sturgis said:


> Always love these posts you give us!
> 
> On my property in WI and the UP @ one time I had over 50 stands between the two combined, for all winds on both. Depending on the morning or evening...early season or late, there would typically be less than 20% of stands that could be used due to wind direction, and often that # was 10% depending upon stand roatations.
> 
> ...


Thanks Jeff.

I haven't done a recent count but I am over 50 stands on 200 acres and adding more this year.

I have been working with Bill Vale who has convinced me to move in closer to my bedding areas and so am adding stands. I will be putting up a post that documents our process of entering the sanctuary and setting up stands in locations where we know the mature bucks are hanging out most of the time but have been hesitant to enter. We have high confidence we will also be finishing the documentation with images mature deer with holes in vital places:lol:. Bill has been teaching me techniques that will enable me to go smack dab into the middle of the safe zone with little chance of being detected, especially when combined with my extreme scent control.


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## TheGift (Dec 14, 2010)

I have stands within 50yds of beds to Bio.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

Wind is a fickle thing. The weatherman tells us the wind is going to blow from the south today (arrow), so we set up accordingly. In this case, I want to hunt a woods and have my wind blow out into the field to the left of the picture. So I set a stand on the north end of this woods, to the left of the picture. 









But what I am doing is setting up in the lee of an obstruction, and the obstruction is the woods itself. Almost invariably, even after the leaves are off, the wind is going to be blowing the opposite of the weatherman's wind at this end of the woods. Why? The woods slows the wind down and causes a vacuum which is filled by sucking air back from north to south at the north end of the woods.









You can test this yourself by walking to the downwind side of almost any woods and you should experience this reversing wind. Within the woods, each tree is capable of making a little disruption that often takes the shape of a little whirlwind that chaotically bounces around the woods at almost any angle you can imagine. 

Most good stream fishermen are aware that just because you know the "prevailing" direction of the current in a river, you do not know what direction it will be flowing in any given spot. Obstructions in the stream will cause eddy's and a complete reversal of current. Fish use this to their advantage because food collects in the eddy and at any given time, many fish are going to be found in eddies rather than in the main current.









The same thing is true of deer on terrain. When someone tells you to orient buck beds on the downwind side of doe beds, they are revealing that they do not know much about winds. Here is an example of one of my favorite spots to hunt a west wind. The weatherman tells me the wind is going to be blowing from the west. And it is in open areas and above the tree line. In this image, my stand is the red spot, and the arrow shows the direction of wind. "A" marks the top of a hill to my NE, and "B" marks the floodplain of a creek. There is a 25 foot elevation drop from "A" to "B."









Now, from my personal observations in early October, watching leaves blow off trees during a brisk west wind, here is what the wind is doing in this area:









Notice the wind comes across the open field. When a gust comes through, leaves are blown off trees due east. However, the combination of the valley to the south, and the hill to the east, cause it to completely reverse and blow leaves from east to west south of my location. North of me, the wind blows from the west, south of me, it blows east. I am high up in a tree with extreme scent control, so I get to observe deer and how they behave with reference to these winds. I can tell you, from this location, with this wind, deer to my west (they bed down on the creek bottom) come up out of the creek bottom following the subordinate wind that is blowing in the opposite direction of the "prevailing" wind to the north of me. To exit the floodplain to my SE, they follow the more "prevailing" wind that is deflected a bit south by the hill, and then follow the west wind to get to the food plot that is at the south end of that field north of me.

Here is an example of me getting scent busted by a 1.5 year old 6 pt. buck using a deflected wind. I am sitting in the big tree in the center. If you look carefully, you can see the metal railings of the ladder stand angled to the ground to the right, which is due west. But also notice that there is a small rise to the north (beyond the stand) which is covered with cedar trees. These thick cedars cause a deflection of the wind to fill in the vacuum produced downwind of the tree.









Here is an areal showing the wind direction, my stand (red) and the track the buck took--December 10th 2010. He came out of the CRP field, and into a very tiny (1/50th of an acre or so) food plot with lots of nice greens and turnips. He was feeding there for about 10 minutes, and then crossed straight down wind of me, as far as the weatherman is concerned. He was headed into the cedar clump, probably making his way to a larger food plot (for me, a larger plot is 1/10th of an acre) near the NW point of the field. When the buck got due north of me he stopped, and started checking the air. He stared past my position out into the CRP field, and alternated watching there with sniffing the air. For about 10 minutes he stood still. Finally he turned around, and slowly made his way directly down wind. I was busted, but there was no blowing or running or freaking out by the deer. He simply changed plans and repositioned himself in the downwind direction. I discussed the different levels of a scent bust in another thread: http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/showthread.php?t=360084. I find that in this situation, with a low level (level 1 or 2) scent bust, the deer will almost always move straight down wind, reposition themselves, and then move along with the wind in their favor. A level 3 or 4 scent bust (alarm or panic) will usually cause them to go back to where they came from, because they know it is safe back there, or they will head into the heaviest nearby cover away from the source of the alarm. 









If you "never get busted" I would say you really have a problem. My view is that the more extreme your scent control is, the more often you will *see* a level 1 or 2 bust, that is, a bust where the deer just changes its mind about staying around or moving on its current course. In the case of the hunter that "never gets busted" the bust is happening a great distance away, so the bust happened but the hunter never saw it. It doesn't mean you won't see deer, it means you will see a lot fewer deer than you could have.

Here is a scenario where a hunter was busted but never knew it. I was in a position to see the bust happen but he was not. In this case, I was in the stand to the left (red line) and my friend was in the stand to the right (red line), and about 125 yards to my east. The wind was blowing straight from him to me. Two does and a fawn came up my wind, past me about 12 yards to the north (white line), and came to a creek, where they immediately froze and started lifting their heads to test the wind, posturing, doing some slow back peddling, and finally turned around and left, going back down wind into very heavy cover north of me, where they laid down for the day. My friend had no idea he was scent busted. And he saw numerous deer that day, including bucks that passed very close to him. But the point is that he didn't see these particular deer.









Playing the wind is the single most important thing we can do. But as we have seen in these examples, and in the examples of how weather patterns change through the day, it is clear that playing the wind alone is not an optimal strategy for harvesting mature whitetail deer, or seeing as many deer as it is possible to see. For that, we need to improve scent control. Most of us are being patterned by deer on in the woods based on the scent trail we leave, and it is happening at a distance or at night when we are not there.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

We can really never completely answer this question, but if we realize the importance of the nose to the deer, and we understand that the prevailing winds are being diverted in the woods in ways hard for us to understand, we can put two and two together and perhaps understand a little bit of how a mature deer can become a gray ghost, rarely presnting himself in front of hunters for a shot.

The wind has been studied quite a bit by Neil Dougherty, who teaches us to make wind maps of our properties. Here is an example of a wind map published by Neil and Craig Dougherty in the book "Grow 'Em Right." They make these maps by going around the property and testing wind direction using fluffy materials carried by the wind as indicators. Notice how on this property, the main wind streams are flowing down the open areas. This map does not go into detail on the eddy's and vacuums created by terrain features, it is a more global view. 









There is really no property with terrain features where the wind is not being diverted, often blowing at right angles or even in the exact opposite direction of the prevailing winds for short distances, such as on the downwind side of a woods. Now, consider how a mature buck might position himself with reference to the wind as it really is in the woods, rather than as the weatherman sees it. Here is a drawing that takes into account the affect of terrain features on wind. I show a doe bedding area, a buck bedding area, my path in and tree stand (red on the left), and my neighbor's tree stand (red triangle on the right). The red arrows show how the wind is carrying scent from the tree stands, and the yellow arrows show how it is carrying information from the doe beds. In this case, the buck can monitor my parking area, my trail in, the stand and the neighbor's stand, all while monitoring doe beds south of him. 









A mature deer uses his nose in the way we use our eyes. To them, these wind streams are day-glow orange highways and are as "visible" or perceivable to him as the lines on a highway are to us. He stays alive by positioning himself where he can get the most information to his most important sense organ, his nose. When he moves, he may have information coming via the wind from several compass directions.

For many years, I hunted in a manner that left a day-glow highway for the deer to pattern me. I lived out of state and only hunted gun season in MI. Typically, I would see some deer on opening day, or day 2, but by day 3 the woods were pretty much dead. Sitting in those stands, we would still harvest deer, but they were usually ones that were displaced from other properties and were rushing or sneaking to get to cover. The following pictures are meant to illustrate why this was happening to me. I never thought about scent control, and I and my family hunted the same stands day after day. 

Here is a picture of my stand in those days.









And here is an aerial showing the path of 4 of us walking back to Brian's stand, Mark's stand, Don's stand, and Jim's stand. The red lines are our trail in. Two guys would go across the field, the other two would actually drive to the NE corner of the field and walk back to our stands. This image depicts what would happen regarding scent on day one, if the wind happened to be blowing east. The red wavy lines and dots show the scent being dispersed with the wind. Because we used no scent control, we left a very heavy day-glow trail in and as we ate, smoked, peed, and spat during the day we scent out smoke signals to all the prey animals to stay away from us:lol:.









If the wind was from the east on day two, well, this is what things would look like. By the way, I am not showing you, but by day two one of us would walk the circuit from one stand to another to talk about why we were not seeing deer. So things are even worse than depicted here.









By day 3, we have effectively created a deer-free zone during daytime. Now, deer might have been threading their way around us, because they knew exactly and precisely where we were at all times, but we pretty much would go all day not seeing anything from the stands. We were still occasionally able to harvest deer because they would get displaced from other properties and occasionally pass our stands. Also, we would begin to get frustrated and move deer, thereby occasionally seeing them and rarely getting a shot.









This is how one goes about making sure deer know they are in the woods and how to create a zone where deer are seldom seen in day time.

For me, the answer to this problem involved two main things. First, reducing scent to a minimum, and second, not over-hunting my locations. I have improved habitat as well, but if I hunted as I did in the past, it would not make any difference--I am sure I would see the same pattern as I used to, albeit I would probably see more deer on day 1. That means going days without seeing a deer every year. And in a couple of those years, I only saw 1-2 deer the entire season.


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## Sib (Jan 8, 2003)

Curious if you've ever used your scent to make an area less attractive to deer in hopes of having them use different areas of their home range on your huntable land?


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

You mean like dropping a bar of Irish Spring near the baitpile someone put 2 feet from your fenceline? :lol:

Seriously though, I often park the truck in spots that I'd like to have the deer swing away from when I'm hunting.


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Great work, Dr. Jim. The influence of wind is one of my favorite topics.

I wish I could get my main hunting guest to buy into it. Post #13 is a classic.

Good point how you can sometimes kill deer when doing everything wrong(even in the "deer free zone"), providing you've got deer moving into you that have been disturbed on neighboring parcels. It's the charm of gun season, and probably explains 3/4 of the deer killed on November 15-16.


I have a zone on my farm that is, for all practical purposes, unhuntable due to the way the wind swirls and seems to "collect" down in a ravine. I discovered many years ago that deer entering this zone will smell any human within it, regardless of which way the prevailing wind is blowing. When I noticed leaves falling _into_ a steady northwest wind, it was an eye-opener.

Conversely, I have another spot on my farm where the wind currents seem to favor the hunter; under the right conditions, it's actually difficult to get winded from that stand.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

Sib said:


> Curious if you've ever used your scent to make an area less attractive to deer in hopes of having them use different areas of their home range on your huntable land?


I tend to use other methods. If it is a wooded area I will hinge cut in such a way as to prevent them from using an area. If it is an open area I will remove cover so they don't feel comfortable in it.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

farmlegend said:


> Great work, Dr. Jim. The influence of wind is one of my favorite topics.
> 
> I wish I could get my main hunting guest to buy into it. Post #13 is a classic.


Thanks Dan.

Regarding guests, it is simply not negotiable for me. If they are going to hunt my property they meet me at my scent prep room in the barn, shower, and do all the other things I do. To me, asking a guest to use the same scent control regimen I do is no different than asking them to remove their shoes when they enter my house. If they insist on tracking mud onto my carpet, they will not be invited back. Same with scent on my hunting property.


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## Macker13 (Oct 1, 2007)

Enjoyed the read, this is good stuff to digest and apply to my hunts where I can. I wish I could use this type of help more in the U.P., but with the low numbers of deer in the vast amount of acreage/terrain I have trouble applying these types of habits. Certainly still worth learning.


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## bioactive (Oct 30, 2005)

Macker13 said:


> Enjoyed the read, this is good stuff to digest and apply to my hunts where I can. I wish I could use this type of help more in the U.P., but with the low numbers of deer in the vast amount of acreage/terrain I have trouble applying these types of habits. Certainly still worth learning.


You might be surprised if you apply extreme scent control and wind control. Most "busts" of hunters are occurring hundreds of yards away and the hunter never realizes he is busted.


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