Tricks of the wind

There are two types of wind conditions I don't like when deer hunting. One is when there is no wind, and the other is when the wind swirls.

Everything is dead silent when there is no wind, and deer in such atmospheric conditions are very tough to hunt. They don't move much and are spooky. I much prefer a bit of a breeze, preferably from any direction other than the east.

The second type of wind condition is the one that swirls, first one way and then the other, and these quirky wind shifts make it difficult to determine where to sit for an evening hunt. Invariably, the wind will shift to a different direction about the time you sit down.

There are times when it's impossible to hunt properly.

Tonight's wind was of the latter variety. It began out of the east, and then it swirled to the west, tracked back to the south, and then it returned to an easterly breeze with a stiff cold wind and a 25-degree temperature.

I decided on a ground blind simply because I could get inside, close the windows, and none of my scent would be carried to the deer. If a deer came that I chose to shoot, i'd crank open the window just enough for a clean and accurate shot.

Now, my stand choice tonight was where I shot a nice buck a few years ago but tonight the deer were very hard to find. A few were seen moving through some tag alders, but only two or three antlerless deer showed themselves.

I kept watching the soft breeze, and it would then gust from my ground set to where the deer were, and then the wind would switch the other way. This back-and-forth wind movements kept the deer edgy, and as a result very few animals moved.

A friend sat in an elevated coop in a huge pine, and saw several deer but the breezes at ground level where shifting from one quarter to another. The deer were spooky everywhere.

He saw a decent buck and several does, but nothing was within bow range and none were shooters. It was as if the fickle wind was playing tricks, and he kept his shooting windows shut and sat back to watch the few deer that did move.

Another friend sat in a pit blind, and although the deer tore up the area the day before, there was very little action tonight. The hunter never saw a deer of either sex, and the only living creature spotted was a ruffed grouse pecking around in the nearby foodplot.

Such nights of swirling winds do occur periodically, and there is precious little a hunter can do about it. Hunting is something that involves an investment of time, and hunters who aren't willing to put forth the time and effort, will have poor hunting.

I don't dislike such nights of swirling winds. They are a part of our lives, both the deer and mine. They must cope with it 24 hours a day, while I deal with it for three or four hours once or twice a day.

The winds may swirl, and they may bluster, and the deer may or may not move. The best advice is to put in your time, accept the variable winds and gusty breezes, and work hard to puzzle out hunting locations that will work for most of the various wind directions.

Take a stab at hunting the various winds. Know that sometimes you will get winded, and other times the deer will pass by without catching your scent. The more a person hunts during such swirling wind conditions, the more we learn about trying to determine the best places to hunt and how to outwit a buck.

I made a wrong guess tonight, and when the wind swirls, it's easy to guess wrong. I didn't see any big whitetails, and only a small doe, but each day afield offers hunters new insights into what makes deer tick.

Once you get it figured out, and are 100 percent accurate each time you hunt, call me up and let me in on your secret. So far, guessing the swirling wind directions and how they affect deer travel has been a tough puzzle to solve

You guess right sometimes, guess wrong often, and none of it makes much sense. The one thing we know is that deer are never shot from inside a house, and we must spend time afield to stand any chance of achieving any degree of hunting success.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors