Sorry for the long read, but without a pic of the property it takes a bit to explain:
In the past, my stands have been almost exclusively on field edges, fencelines or in places where (I thought) it was very obvious a deer would come in from a certain way. This made it very easy to figure out which wind I needed to hunt.
This year I've got a new piece of property and I'm presented with a different situation.
I'll start off by saying I'm in 'dirt farming' country, so there's no timber around anywhere....it's just grain fields with terraces & draws for cover.
So imagine a draw that runs for a full mile straight north & south through a section. The south half of this draw averages about 100 yards wide, has a small creek running thru the middle of it, has switchgrass on the outer edges, some trees scattered here & there which are mostly right along the creek and in the middle section between the switch there are sections that has the thickest, nastiest weeds & growth I've seen in quite some time.
The north half doesn't have any trees and isn't nearly as overgrown with weeds and is pretty much switchgrass the whole way across.
At the half-way point where the transition occurs another draw attaches to it from the east to form a sideways 'T'. The draw to the east has another creek that flows into the n/s one, and is pretty thick too with some weed patches, but is mostly thick switchgrass. That draw runs to the east for another 3/4 mile.
Right in the dead-center of the 'T' where the draws & the creeks meet, there is a dandy tree to put a stand. There is a really heavy trial to the west of the tree and another one that is 5 yards to the north of the tree that runs east & west.
So here's my delima....if the deer used only those 2 trails, I would be fine with a NW wind (blowing my scent away from the trails, and not blowing directly up or down either of the draws). The problem is, I know that they won't always be on those trails.
With a NW wind, my scent will be getting blown about 50 yards across the draw (where I didn't see any real heavy trails, btw) and then out into a field. One of my buddies said that if I'm 20 feet high & there's a decent wind, will my scent will blow clear across the draw & out into the field anyway.....thoughts on that?
My other buddy who hunts timbers says that in most cases, you're never going to have circumstances where there's no chance of something getting downwind and you just need to do the best you can with what you have and play the wind from the main trails. But like I said earlier, in the past my setups were pretty much a sure-thing for the wind and in this setup there's a lot better chance of something straying off the trail and busting me.
So do I just take my chances that they'll use those trails most of the time, use the best scent control I can and hope for the best?
There are a lot of deer in the area and it looks to me like once all the fields are harvested and the rut hits this place is going to have a lot of stuff running thru it and I'd sure like to be there to watch it, but like the title of the post said...I just need someone to ease my mind or give me any additional thoughts.
Thanks in advance!
In the past, my stands have been almost exclusively on field edges, fencelines or in places where (I thought) it was very obvious a deer would come in from a certain way. This made it very easy to figure out which wind I needed to hunt.
This year I've got a new piece of property and I'm presented with a different situation.
I'll start off by saying I'm in 'dirt farming' country, so there's no timber around anywhere....it's just grain fields with terraces & draws for cover.
So imagine a draw that runs for a full mile straight north & south through a section. The south half of this draw averages about 100 yards wide, has a small creek running thru the middle of it, has switchgrass on the outer edges, some trees scattered here & there which are mostly right along the creek and in the middle section between the switch there are sections that has the thickest, nastiest weeds & growth I've seen in quite some time.
The north half doesn't have any trees and isn't nearly as overgrown with weeds and is pretty much switchgrass the whole way across.
At the half-way point where the transition occurs another draw attaches to it from the east to form a sideways 'T'. The draw to the east has another creek that flows into the n/s one, and is pretty thick too with some weed patches, but is mostly thick switchgrass. That draw runs to the east for another 3/4 mile.
Right in the dead-center of the 'T' where the draws & the creeks meet, there is a dandy tree to put a stand. There is a really heavy trial to the west of the tree and another one that is 5 yards to the north of the tree that runs east & west.
So here's my delima....if the deer used only those 2 trails, I would be fine with a NW wind (blowing my scent away from the trails, and not blowing directly up or down either of the draws). The problem is, I know that they won't always be on those trails.
With a NW wind, my scent will be getting blown about 50 yards across the draw (where I didn't see any real heavy trails, btw) and then out into a field. One of my buddies said that if I'm 20 feet high & there's a decent wind, will my scent will blow clear across the draw & out into the field anyway.....thoughts on that?
My other buddy who hunts timbers says that in most cases, you're never going to have circumstances where there's no chance of something getting downwind and you just need to do the best you can with what you have and play the wind from the main trails. But like I said earlier, in the past my setups were pretty much a sure-thing for the wind and in this setup there's a lot better chance of something straying off the trail and busting me.
So do I just take my chances that they'll use those trails most of the time, use the best scent control I can and hope for the best?
There are a lot of deer in the area and it looks to me like once all the fields are harvested and the rut hits this place is going to have a lot of stuff running thru it and I'd sure like to be there to watch it, but like the title of the post said...I just need someone to ease my mind or give me any additional thoughts.
Thanks in advance!
