My friend and I didn't play the wind and used scent spray and for some reason they didn't smell us and they were downwind at 7-10 yards in a blind. Why would this happen? It was 3 small Bucks and a Doe. Stayed around from 4-7:30 (during youth season)
I can't say for sure without knowing a lot more about the circumstances you were in, but even then I probably couldn't be sure about anything. :grin: Being in a blind may have been the difference there too, but it sounds like they may have been younger, less wary deer too.
I have been out in the deer woods pretty consistently for about 25 years now and I too have a few stories where one or more deer were downwind and should have smelled me, but appeared not to, etc. In general, I would say that the thermals, the rising and falling air currents, would explain most "downwind deer that didn't spook" observations, but that is just one person's opinion.
For wind checking, I like to use milkweed silks. It is funny to watch them sometimes...they will float away from you on the wind and the next thing you know they are coming back at you. (Not always of course, but I have seen it.) Suffice to say though, our scent does not necessarily travel "straight" away from us though as often as we think it does.
If a deer is truly downwind of you and they don't smell you I suspect that your scent is probably being carried over their noses on rising thermals OR the deer may not be mature enough to care. On at least three separate occasions over the years I have had lone deer get within mere inches of me or my little brother and they were actively sniffing us. These situations all involved younger deer, two were in the spring time while turkey hunting and one was in the fall, also while turkey hunting.
Why didn't they spook? I dunno, they certainly smelled us, the one snuck up behind me was so close that I could feel it's breath on my neck and when I moved it sort of "snotted" on me, but it never spooked due to smelling our scent.
