DannyBoy
Well-Known Member
Thomas,
Since you are mildly challenged I will do my best to clarify for you why my response to your question is what it is. Hopefully this will help you to sleep.
First off, I want to point out that my ultimate preference is to not have my scent blowing towards the deer, period. But, as you stated with good food sources, they come from everywhere, so I play the wind according to where a VAST MAJORITY of deer will approach/stage. I'm not a scent suit guy either and occasionally, one of the minority deer blows me up...occasionally. Anyways, when I read your original post I instantly thought of one spot and that's what I based most of my response on, though I've found what I said to hold true at most other field-edge setups I hunt.
So I'll tell you about the setup I'm basically referring to. It's a hayfield edge setup with a very large timber bordering it. The field edge runs North/South with the field being to the west and timber to the east. The timber is very hilly and fairly thick. Generally, the deer stage to the southeast of my stand about 100-150 yards. Now, I don't know if this holds true, but maybe the hills, the thick woods and the distance between me and them is enough to dissipate my scent to the point that I'm for the most part, undetectable. From my description, it should be easy to figure out that the predominant NW wind blows into their staging area. It's like clockwork though man, they filter out one, two at a time, completely oblivious to my presence. With a NE wind, I've had a few of these deer pick me off, even thought they entered the field completely comfortable and I know they didn't spook because they saw me. If these deer approached from much closer to me, maybe it would be a different story, who knows. Goes to show it's all situational. I try not to reason based on what I think, rather I base it on what I've learned from practical experience.
Anyways. You do make several good points. Deer are busy feeding in fields and have left their "investigation" zone. But, do heavily hunted Iowa deer ever really let their guard down, especially when they're out in the wide-open?
I think you're spot on that a deer for the most part determines whether they are safe or not from the cover of the timber. But does don't seem to take much time to determine safety compared to a mature buck. It seems more like they get up from their beds, walk to the field edge, take A sniff and A gander, then walk out. The mature buck will obviously be much more wary. Which brings me back to something I stated previously, that I will only hunt this marginal wind situation during the rut, where a small herd of fat, happy, comfortable does is the best lure to a mature buck, who for these few short weeks a year, has survival towards the bottom of his list and those nice, comfortable does that have no chance of winding me at the top.
Maybe it still makes no sense to you. I tried...
Since you are mildly challenged I will do my best to clarify for you why my response to your question is what it is. Hopefully this will help you to sleep.
First off, I want to point out that my ultimate preference is to not have my scent blowing towards the deer, period. But, as you stated with good food sources, they come from everywhere, so I play the wind according to where a VAST MAJORITY of deer will approach/stage. I'm not a scent suit guy either and occasionally, one of the minority deer blows me up...occasionally. Anyways, when I read your original post I instantly thought of one spot and that's what I based most of my response on, though I've found what I said to hold true at most other field-edge setups I hunt.
So I'll tell you about the setup I'm basically referring to. It's a hayfield edge setup with a very large timber bordering it. The field edge runs North/South with the field being to the west and timber to the east. The timber is very hilly and fairly thick. Generally, the deer stage to the southeast of my stand about 100-150 yards. Now, I don't know if this holds true, but maybe the hills, the thick woods and the distance between me and them is enough to dissipate my scent to the point that I'm for the most part, undetectable. From my description, it should be easy to figure out that the predominant NW wind blows into their staging area. It's like clockwork though man, they filter out one, two at a time, completely oblivious to my presence. With a NE wind, I've had a few of these deer pick me off, even thought they entered the field completely comfortable and I know they didn't spook because they saw me. If these deer approached from much closer to me, maybe it would be a different story, who knows. Goes to show it's all situational. I try not to reason based on what I think, rather I base it on what I've learned from practical experience.
Anyways. You do make several good points. Deer are busy feeding in fields and have left their "investigation" zone. But, do heavily hunted Iowa deer ever really let their guard down, especially when they're out in the wide-open?
I think you're spot on that a deer for the most part determines whether they are safe or not from the cover of the timber. But does don't seem to take much time to determine safety compared to a mature buck. It seems more like they get up from their beds, walk to the field edge, take A sniff and A gander, then walk out. The mature buck will obviously be much more wary. Which brings me back to something I stated previously, that I will only hunt this marginal wind situation during the rut, where a small herd of fat, happy, comfortable does is the best lure to a mature buck, who for these few short weeks a year, has survival towards the bottom of his list and those nice, comfortable does that have no chance of winding me at the top.
Maybe it still makes no sense to you. I tried...
Iowabowtech
Active Member
I either want the wind in my face and/or quartering away from where I expect many deer to be OR if I'm getting more aggressive after a particular buck, I'll hunt a crosswind blowing in the direction I plan for him to end up. With the plan being that by the time he reaches my wind stream, he's already received an arrow.
If I'm getting REALLY aggressive...I've used a similar plan in funnels where the wind is actually at my back and blowing straight out in front of me with the plan of shooting him at a quartering to position when approaching from the side if I think I have one patterned well enough to roll those dice. Basically, I'm talking about hunting a fairly thin strip of timber in the last example and I would only do this if I had one majorly patterned AND it was crunch time AND there were no ideal winds in the short term forecast.
If I'm getting REALLY aggressive...I've used a similar plan in funnels where the wind is actually at my back and blowing straight out in front of me with the plan of shooting him at a quartering to position when approaching from the side if I think I have one patterned well enough to roll those dice. Basically, I'm talking about hunting a fairly thin strip of timber in the last example and I would only do this if I had one majorly patterned AND it was crunch time AND there were no ideal winds in the short term forecast.