For the wind and odor guys

[CooterBrown]

That's a vague statement, just like "fool a deer's nose". Arbitrary and not defined.

Sorry I just dont know how else to put it. Maybe this. Is there anybody else on SH that has the proof of success with scent control like JE or is he an abnormality.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

Sorry I just dont know how else to put it. Maybe this. Is there anybody else on SH that has the proof of success with scent control like JE or is he an abnormality.

I doubt there is any kind of "proof" that would satisfy the unbelievers. There's far too many variables involved in order to quantify successes or failures with odor reduction practices.
It's pretty much anecdotal, which can actually be relied upon when put into relative context.

I can only speak for myself and what I've experienced over 50 seasons and a evolving process of odor reduction. I've done pretty much everything except for going strictly vegetarian...not sure I could do that.

I can say with absolute certainty that as my odor reduction got more extensive, my odor busts got less frequent and less intense. My wind reading skills and understanding of surface behavior has also improved dramatically which has been helpful towards determining how well my odor regimen has worked. I say it a lot...I just don't believe that there are very many hunters out there that truly understand surface wind patterns. If a guy doesn't know what the wind is actually doing, then it's hard for that guy to really know how well his odor regimen is working. And I'll venture to say that just as many hunters are not very skilled at reading the body language of deer. Lots of hunters believe that they were not odor busted when in reality the deer did bust them to some degree. The question is, to what degree was the bust? I am firmly of the belief that we cannot become totally odorless but I also firmly believe, with diligent odor practices, we can reduce the frequency and severity of the busts.

There's no doubt in my mind that my hunting is far more enjoyable when I experience a non, or minimal bust than the days before my regimen. I've done this long enough to have all the proof I need to realize this is "working" (I prefer the term "helping") for me. It's not 100%, nothing is.
I can't cite a mathematical formula, or a scientific study that proves my point. It's strictly from 50 seasons of observation.

 

[CooterBrown]

I doubt there is any kind of "proof" that would satisfy the unbelievers. There's far too many variables involved in order to quantify successes or failures with odor reduction practices.
It's pretty much anecdotal, which can actually be relied upon when put into relative context.

I can only speak for myself and what I've experienced over 50 seasons and a evolving process of odor reduction. I've done pretty much everything except for going strictly vegetarian...not sure I could do that.

I can say with absolute certainty that as my odor reduction got more extensive, my odor busts got less frequent and less intense. My wind reading skills and understanding of surface behavior has also improved dramatically which has been helpful towards determining how well my odor regimen has worked. I say it a lot...I just don't believe that there are very many hunters out there that truly understand surface wind patterns. If a guy doesn't know what the wind is actually doing, then it's hard for that guy to really know how well his odor regimen is working. And I'll venture to say that just as many hunters are not very skilled at reading the body language of deer. Lots of hunters believe that they were not odor busted when in reality the deer did bust them to some degree. The question is, to what degree was the bust? I am firmly of the belief that we cannot become totally odorless but I also firmly believe, with diligent odor practices, we can reduce the frequency and severity of the busts.

There's no doubt in my mind that my hunting is far more enjoyable when I experience a non, or minimal bust than the days before my regimen. I've done this long enough to have all the proof I need to realize this is "working" (I prefer the term "helping") for me. It's not 100%, nothing is.
I can't cite a mathematical formula, or a scientific study that proves my point. It's strictly from 50 seasons of observation.

I guess I'm just curious if there is anybody else that "pays no attention to the wind" like JE does. Do you pay attention to the wind at all?

 

[DroptineKrazy]

I'm anal about scent control but still play the wind. It's all about stacking the odds in my favor imo.

 

[BTaylor]

I guess I'm just curious if there is anybody else that "pays no attention to the wind" like JE does. Do you pay attention to the wind at all?

In some of the areas I hunt I would say I pay very minimal attention to the wind. It is basically 6,000 acres of cutover on skillet flat terrain. There are some very minor topo features that do influence travel but not many and deer can and do show up at locations from every point on a compass. In those areas I try to pick access routes that minimize ground scent interactions as much as possible. I also do not put any effort into scent control hunting this environment either because I am usually at least a mile or more from the truck and there is no way to get in most of the spots I hunt without sweating a lot until usually December and even then it is difficult to not break a sweat. High temps, high humidity and distance is a combination down here that is imo impossible to overcome. So yes I attempt to use the wind based on highest probability of travel and accept that it isnt going to always work.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

I guess I'm just curious if there is anybody else that "pays no attention to the wind" like JE does. Do you pay attention to the wind at all?

You bet I pay attention to the wind but I also realize that I can't depend on the wind. I've never had the pleasure of hunting flat land. The hilly areas that I hunt have fairly complicated wind patterns due to varied slope exposures. I'm never more than a short distance from a slope of competing thermal exposure. One slope is exposed to the sun and heating while at the same time an adjacent slope is in the shade with cooling thermals. One thermal has an influence on the other thermal, there is a "seam" where the opposing thermals meet. And that seam adjusts as the sun arcs across the sky. Add to it the effects of intermittent cloud cover, foliage change, and prevailing wind speed and angle and the wind is a crap shoot at times. The wind isn't always 100% wrong but sometimes it's maybe 60% wrong. 40% of the time we might be living on the fringe of odor busts as the surface wind fluctuates between the 60% and the 40%. Some days in some locations, under certain conditions, we might have a 90% favorable wind consistency. I'd say those days are better suited to the "just hunt the wind" guys.
But when you have small properties to hunt, with limited stand sites, and sketchy access routes, you're much better off reducing odors as best as you can. Even if you only do it to minimize ground odor you are in a much better position to be able to cross deer trails in order to access stand locations that would otherwise be difficult to access without wrecking the area.

I've said it dozens of times in the odor/wind threads...I'm an "all of the above" hunter. I'm shooting trad gear, close range from relatively low height. I have to take every precaution that I can take.

 

[BTaylor]

You bet I pay attention to the wind but I also realize that I can't depend on the wind. I've never had the pleasure of hunting flat land. The hilly areas that I hunt have fairly complicated wind patterns due to varied slope exposures. I'm never more than a short distance from a slope of competing thermal exposure. One slope is exposed to the sun and heating while at the same time an adjacent slope is in the shade with cooling thermals. One thermal has an influence on the other thermal, there is a "seam" where the opposing thermals meet. And that seam adjusts as the sun arcs across the sky. Add to it the effects of intermittent cloud cover, foliage change, and prevailing wind speed and angle and the wind is a crap shoot at times. The wind isn't always 100% wrong but sometimes it's maybe 60% wrong. 40% of the time we might be living on the fringe of odor busts as the surface wind fluctuates between the 60% and the 40%. Some days in some locations, under certain conditions, we might have a 90% favorable wind consistency. I'd say those days are better suited to the "just hunt the wind" guys.
But when you have small properties to hunt, with limited stand sites, and sketchy access routes, you're much better off reducing odors as best as you can. Even if you only do it to minimize ground odor you are in a much better position to be able to cross deer trails in order to access stand locations that would otherwise be difficult to access without wrecking the area.

I've said it dozens of times in the odor/wind threads...I'm an "all of the above" hunter. I'm shooting trad gear, close range from relatively low height. I have to take every precaution that I can take.

Let me go ahead and assure you that flat land can be no pleasure to hunt from a wind perspective. I think it is actually more prone to swirling than the hills based on my experience with both. Swirl may not be the best way to put it. More like repeated backdrafts and some swirls.

 

[okccj]

Not much that gets guys as worked up in the online hunting world than scent control.

Scent control/playing the wind seems to be one of those unfalsifiable type of claims. I say this because you find guys that have very impressive trophy rooms that only play the wind the same can be said for those that are completely dedicated to scent control, such as John.

There's really no way to know if the guys that only play the wind could have shot more/bigger bucks if they would have incorporated scent control and the same for John. If John also played the wind, would he have killed more/bigger bucks? There's no way I can think of running a controlled experiment to confirm any of this. It's all anecdotal at bottom.

Note, the plural of anecdote is not data.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

Let me go ahead and assure you that flat land can be no pleasure to hunt from a wind perspective. I think it is actually more prone to swirling than the hills based on my experience with both. Swirl may not be the best way to put it. More like repeated backdrafts and some swirls.

I wasn't implying that flatland is easy to hunt. But even though I've not actually hunted flatland, I have been on flat land doing other activities enough to know that thermal patterns are more complex in hilly terrain than on flat terrain. It's due to slope exposure to the sun. In hilly terrain, in early morning shortly after sunrise a SE slope is exposed to sun and it begins the warming thermal cycle while at the same time the adjacent N or W slope is still shaded and it's still under the cooling thermal. These opposing thermals are not static. They interact and influence each other.
Flatland does have thermal activity but it's much more consistent.

 

[woodsdog2]

I guess my main point of starting this thread and sharing the link was to discuss just how complex wind patterns are. I still don't believe that the "just hunt the wind" guys REALLY know the big picture of what the wind is doing.
To take it deeper, the elite bowhunters are often setting up just barely off of being busted. Wensel says the best wind is one thats ALMOST wrong for him and ALMOST right for the deer.
That puts our scent cone in a very precarious angle in relation to deer movement. Even when we are pretty accomplished at wind analysis, we still have deer get in the fringes of the fringes of our scent cone. That's where maticulous odor reduction can pay off.

Absolutely hunt "almost the wrong wind" the biggest bucks I've harvested (not that many) and many more I have bungled up have been because it was almost the wrong wind. The point though is I was into the bigger deer at all times. Coyote hunting is the same strategy as they want to work downwind to the calling so your setups have to almost be off for the setups to work consistently. Many other time the swirling is a PITA but instead of giving up, I switch to the overall downwind edge of the cover I'm hunting that day. I concentrate more on this early and late as feed patterns are more consistent, less so during the rut but unless I have terrain which optimizes some setups, I'll not hunt with the general wind direction blowing into the main cover I'm trying to hunt. Or I'll start from the other side that day.

 

[CooterBrown]

You bet I pay attention to the wind but I also realize that I can't depend on the wind. I've never had the pleasure of hunting flat land. The hilly areas that I hunt have fairly complicated wind patterns due to varied slope exposures. I'm never more than a short distance from a slope of competing thermal exposure. One slope is exposed to the sun and heating while at the same time an adjacent slope is in the shade with cooling thermals. One thermal has an influence on the other thermal, there is a "seam" where the opposing thermals meet. And that seam adjusts as the sun arcs across the sky. Add to it the effects of intermittent cloud cover, foliage change, and prevailing wind speed and angle and the wind is a crap shoot at times. The wind isn't always 100% wrong but sometimes it's maybe 60% wrong. 40% of the time we might be living on the fringe of odor busts as the surface wind fluctuates between the 60% and the 40%. Some days in some locations, under certain conditions, we might have a 90% favorable wind consistency. I'd say those days are better suited to the "just hunt the wind" guys.
But when you have small properties to hunt, with limited stand sites, and sketchy access routes, you're much better off reducing odors as best as you can. Even if you only do it to minimize ground odor you are in a much better position to be able to cross deer trails in order to access stand locations that would otherwise be difficult to access without wrecking the area.

I've said it dozens of times in the odor/wind threads...I'm an "all of the above" hunter. I'm shooting trad gear, close range from relatively low height. I have to take every precaution that I can take.

You described my hunting area almost to a tee

 

[CooterBrown]

Not much that gets guys as worked up in the online hunting world than scent control.

Scent control/playing the wind seems to be one of those unfalsifiable type of claims. I say this because you find guys that have very impressive trophy rooms that only play the wind the same can be said for those that are completely dedicated to scent control, such as John.

There's really no way to know if the guys that only play the wind could have shot more/bigger bucks if they would have incorporated scent control and the same for John. If John also played the wind, would he have killed more/bigger bucks? There's no way I can think of running a controlled experiment to confirm any of this. It's all anecdotal at bottom.

Note, the plural of anecdote is not data.

I just know I've got busted to many times with thermal changes as the sun goes down and if I could eliminate that threat I would have a lot more shot opportunities.

 

[BTaylor]

I wasn't implying that flatland is easy to hunt. But even though I've not actually hunted flatland, I have been on flat land doing other activities enough to know that thermal patterns are more complex in hilly terrain than on flat terrain. It's due to slope exposure to the sun. In hilly terrain, in early morning shortly after sunrise a SE slope is exposed to sun and it begins the warming thermal cycle while at the same time the adjacent N or W slope is still shaded and it's still under the cooling thermal. These opposing thermals are not static. They interact and influence each other.
Flatland does have thermal activity but it's much more consistent.

I agree that the thermal activity is more consistent. I was more referring to the non-thermal air movement patterns and the complexity they can have. Tying back to some of your other post related to air movement, which I agree with.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

This week's episode #89 is a follow-up to #88 which was the reason I started this thread. It's geared more towards wind patterns on flatter terrain. I haven't listened to it yet but if it's anything like the previous Woodsmanship episodes, it should be very informative. I can't wait to listen to this one, too.

the stickboys podcast: Woodsmanship, Ep 89

This week Alan Altizer sits down with us as a follow up to last week podcast on marginal wind in mountainous terrain. This week we discuss how to use marginal winds in flat terrain. The features may be more subtle and have different factors to influence micro wind currents, but they are there...

thestickboys.libsyn.com

 

[Allegheny Tom]

If you guys aren't actually listening to these "Woodsmanship" podcasts, you are missing it. These are great.

I need to reiterate the point of this thread...
These latest podcasts speak more about wind than they do about odor, but the key point is just how complex wind patterns are and how deer utilize them. Very few hunters actually understand the big picture when it come to wind. At best, they see only the patterns that are directly in front of them. They don't understand what the wind is doing 2 or 3 adjustments away and how different surface patterns effect adjacent patterns.
This is why I added "Odor" into the thread title. When wind understanding is taken to such a fine-tuned level, it's easier to understand how odor reduction will pay dividends when used in conjunction with hunting wind patterns. The point is, they go hand-in-hand...can't rely on either one by itself, gotta look at it as a total package.

 

[Petrichor]

Loved episode 1 will listen to two tonight.

 

[smcchevy]

Bonus about The Stickboys Woodsmanship podcasts is getting to listen to Alan Altizer. He explains complex things easy enough for me to understand.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

Bonus about The Stickboys Woodsmanship podcasts is getting to listen to Alan Altizer. He explains complex things easy enough for me to understand.

You bettcha!
I am eager to see the video he is making that will give "visuals" to these podcast.

 

[woodsdog2]

You bettcha!
I am eager to see the video he is making that will give "visuals" to these podcast.

Good stuff, I wish I could get the actual trails down to be able to make those kinds of determinations. I think smaller parcels make this easier as the deer have only so many places to walk. Larger parcels give many other opportunities and so on these linear travelways say where a buck has 3 to 5 trails to get to the same feed fields in the afternoon or the same bedding area in the morning...... unless I put a cam on each trail and monitor, or there is a terrain feature funneling all that movement, its hard to predict those. A lot of the scenarios in most and all videos have the bucks on one trail or travelway and in many areas that's not the case... they have options which makes the choice on where to set up even more open to chance. Which I realize is part of hunting. People will say, find a different area to hunt but when you're targeting a specific animal or buck, you have to take what is there.