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movement in relation to wind direction

mschultz373

mschultz373

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
May 9, 2023
Messages
409
Location
SE LA
i started thinking about this because I've been hunting a spot that sits along a N/S running thicket. the south end meet a swamp edge, and there's a 10-15' drop down into the swamp. that slope into the swamp is cut with trails and the area surrounding this thicket is thick, with small thickets scattered about nearby and lots of young, closely standing trees with vines hanging off, etc. i've always seen deer in this spot - but I've also only seen them moving either southward or slightly Se/Sw, and I have also only observed those movements on days with a north wind.

so this naturally got me wondering: is the direction of deer movement at all correlated to wind direction? if y'all are scouting an area and know the most prevalent wind direction for the time of season you want to hunt that spot, how will you assume the deer are going to move through that area?

in the case I've observed, the deer had the wind at their backs or at their sides, but never directly in their face. now this certainly doesn't explain much or necessarily mean anything; i've seen a handful of deer, and it's in a thick area. but i thought it was interesting to think about.
 
So my experience is that the wind dictates where they bed. May be different based on different wind. They want to be laying in a place they feel safe. Thick cover to thier back looking into the wind. Or some local feature that makes them feel safe. Sometimes it's just a area with the thickest cover or least pressure in an area. Often they will J hook into the bedding a bit or try to kinda mosey around on the downwind side of the bedding areas coming back in the morning. With that being said they will walk with thier wind to the back morning or evening to get from bedding to feed our feed to bedding. Sometimes with the predominant wind it makes them look like a genius and unkillable sometimes it doesn't look like they are using thier heads. If you find a place that you can't seem to hunt it's usually just a matter of glassing or observation sit or camera data to gameplan a way to get on them on a different wind. Usually the different wind movement is only slightly different.
 
^^^^^ I agree 100% with this. I will add that I just try to hunt areas like this where the wind will work for me that day. I’ve tried to correlate hunts with certain wind directions over and over and over again and sometimes it seems to matter other times it doesn’t. What does matter all of the time is that you don’t want to get scented when you are hunting a particular area.
 
I will also add during the rut, just be in a good spot where the wind works the best but to see as much movement as possible use the wind as a buck would to see more bucks.
 
@mschultz373 you asked one of the unaswerable questions imo. There are so many variables that can come in to play trying to peg an answer here it is not funny. The primary things that factor in best I can tell are terrain, habitat types, and time of season. How many preferred food sources are in an area I think can have a big impact. If there are lots of food options, deer can readily use the wind. If primary food sources are more limited, they may not be able to use the wind as easily and depend more on hugging available cover to move from bed to feed. Is there more than one good bedding area in relation to a primary food source? That can allow them to swap beds to still have the wind for the same food source. A buddy just had that play out on a hunt a couple weeks ago where the deer were on a particular feed tree in an area with multiple bedding areas nearby. As the wind swapped they always came in with the wind in their face which indicated they switched bedding area. Time of season is an obvious issue because bucks are going to be on the prowl as peak breeding gets closer. A lot of times they will be cutting doe travel which in a lot of cases may have them appearing to be totally ignoring the wind where they are actually using an off wind for their travel to efficiently cover ground and check areas. There are tons of other variables too.
 
mschultz373 said:
i started thinking about this because I've been hunting a spot that sits along a N/S running thicket. the south end meet a swamp edge, and there's a 10-15' drop down into the swamp. that slope into the swamp is cut with trails and the area surrounding this thicket is thick, with small thickets scattered about nearby and lots of young, closely standing trees with vines hanging off, etc. i've always seen deer in this spot - but I've also only seen them moving either southward or slightly Se/Sw, and I have also only observed those movements on days with a north wind.

so this naturally got me wondering: is the direction of deer movement at all correlated to wind direction? if y'all are scouting an area and know the most prevalent wind direction for the time of season you want to hunt that spot, how will you assume the deer are going to move through that area?

in the case I've observed, the deer had the wind at their backs or at their sides, but never directly in their face. now this certainly doesn't explain much or necessarily mean anything; i've seen a handful of deer, and it's in a thick area. but i thought it was interesting to think about.
Click to expand...

Deer don't insist on moving with the wind in their face. We are sometimes applying our predator strategy to them, but they have to worry about things following them from behind as well.
 
have to take into consideration when does are grouped up after breeding and thru winter. they really dont care as much about wind direction for bedding cause they bed in a loose circle so someone is looking in all directions and someone has the wind in their favor. when does are separated like late summer/early fall, then ^^^^^^
 
mschultz373 said:
i started thinking about this because I've been hunting a spot that sits along a N/S running thicket. the south end meet a swamp edge, and there's a 10-15' drop down into the swamp. that slope into the swamp is cut with trails and the area surrounding this thicket is thick, with small thickets scattered about nearby and lots of young, closely standing trees with vines hanging off, etc. i've always seen deer in this spot - but I've also only seen them moving either southward or slightly Se/Sw, and I have also only observed those movements on days with a north wind.

so this naturally got me wondering: is the direction of deer movement at all correlated to wind direction? if y'all are scouting an area and know the most prevalent wind direction for the time of season you want to hunt that spot, how will you assume the deer are going to move through that area?

in the case I've observed, the deer had the wind at their backs or at their sides, but never directly in their face. now this certainly doesn't explain much or necessarily mean anything; i've seen a handful of deer, and it's in a thick area. but i thought it was interesting to think about.
Click to expand...

So the deer are in a thicket, on the leeward side of a slope, with the wind blowing to them. Sounds like a healthy combination of factors for them to do what you’re observing.
 
When you say you have only seen the deer
Moving in a specific direction at this location, is this an in person observation or insight from cameras or long distance glassing?
 
Take for example this year, there is a terrain feature I found in a large bottom we call it the gorge as it drops down to a waterway for several hundred feet in certain spots. A land bridge goes east west midway between the top and bottom of a major ridge system that also runs east-west. There is a spot where a ridge spur or point (a feature that runs perpendicular to the main ridge system) settles down to the bottom. There is a spot off of that ridge spur that meets the land bridge that funnels a lot of deer movement especially bucks during the rut. In order to hunt it I have to have a West, SW, and NW wind but to access it the ideal is west. However, I shot a nice buck a couple of years ago with just an off wind from the SE as the buck was using that wind to enter the area. However this year everything entered with a tail wind!!! :weary: :fearscream:
 
If you slept outside all your life you'd find the spots to bed where the wind was blocked, and if u could smell a grizzly from mile away you'd probably try to walk upwind to avoid them. Thats how deer view us, as grizzlies trying to kill them i think. I got an old deer ive been watching and he walks upwind when he wakes up. Coming home he doesn't because he likes his spot i think but he does circle a bit before he ends up there
 
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