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Wind in bottoms

Parallel wind blowing UP the drainage is about the most stable condition for a bottom. Depending on the exact structure of the ravine, a parallel wind can create up-drafts because it creates a high pressure condition, so the wind has no choice but to have a lifting tendency. Parallel wind blowing down the valley will have the opposite effect...down drafts.
Cross winds suck. Wind eddies for sure.
 
Is there water running? If there is decent sign near the water and u can set up right off it, your scent gets pulled down the majority of the time
 
I was in the ravine today
The wind was supposed to be from the south but it was from the NW down in the ravine
Unreal
I get swirling winds but it was pretty steady from the opposite direction
It was 70 degrees here in NY today so obviously that temp was from a southern flow
 
Bowtech12 said:
I was in the ravine today
The wind was supposed to be from the south but it was from the NW down in the ravine
Unreal
I get swirling winds but it was pretty steady from the opposite direction
It was 70 degrees here in NY today so obviously that temp was from a southern flow
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Happened to me in a specific spot this yr. Called for S which was best case scenario for a play on this buck. Get there and it’s S at the truck but back in it was straight N which was the worse case scenario. It happens in hilly country
 
Hall17 said:
Happened to me in a specific spot this yr. Called for S which was best case scenario for a play on this buck. Get there and it’s S at the truck but back in it was straight N which was the worse case scenario. It happens in hilly country
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It's a wind eddy. It happens on leeward sides of slopes. Its fairly predictable.
 
So how do you figure out which way the wind is before getting down there,? Or is that not possible
I’m going with if it’s south uptop it’ll be north done there
Not sure E or W yet as today was my first trip
 
Bowtech12 said:
So how do you figure out which way the wind is before getting down there,? Or is that not possible
I’m going with if it’s south uptop it’ll be north done there
Not sure E or W yet as today was my first trip
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Prevailing wind and surface wind are not the same thing.
Surface wind, which is what effects our hunt, is dictated by prevailing wind over terrain and structure.
The term prevailing wind is often misused. People say our prevailing wind comes from the west, or south, or wherever.
Yeah, WEATHER SYSTEMS generally move West to East in the US, but those systems are always under the influence of a H or L pressure system. A H has a clockwise rotation and a L is counter clockwise. That is what dictates the "prevailing" wind during any given period. It changes as those systems leave or approach a region. For instance, right now where I am, there is a H pressure system parked just to the east. That clockwise rotation pumps air up from the south. THAT is the prevailing wind direction. On the east side of the H the wind is from the north. These rotations are easily "seen" on places like Windy.com

One feature that I like Windy.com is that you can switch the map from satellite to topographic. Seeing the wind animation flowing over the topo map will help you to determine the SURFACE wind direction.

Other than at a pin point monitoring station, no weather app can tell you what surface wind is doing. They show only what is happening with surface wind RIGHT THERE. We have to apply prevailing direction to how it SHOULD be behaving on the surface at our hunting location. It's not always 100% but in a lot of cases it's way better than 50%.

Prevailing wind forecasts are usually pretty accurate but its the surface winds that get fickle due to terrain and structure. Wind over terrain is much like water over rocks in a stream. The up current side of a bolder is fairly stable but the downstream side swirls and eddies. Wind does the same thing.
With practice and experience, you can visualize surface winds if you know what the prevailing wind is doing.
 
Allegheny Tom said:
Prevailing wind and surface wind are not the same thing.
Surface wind, which is what effects our hunt, is dictated by prevailing wind over terrain and structure.
The term prevailing wind is often misused. People say our prevailing wind comes from the west, or south, or wherever.
Yeah, WEATHER SYSTEMS generally move West to East in the US, but those systems are always under the influence of a H or L pressure system. A H has a clockwise rotation and a L is counter clockwise. That is what dictates the "prevailing" wind during any given period. It changes as those systems leave or approach a region. For instance, right now where I am, there is a H pressure system parked just to the east. That clockwise rotation pumps air up from the south. THAT is the prevailing wind direction. On the east side of the H the wind is from the north. These rotations are easily "seen" on places like Windy.com

One feature that I like Windy.com is that you can switch the map from satellite to topographic. Seeing the wind animation flowing over the topo map will help you to determine the SURFACE wind direction.

Other than at a pin point monitoring station, no weather app can tell you what surface wind is doing. They show only what is happening with surface wind RIGHT THERE. We have to apply prevailing direction to how it SHOULD be behaving on the surface at our hunting location. It's not always 100% but in a lot of cases it's way better than 50%.

Prevailing wind forecasts are usually pretty accurate but its the surface winds that get fickle due to terrain and structure. Wind over terrain is much like water over rocks in a stream. The up current side of a bolder is fairly stable but the downstream side swirls and eddies. Wind does the same thing.
With practice and experience, you can visualize surface winds if you know what the prevailing wind is doing.
Click to expand...
I feel like I have a better than avg understanding of air movement but I still get befuddled in the river bottoms. Friday afternoon is a perfect example, steady wind from the E to just a shade NE all afternoon based on the nearest reporting. 70-75% of the afternoon actual where I was hanging was just a bit NE but it would move to due N and for a couple of short spells it switched to NW. Expected deer movement I figured would be from the E around to from the S and the slight NE put me just on the edge which was perfect. The N and NW switches were bothersome but I didnt hear any deer blow from those directions. Not sure what smelled me if any that didnt blow. I saw a single young buck that came from the E and a doe with 2 little ones that came from due S right where I expected. The area is basically skillet flat for several thousand acres but the air movement is seldom consistent and I have yet to determine why it is so shifty or when it shifts why it does so from the particular directions. With topography it is a little easier to understand why air moves the way it does.
 
I recently received permission to hunt a small 6 acre tract that borders Corps property around a local lake. It’s basically a creek drainage leading to the lake. It’s right next to a bedding area, but is almost impossible to get in undetected. I’ve never hunted a spot with such high deer numbers but the inconsistent wind is driving me crazy as well.
 
I’m 80% in a bottom or working the edges of a bottom, it sucks. You just have to get to know it with milkweed. And this year yes I’m trying Scent Lok. Once the sun comes out it will start exhaling upstream, and once the sun sinks it will start inhaling downstream. Then mix in prevailing wind direction and speed to start doing advanced calculus. The lower the wind and the closer to morning or evening the more you can use your back to the water to vacuum your stink.

Here’s an example of my hunts last Friday with a pretty brisk East wind… in the morning I trudged up to spot 1 with wind moving in the direction of the white arrow. but I anticipated the wind was soon going start pulsing upstream so I shifted to spot 2 for the rest of the day… the upstream thermal met the east wind to give generally the swirls you see, and some even a little scarier. By evening the wind was going right to the river. There are 100s of scenarios to play out and experiment with, it’s tough hunting, unless you find a few possibly magical advantageous setups.
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neonomad said:
I’m 80% in a bottom or working the edges of a bottom, it sucks. You just have to get to know it with milkweed. And this year yes I’m trying Scent Lok. Once the sun comes out it will start exhaling upstream, and once the sun sinks it will start inhaling downstream. Then mix in prevailing wind direction and speed to start doing advanced calculus. The lower the wind and the closer to morning or evening the more you can use your back to the water to vacuum your stink.

Here’s an example of my hunts last Friday with a pretty brisk East wind… in the morning I trudged up to spot 1 with wind moving in the direction of the white arrow. but I anticipated the wind was soon going start pulsing upstream so I shifted to spot 2 for the rest of the day… the upstream thermal met the east wind to give generally the swirls you see, and some even a little scarier. By evening the wind was going right to the river. There are 100s of scenarios to play out and experiment with, it’s tough hunting, unless you find a few possibly magical advantageous setups.
View attachment 75004
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I can throw in one more complexity. Those partly sunny days when the big fluffy clouds roll across the sky. It creates all kinds of variations in warm spots and cooler spots and those conditions interact and effect each other and can make variable wind direction. This seems to be worse during periods of lighter prevailing wind speed.
 
Allegheny Tom said:
I can throw in one more complexity. Those partly sunny days when the big fluffy clouds roll across the sky. It creates all kinds of variations in warm spots and cooler spots and those conditions interact and effect each other and can make variable wind direction. This seems to be worse during periods of lighter prevailing wind speed.
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Interesting, makes sense… just the worst to be all set up, up there, then watching the milkweed blow to where you think the deer are. Unless you’re on the ground and can get outta there, it might be game over. John Eberhardt thinks anybody that throws milkweed is pathetic lol, not using the scent blocking tech available to them.
 
neonomad said:
Interesting, makes sense… just the worst to be all set up, up there, then watching the milkweed blow to where you think the deer are. Unless you’re on the ground and can get outta there, it might be game over. John Eberhardt thinks anybody that throws milkweed is pathetic lol, not using the scent blocking tech available to them.
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Yeah
I’m not a believer in scent lok or any of those products.
i move if I have to. Not going to fool a deers nose imo
 
Bowtech12 said:
Yeah
I’m not a believer in scent lok or any of those products.
i move if I have to. Not going to fool a deers nose imo
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I’m always disappointed I can’t find many podcasts or content about hunting bottoms, it’s always hill country yada yada yada… bottom hunters go it alone nobody to relate to.

Everything’s so situational… we get some occasional steelhead fishermen along the river, and many about 300 yards downstream. So let’s say Im up 25 feet, Im wearing Scent Lok, my gear and boots are pretty clean… maybe a little whiff isn’t much different than that fisherman way downstream and maybe they let it slide. I will say I’ve been on two hunts this year where Im setup low like 15’ in Scentlok and have had multiple doe groups and smaller bucks walk right through the area absolutely unquestionably dead down wind… did they let it slide because my scent profile was lower… or some other reason? I don’t know but Im giving it a go because I need any edge I can get in that dang valley. If my scent has gone from a 6 to a 3 I’ll take it.
 
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