How often do you actually see deer travel with wind to back?

[Hodag Hunter]

So you guys are saying you set up on beds so the wind is blowing from the buck to you? I guess my best and earliest sightings always happen when Im border line on getting busted where the wind is coming from me to the bedding area? Everytime I have the wind all in my favor i dont have as good of results?

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Same here. 100% agree.

[Hodag Hunter]

So you guys are saying you set up on beds so the wind is blowing from the buck to you? I guess my best and earliest sightings always happen when Im border line on getting busted where the wind is coming from me to the bedding area? Everytime I have the wind all in my favor i dont have as good of results?

[ Post made via Android ]

If you think about it. It is very hard to set up on a bedded buck with the wind in the bucks face. If you set up down wind he won't travel in your direction. If you set up wind in face the way he will travel you will struggle big time. The hunter has to set up with the wind in the hunters face or a good cross wind. Cross winds drift and fan out so your margin of error is slight, this is another reason to set up with the wind in your face. The approach to the stand must also be considered with wind direction. You don't want the game to be over before it starts.

If you are setting up with the wind at your back blowing towards the bedding area you won't see the buck he wont travel your way. If the buck is headed to a food source from his bed, you must set up so the wind is in your favor not the bucks favor. This is why I kill most of my bucks with the wind to their backs.

This is really a great topic and sounds like a lot of misinterpretation by a lot of hunters.

What Stanley is describing is the way I hunted in my early years.....hunting the best wind for the hunter. The one big thing I learned from Dan was hunt the deers best wind, not the hunters. This meant taking some chances and getting burned sometimes. But my big buck close range encounters sky rocketed when started hunting wind that the deer thought they had the advantage. 10, 20 or 30 feet over and the deer smells me. This simple advice Dan gave me was a awhile ago and could have been on the old website.

[Hodag Hunter]

So you guys are saying you set up on beds so the wind is blowing from the buck to you? I guess my best and earliest sightings always happen when Im border line on getting busted where the wind is coming from me to the bedding area? Everytime I have the wind all in my favor i dont have as good of results?

[ Post made via Android ]

Watched hundreds of bucks leave bedding areas over the years and have never seen a correlation with travel direction and wind. Again, I have seen a correlation in bucks returning to beds, just not leaving them

I agree with this......no correlation with travel direction and wind direction. Then how do they get to their destination if the wind is at their back? I must be missing something here? Are you suggesting they semi circle before entering food sorce area to have the wind at their back?

[dan]

So you guys are saying you set up on beds so the wind is blowing from the buck to you? I guess my best and earliest sightings always happen when Im border line on getting busted where the wind is coming from me to the bedding area? Everytime I have the wind all in my favor i dont have as good of results?

[ Post made via Android ]

Watched hundreds of bucks leave bedding areas over the years and have never seen a correlation with travel direction and wind. Again, I have seen a correlation in bucks returning to beds, just not leaving them

I agree with this......no correlation with travel direction and wind direction. Then how do they get to their destination if the wind is at their back? I must be missing something here? Are you suggesting they semi circle before entering food sorce area to have the wind at their back?

Again... I am saying there is no correlation on a buck leaving his bed room to stage and wind direction, I will agree that in a lot of bedding scenarios like points hunted from above, dead end marsh fingers, river oxbows, etc. that the staging just happens to be up wind based on natural terrain features... Beds that are not wind specific, you will watch the buck come out and stage in the same mannor regardless of the wind.
As for feeding wind to back, they will get to that food in whatever mannor they need to, but they want wind to back looking forward while actually feeding, you must of seen that on bait piles? Most people I know who hunt bait hunt the cross wind for a broadside shot cause of this trait. It would not be a fun sit with the buck on your bait staring at you with just a front on shot till he goes to leave...

If you look at the typical farm field straight edge bed... One of the toughest to hunt... The buck beds on the down wind side of the wood lot entering the bed on a jay hook by 1st passing and smelling the bed then semi circles the bed and watches the down wind field. When he gets up in the evening he enters the field with wind to back and slowly feeds across.

[Hodag Hunter]

Maybe getting off topic but I guess I'm not seeing the same thing regarding feeding.

In my mind a feeding area is a destination where there is a strong potential for "danger". Most deer or bear will circle and walk in with wind at face or quater wind before entering the "potential danger area". I have been seeing this trait before I was 12 years old growing up splitting time between farmland and big woods hunting.

We had permission on a farm to hunt 30 years ago that was crop fields in the middle and surround buy large tracts of timber on 3 sides. These crop fields, guessing back, were all of 200-300 acres with some fence rows and drainage ditches. If the wind was blowing from the north to south the south side woods always had good deer activity early. We tried to hunt this side but most times never took the chance to hunt it agressivily enough to put us in good bow range of deer on a daily basis. Point being this farm had little pressure 30 years ago......very few bowhunters in that day and the deer still prefered to enter the field with some kind of wind to face.

Later on the bait pile hunting started to unfold in the big woods.....I rarely hunt over bait now, still place some for inventory and may hunt 1/4 mile to 1/2 mile away. Anyways.....backtracking decent buck tracks from this bait almost always shows a bunny hook if they are headed to the bait with out a favorable wind to their face. Heck huntng in my backyard the deer most always change course before coming by one of our permenant stands....bait or not placed. The deer just know this is a potential danger zone and best try and "check it" before walking by.

Now that I am getting further off topc... how to use this to the hunters advantage?

Hunting in evenings deer leaving beds (I have little experiance compared to you, Dan) seems deer move to where they want to move. Wind at back or face.....the wind may pick what bed a deer choices in the am. This I see alot when following tracks, the classic bunny hook is almost done at every bedding area. I see this and my findings follow yours.

How can we use this info to our advantage to intercept a buck leaving a bed heading to a staging area before going to feed? Maybe I am just missing the big picture but thought all these years of reading about bucks bedding was for wind at back and then using their eyes scanning for danger ahead. This is for the bed itself. Didn't really think the deer then left their bed with wind at back when it was time to go? I thought that didn't really matter what wind direction until they got to a "danger area"? ......where they wanted wind to face at that point.

[Stanley]

I am confused on this one.....

Leaving a bed I guess the buck is going to go where "the plan" is for the day.....wind could be at his back, cross wind or face? Dan, when you came up and scouted by me and we found the beds.....most were set ups for wind to cross or wind in deers face when we picked out trees.....We where picking beds and what winds they would utilize such bed and how they would exit. (most to a food source) Then where best stand locations would be.

Traveling thru the woods it's a 50-50 crap shoot. See this a lot tracking. I have been following big buck tracks for many years......years past to find ambush baiting spots, just recently to actually run one down and kill it.

This is more times than not, when coming to food source, I know you guys hate baiting, but it's cross wind or wind to nose. Bear do the same thing. I have seen this countless times. This is for crop fields, bait, acorns and/or cuts.

Very rarely will I see a deer/bear enter a feeding area with the wind at their back......if wind is not already in face with direction of travel they will semi circle. I have seen this in big woods, farm country and mix terrain when I use to hunt central WI. I am truely baffled on this one?

I have seen hundreds (maybe thousands) of deer over the years enter feeding areas with the wind to their back. The hunter controls where to set up on the buck. The buck doesn't control how the hunter sets up. If you are setting up on cross winds that is where you will see the bucks moving. If you set up on wind to bucks face (this greatly reduces your chances at killing him) you will see bucks moving into the wind headed for food a source. If you set up with the wind to the bucks back (this greatly increases your chances of killing him) this is where you will see the bucks moving. I have killed many bucks with the wind at their backs because this is how I set up on them.

If I have a good idea that a buck is bedded in an area, I never set up on him until the wind is blowing from him to me. For one thing when he is on his feet he can move laterally and I'm still in the game. If you are on the edge of the wind stream and the bucks moves laterally it's game over and the spot is more than likely burned. I don't have thousands of acres to hunt so I am pretty careful with the smaller spots I do have.

The bottom line is, you can set up on a buck however you can kill him, if you set up where the buck can smell you you won't kill him. It is really just as simple as that. Great topic for discussion.

[dan]

In my mind a feeding area is a destination where there is a strong potential for "danger". Most deer or bear will circle and walk in with wind at face or quater wind before entering the "potential danger area". I have been seeing this trait before I was 12 years old growing up splitting time between farmland and big woods hunting.

We had permission on a farm to hunt 30 years ago that was crop fields in the middle and surround buy large tracts of timber on 3 sides. These crop fields, guessing back, were all of 200-300 acres with some fence rows and drainage ditches. If the wind was blowing from the north to south the south side woods always had good deer activity early. We tried to hunt this side but most times never took the chance to hunt it agressivily enough to put us in good bow range of deer on a daily basis. Point being this farm had little pressure 30 years ago......very few bowhunters in that day and the deer still prefered to enter the field with some kind of wind to face.

Think about which is safer for the buck... I don't care if he came from down wind, cross wind, or up wind... Once he is in a spot feeding, why would he leave one direction vulnerable and face the way he can smell... A predator could walk right up to him wind in face from behind...

[dan]

Didn't really think the deer then left their bed with wind at back when it was time to go?

Neither did I? You seem to be misunderstanding this conversation... They don't leave there bed specifically based on the wind... They leave and head to staging, then to food. Where the bed is, and where the staging is, will determine the direction he leaves.
Its more important to understand how the bed is set up, and by that I mean for what wind direction. If they only bed there on a "west" wind for example, its always going to be that direction when they come out of that particular bed.

[Timmy]

I remember seeing an illustration on here, and I dont remember which thread it was on though, of a buck that would get out of his bed and head toward the field on a crosswind or slightly wind at back. But once he was almost to the field he would circle downwind before entering the field. Once in the field he would turn and feed wind to back.

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[dan]

In some pressure situations, I am sure they do circle a field to the down wind side if they have encountered danger there. Just like you can always find that trail 50 yards down wind of a permanent stand... But, most mature bucks in my opinion would just completely avoid an area they are Leary off

[Singing Bridge]

Lots of dynamics to keep up with here, what a cool thread!

How deer enter crop fields in high pressure areas with high human population is far different from a lot of what is being brought forth here. The other dynamic is that most of the crop fields around my home are very small in comparison to what others are used to... the human development is very heavy, and crop fields as small as 40 - 200 acres are common (sometimes smaller). My family owns one of these small farms and we get to watch the deer and how they enter fields in this type of environment.

Bottom line in my area... cover dictates where the deer enter the fields and the luxury of wind direction and thermals is eliminated in many cases. If the deer try to come into a crop field with the wind at their back, or by entering up a small draw... they end up standing in the middle of someone's backyard or on a road where they can be seen for a great distance by many homes (this doesn't go well for the bucks). The deer enter where the cover is best and move to an advantageous position in the field to begin feeding. They may cross the field before they start to feed, but wind direction and thermals had nothing to do with how they entered the field.

The bucks that have made it to their third birthday or beyond barely move from their bed before dark... and you'd better know where that staging area is close to the bed to have any chance. Beast tactics shine in my high pressure areas whether it is farm country or big woods.

Even these high pressure bucks will make a mistake once or maybe twice in the late pre-rut... someone may get a visual of them on the edge of the woods before dark... but what are the odds of you being on stand THAT DAY IN THAT LOCATION AT THAT EXACT TIME OF DAY. Your odds are much better setting up near where the buck spends nearly all of his daylight time.

We've got so many marbles going in this thread I thought I'd throw a "steelie" out there to shake things up a bit!

[headgear]

Yep this is always an interesting read. Best I can make of it is they move a little differently depending on where you hunt (pressure), how you setup for them and how close you are to bedding. The more beds I hunt the more I see deer moving without much care about wind, however during the rut when they are out and about I see a lot more use of the wind. I can't speak of fields or farm country but it honestly makes sense in pressured situations that they might scent the area before they enter (or catch a thermal) but it also makes sense that they might want the wind to their back when feeding and have a whole field downwind of them for safety.

Back before I found the beast just about every buck I saw was using some kind of just off wind or crosswind. We are talking 20 years of hunting so if they traveled with wind to the back a lot in my area I feel I would have seen it but again this was all rut hunting and mostly likely the big bucks just weren't moving much at all. The first time I watched marsh bucks the phrase "hunting almost the wrong wind" stuck out to me and made a ton of sense. Now I kind of see it depends on the bed I am hunting, sometimes they will stage into the wind but in some areas they stage downwind and basically don't want to move all that far so I have to get on top of them to kill them.

Just like me seeing a lot of movement in the just off wind a lot of guys here only see wind deer to their back because they are setup that way. We are all taught to hunt the wind and really any and all bucks out of sight downwind are going to smell you and not come in while 100% of bucks heading your way with wind to back will show up. I don't think we can say bucks move one way or the other all the time so I am just going to go head and say 33% wind to back, 33% crosswind and 33% into wind.

[dan]

Thinking back I have noticed that in hill country bucks often enter a field from the lowest point in the evening, and if you go into a field that has a low spot or drainage in the evening, no matter where you stand your milkweed goes to that drainage after thermal drop occurs which is usually before the bucks show up...

[dan]

bump

[Stanley]

Great topic for sure.