What is your experience with how quickly evening thermals reach the ground in a light breeze? I hunt the Blue Ridge mountains and if you were hunting the last two days of the NC's northwest season, you know that it was a bit breezing with a cold front coming in Thursday. I had one of the biggest does I've ever seen coming in for what should have been a good shot opportunity. I will confess that I don't consider the wind where I hunt like I would elsewhere. In the "hills and hollers" it swirls and eddies constantly. If I hunted the wind religiously, I'd be moving all the time and in circles most of it! Many times, even on breezy days it will settle at sunset, but not with the barometer changing. As best I could tell the wind was coming out of the S-SE along my ridge. I got lucky and spotted the deer's legs moving under the laurel at 60-70 yds. away, long before I heard it. It struck me that in the many years I've hunted this particular stand, I'd never had a deer come in this exact route. It was a side-hill, below me and quite steep. I also realized about the same time on this day it was mostly down-wind. I thought the breeze would carry my scent over her but she stopped angling towards me at 25 yds. with her head behind a tree, allowing me to get ready for the shot. She stood for maybe 30 seconds and bounded back the way she had come, not "unglued" but clearly on alert. Then she paused where I had first seen her and within a minute confirmed her impressions, blew and left Dodge. My stand is about 15-18 feet up. I know she never saw me. The only thing I can think of is that the evening thermals busted me, but I would have thought with a breeze they wouldn't have made it to the ground that quickly! What do you think?
Thermals flow like water. I was busted this past Weds when the breeze laid down to nothing and the thermals pulled my scent down-hill - just were the 5 deer were coming at 5:15 PM.
Oh well, such is hunting!
I have noticed that in the mornings as the temperature rises, the thermals tend to drift upwards from the bottoms to the top of the ridges, and the opposite takes place in the evenings as things cool down. This is not an absolute, though.
Rich, I would have to see your set up but you are right with the wind problems. You can not figure out the wind even if it says it is constant. You just have to spend time at each stand location to see what it does. I have several stands that will blow one way then 180 degrees opposite in 5 minutes. If your set up on a pitch point that they will come either way the wind blows, you might get a shot. I only have on ridge top on the farm that you can get a good hunt on a south wind. The good thing is the deer can not use the wind to their advantage totally. I thought of some things as wind indicators. We need something that will disperse talc for a couple minutes to see just what the wind is doing. I buy them monster size smoke bombs to check stand locations in the off season. Some spots are just not hunt-able. Are you still hunting over in crumpler?
Ain't hunting the Blue Ridge fun? I've come to accept the swirling winds here as part of the game.
Thermals are very real and are difficult to read. I love hunting the hills and hollers here in Tennessee for that very reason if you work it right the wind directions tend to be steadier due to the topography. Hunting high in the morning and low in the evening will help with your problem as well.
Marc, I wouldn't say fun, aggravating as hell sometimes. I am sure it is the same in West Virginia, PA, NY.
It does get aggravating! Nothing like watching the wind come from every direction in 15 minutes :banghead:
I hear y'all got a bumper crop of acorns this year, 30 miles away we have none.