Nothing can kill your chances at a big buck then hunting the wrong wind. It could ruine your chances for the whole year at harvesting a mature deer that is on your hunting ground, one or two sniffs of human order could turn a buck nocturnal & or vacating your hunting area, & your chances of taking him are gone.

Have you ever hunted a spot & seen lots of deer a time or two? Then very little to none the next several times you hunted. You were most likely busted by those same deer smelling you at some point during your previous hunts.

Try to never hunt a stand with a bad wind. Know what is a bad wind for your set ups by standing in or at the base of your tree with a compass, take note of what winds will and won`t work at certain times of the day.

A bad wind for a morning sit may be a great wind for that same stand in the afternoon. The best way I`ve found to receive a accurate account of what the wind will be doing is the day before your hunt or even minutes before you decide what set up to go to. Log onto the Weather Channels web site, www.weather.com then click in the zip code of were your hunting & then go to the hour by hour forcast it will give you a brake down of wind direction during your peek hunting time. If you have a great spot or a very small track of land to hunt set up a couple stands that you can hunt no matter what the wind. I have two or more stands set up in some cases on a single funnel or major travel route so I can hunt them during any wind direction. I have even been in one stand & had the wind switch & I would move 30 yards to the other set up to stay in the game for that evening.

Don`t get me wrong there are times when I will hunt a marginal wind, during the rut & at the very end of the season if I think there is a chance of getting away with it, but that`s it. There are wind factors that you can`t control or even know about, Thermals for instance, the only thing you can do is be as scent free as possible.

Thermals are not such a factor in the morning since they rise with the sun & settle with the sun in the afternoon. The cooler the afternoons the more thermals become an issue. But like I said when there are thermals & even that occasional marginal wind, good scent control will help out greatly & wearing Scent Blocker is like icing on a cake.

The wind can be your worst enemy at times or your best friend at other times, learn to hunt with the wind & use it to your advantage.
Have a safe & productive hunting season,

Karl Zainitzer
Xtreme Outdoors