Don’t Get Blown
Wildlife’s sense of smell is our biggest hurdle when hunting. It is after all, their first line of defense against being something else’s meal. Movement is a close second but playing the wind right can mean the difference between notching a tag or eating tag soup for those of us pursuing game each season.
No amount of camo, cover up, scent blocker, lure or attractant is going to mask human odor. Your body loses about 40,000 pieces of skin every minute. Where does it go? Well, if you’re moving, it wafts off your body at whatever speed you’re going or if you’re sitting, it falls to the ground. The longer you sit, the more scent you leave behind.
You can certainly roll in a wallow or scrape to mask it, but you’ll still be underneath it. You’re sulfur-laced breath will still be present. Your skin and hair will still be shedding.
Anyone who has ever said that a deer never even knew they were there, probably doesn’t know that deer are inherently curious and will check out a smell, or that deer may just not be spooked by a scent that is familiar. If you’re high in a tree, chances are, if that deer makes it past you, they’ll know that you’re there. And just because you may be hunting with a rifle on wide open ground, don’t think your scent can’t travel hundreds of yards. It can and it does.
Sometimes a person is just lucky. If the thermals wafting off your body are going in the exact perfect direction, close encounters of the nuzzling kind can and do happen.
There is more to pay attention to than just prevailing winds.There are also thermals. And in general, thermals lift uphill in the morning and fall downhill in the evening. However, it is also true that those thermals can be falling prior to sunrise and they can fall until the sun actually hits the terrain warming it up. Only then, when it starts warming, will thermals lift. The opposite can also happen in the evening. And the later into fall you get, the earlier in the day those NE slopes will be shaded and thermals may actually start moving downhill during mid-day if they are in in the shade.
You also need to know temperature, humidity, your terrain, other weather happenings etc. Higher humidity air is heavier and will fall quicker. You need to scout the area you’re going to be hunting for trails, feeding areas, bedding areas, water sources etc.
In Arizona, the general prevailing wind is from the south west. Resident hunters should know this and if you didn’t, now you do. So, if you’re looking at a bedding area, or feeding area, or water source, you won’t want to hunt it from the SW side of it unless there is some strong weather front that changed things up. And every day can be something different.
My husband and I have come across water sources where folks had blinds set up on the SW side of a water catchment and in the evenings, when they’d likely be sitting in it, the wind was blowing directly from their blind across the water. This elk season for example, after careful scouting and our own blind placement, we approached the water source carefully from the NE and wanted to sit our blind on the NE side of the tank. We knew elk came in from the south. We’d seen them come from the south. We had them on camera coming from the S.
When we got to this tank, there were three men, who hadn’t showered in days, sitting in the wide open on the SW corner who exclaimed they’d done a wind check “five minutes ago” and they were good. They were in-state residents so they should have known. They said they’d done their scouting in the area prior to the season but it was obvious they didn’t. And, their wind was blowing directly across the water towards where all the elk would be drinking on a normal day. Nothing came into that tank that evening. I checked our trail camera the following day.
My sister and father-in-law were hunting in New Mexico and while on a stalk, using wind correctly, were interrupted when the elk left and two people were approaching the elk directly upwind. When confronted about it, the other hunters said they knew their wind was blowing directly towards the elk but they thought they’d try it anyway. They were unsuccessful, on that group of elk anyway.
In Alaska this September, we’d had 4 busted stalks on caribou as we were hunting in shifty and swirling winds. But we kept at it and on stalk 5, it all came together. In this case, perseverance paid off. And of course, the wind was doing something totally different that evening than it was in the morning and a large front was rolling in.
So, knowing that wind is one of the most important things to remember when hunting and one of the most important elements to understand in order to be successful, why then do so many ignore it? Or is it simply something that people truly don’t know and understand? Is all of the scent away or cover up products a false sense of “odorless”? You aren’t odorless out there. Ever.
Go ahead and use your favorite shampoo and soap. Just be sure your hair is dry when you’re out there. Be more cautious with the laundry however. The detergent isn’t as big of an issue as fabric softener. But, you should not use fabric softener on hunting gear anyway as it leaves a film on the clothing that wildlife can see in low light.
So much of being a successful hunter is luck but luck can’t happen if you don’t do everything else to the best of your ability. Playing the wind right is going to give you your best opportunity every single time you head out to hunt.
Check the forecast daily and hourly if need be. Take a wind meter. Use smoke in a bottle or some other super fine powder in a puffer bottle to continually check your wind. Pick up dirt from the ground or lightly kick some up with your boot. Tie a string to the stabilizer on your bow. There are several ways to check your wind every step of the way. It is the number one way to set yourself up for success. Set yourself up to not get blown and take home another meal.
