It was late November, Maykell and I were hunting in an open woods on a frigid morning. I was hanging in my tree saddle and he was in a natural blind on the ground. Everything was going well and we were seeing a lot of deer moving.
I was watching a couple of does walking about 200 yards away and they were heading right down the trail on which we were sitting. They closed in closer and closer. It looked like they were going to walk right past us when, at about 80 yards, they stopped and bedded down. We debated on whether we were going to stay put and wait them out or head in for lunch; we decided to stay.
Fifteen minutes later a massive wind roared in from the North and began violently shaking all the trees around us. I felt like I was at the top of a great metronome clicking back and forth. Large branches came crashing down around us. We immediately changed our decision to stay. I came out of that tree faster than a fireman down the firehouse pole.
Those two does calmly laid against a large downed tree, apparently waiting out the sudden wind storm. We left with our tail between our legs to return another day.
How much wind is too much for deer hunting?
I believe we made a mistake. Deer are still in the woods when the high winds kick up. We were cold and ready for a hot meal, the wind was just a convenient excuse to leave earlier than we had planned.
It is true that deer tend to bed down and wait out high winds. If the high wind persists or is common enough, they might even get up and resume their routines albeit a bit skittish. Let me be clear though, you can have great success hunting in the high wind, you just might have to adapt your game plan.
When the wind is shaking all the trees about you and the grass is bending over, wind becomes a huge asset. Deer have pretty good eyesight and they are particularly adept at picking up movement, even at long distances. With everything in the woods blowing around, it now becomes very difficult for them to pick out your outline, even when you’re moving.
In fact, everything about your presence is masked in windy conditions. The sounds of your footsteps, your human scent, and your outline. This doesn’t give you free reign to go sprinting through the woods, but you do have a lot more freedom than you normally do.
Try a different approach, try still-hunting through a thicket. Find some standing corn to walk through. You never know where a deer might be bedded down, so stay focused and use that wind to your advantage!
So how much wind is too much for deer hunting? The answer: there is no limit. Unless there is so much flying debris that it becomes dangerous, stay in the woods.
Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash
