boy am i frustrated; last two saturdays have seen winds from the north/northwest at 25 mph gusting to 35. bad news for white tail hunting. does anyone have any good techniques for hunting in these conditions? drives are out, as there are only two of us. thanks.

I don't know what type of terrain you are hunting but deer DO move even in high winds. What I've seen around here is that the deer tend to travel more in the bottoms and are very cautious. They will almost always be headed into the wind because they know with all the movement they can't relay on thier vision.
Also you might try hunting in the middle of the day on windy days, especially if the area you are hunting has a lot of hunting pressure.
During the peak of the rut, all bets are off, cause those bucks will get totally ignorant like they have been here this last week.
HTH

Yes indeed! When you absolutely, positively have to go into the woods on windy days due to time constraints the only logical course is still hunting. Deer tend to bed during these conditions as their senses are not reliable enough to ensure survival. Hearing is confused by wind noise, source of scents is uncertain and as many things are moving their vision is not as useful. All of these things stand in favor of the still hunter.

The short course: Full cammo incl. a face mask. Use scent covers, always work upwind. You're looking for bedded deer. Heads, ears, and horns. An ear flicker maybe. They bed on the edge of clear areas, whether in the deep forest or on the edge of fields, heavy cover behind them, looking down wind. YOU being the wise person you are, should move inside the edges or along creeks or bottoms with an eye on such places. The essence of still hunting is SLOW. Every movement calculated and deliberate. Take a very short step or two, very slowly, stop and look very carefully at everything around you. Some use binocs to scan, I don't. Surrounding cover, range of view are considerations in this. My last two deer had a combined distance from the muzzle of less than 25 yards. Each and every step you take will give you a different aspect of view and I cannot emphasise too strongly how important it is to STOP and look. It is the way deer move. Stop and look. It works because your eyes and a deer's see movement whether you're static or moving. Unlike deer you can pick out the static object WHEN YOU ARE STATIC. Mostly you have to spend more time static than the deer and you win. It works because it has no pattern and deer are not used to this approach. In a windy environment they are static of course but your advantage is that everything around you is moving, so just move SLOWLY. Mincing slow steps, one or two, stop by a tree and look for a minute or so. Really look. I have walked up on turkey like this several times. Within 15 feet, and then withdrawn. They remain clueless. I have killed Coyotes in the same manner, had hawks and owls land within scant feet of me without a hint of recognition.
Properly executed, still hunting is the single most productive and exciting method of deer hunting on earth. It is also the most strenuous so dress light. I've found myself sweating on 40 degree days doing this. It obviously requires weapon in hand and this suggests that light is better than heavy insofar as weapon choice is concerned. Don't think that you'll take a lot of running shots because if you're doing it right they won't know you're there. Do it wrong and you won't know they used to be there.

It's my style for all deer hunting now. Sold all of my stands and said "Good riddance". Success rate is up, I'm not bored or falling asleep up in the trees or freezing my ass off on a cold morning. You no longer worry about the wind being from a particular direction as you have the flexibility to hunt any condition. IF you hunt the same property year to year you should take the time to clear light brush from favorite routes. BTW, depending on you surroundings, a shotgun may be your best choice for the sport. If you have swamp bottoms available it is certain to put some trophies on your wall. High boots or tennis shoes, you can move with absolute silence 7/24 in standing water. Best of luck.

Oh yeah, if you're covering more than 400 yards in a full morning or evening hunt you're moving WAY TOO FAST. Some would say no more than that distance in a day. Like I said, SLOW!

[ 11-23-2002, 18:41: Message edited by: DigitalDan ]

High wind means the wind will not normally change and thats good, it means the noise you make is covered and that's good. It means the deer will be nervous (in some areas) and that is bad...take advantage of it and hunt very slow and depend on your eyesight and use your binocs...I say in some areas because in many of our Mt. states the wind blows all the time and it less a factor on making deer nervous. About all you can do is use these things to YOUR advantage, but never stay home, you will SELDOM shoot a deer inside the house.

Well, I wnet out in the high winds and got skunked. But it was great getting out into the woods!

Well, I went out in the high winds and got skunked. No deer. But it was great getting out into the woods!

Dogger,
I agree with everything Nutoy and Ray offered (I always wear hunter orange gun hunting if it is the law or not) the only thing I would add is try to move only when the wind is gusting it helps to cover any noise that you make moving. The first whitetail deer I killed many years ago was with a bow at about 20 feet hunting in this manner on a very windy day. I took a deer this year, three weeks ago tomorrow still hunting. I would guess it took me one hour and twenty minutes to walk(move)about 100 yards. I may have been moving to fast though because the shot I made was about 80 yards at a standing unalarmed(?)doe. I really enjoy hunting in this manner. Good luck, Bryan

Dogger,
A day with light rain and wind or just the light rain make great conditions for still hunting and then the rut on top of all this. I'll go fetch the Mauser and meet you in the woods.
Bryan
I may grab the 444ss Marlin and leave the Mauser at home though.

Dogger, todays conditions were like the ones you decribed above. North winds around 20-25mph and gusting.
I started out the morning overlooking a deep protected bottom and after an hour or so with no activity I decided it was time to do some creeping around and check things out.
I followed this deep bottom to where it intersected a very dense thicket and very, very slowly eased along the edge of this thicket. Low and behold, 20 yds ahead of me I see a very slight twitch that just seemed out of place. I froze in my tracks and for a good 5 minutes I tried to make out what it was that I thought I saw. Just as I was about to chalk it up to my imagination there it was again. As I focused on the exact spot of this movement a deers tail just appeared like magic. One more very slow step and that tail was connected to a very nice hindquarter. Another painfully slow step and half a deer appeared, then a shoulder. This deer was laying in a very small depression just inside this very thick cover. With the view I had I knew this deer was facing my direction. Ever so slowly I inched my foot forward. From behind a bush, out pops half a rack and a one big eye looking directly at me. From 7 yards. Counting,,, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 points, as my knees were shaking so bad I just knew he had to hear my joints rattling.
After what seemed like 10 minutes, but really more like 10 seconds he decides everything is ok and looks the other way.
Slowly, up came the '06 and a 150gr'er in the neck from 7 yards put the nice 9 point to sleep on the spot.
It took close to 30 minutes to move that 13 yards and after the shot I was so excited/exhausted I just layed down in the leaves looking up at the swaying trees.
God I love deer hunting.

Two guys who know the area they are hunting can do very well putting on little mini drives for each other. You don't drive deer you just move them. The trick is to move them so your hunting friend is in the right stand location to see them. We do two man drives all the time on the farm we hunt in Ohio and manage to always take a nice buck or two. Windy conditions keep deer in their beds because they can't hear as well and are reluctant to move. Knowing where those deer bed and walking in on them with the wind in your face ups your chances of connecting. I have walked in on bedded deer on a windy day and they just stood up to see what I was since they could not wind me. Had plenty of time to pick the one I wanted. Wise old bucks will lay stock still in their bed with head low on the ground on a windy day and let you walk right by them. My best bucks have been harvested while doing a two man drive on a windy day and I was the driver. There is no such thing as a poor time weather wise to harvest a nice buck or doe.

I've bagged a few deer on windy days, but I think most of them were nailed because they were dumber than me and stumbled onto me rather than vice versa.

Everything that's been said about the deer on windy days pretty much jives with my observations.

But there's one thing that hasn't been discussed and I may be the only one who thinks this way. We can analyze and report how the wind affects the deer but what we aren't talking about is how the wind affects US as a hunter.

I don't much like the wind. It generally makes ALL wildlife hide and lay close to the ground. It makes quail (if you can find them) fly like bullets. Basically wind just kinda makes hunting suck...at least in my mind. I've never done any hunting wonders on anything in windy weather. I'm pretty badly psyched out before I leave the house...and that's bad! I'm not saying I can't go out and have fun. But I for one don't like hunting in wind 25 and up. I reckon it's a mental thing with me.

For Whitetails, I much prefer a bit of wind. I'm primarily a still hunter, and I feel I have the advantage when it's windy. I've taken my best bucks this way, and I've also taken several elk this way. Shots are usually 25 yards or less at the deer a little longer at elk. I do this with rifles, pistols, and bow and have been successful with all 3.

Not alot that I can add, but I do believe that when "still" hunting, ie. slowly making your way through deer habitat on foot, that deer usually initally detect your presence by sound. The wind can be used to your advantage in this situation to approach undetected more easily than otherwise. In high winds, I would still hunt the thick stuff into the wind. Good luck.

One thing to remember about hunting when windy or noisy is that in grizzly bear country it can at times be dangerous. It rarely happens, but every now and then a hunter steps too close to bears without knowing it.

A few weeks back there was a hunter who said it was very windy while he hunted, and one out of a couple of bears charged him at close range. It was so fast that all he saw was a brown-color streak. The bear grabbed him by the legs and bit him before he could fire his .338WM . Since he was on the ground and the bear was biting his legs, he had no idea where the first bullet went. The noise from the gun scared the bear and it ran a few yards, then it turned and charged again. The hunter didn't have time to look through the scope, and fire his rifle from his waist killing the bear. The story appeared in the Anchorage paper on the 28th (last month).

[ 12-17-2002, 10:43: Message edited by: Ray, Alaska ]