Quote:
Originally Posted by Positrac
Nice Whitey! Congrats to you and your wife Bushleague!
I grew up hunting Blacktails on Vancouver Island so still hunting through the timber is in my blood. It is still by far my favorite way to hunt and one I’m pretty successful at myself. Like you, I pack pretty light but I do have enough to make it through an uncomfortable night if I had to.
One tip I’ve learned over the years... I hang a foot long piece of fine thread taped with electricians tape off the end of my barrel. I use a Safari sling so the barrel is always out in front of me and at a quick glance I can tell which way the wind is blowing... I’ve shot lots of Blacktails under 50 feet and keeping any breeze in your face is key.
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OK, here goes. While I do, by far prefer to keep the wind in my favor if at all possible, I've come to know that without a doubt mature big timber whitetails can be killed in bad wind. Often at ranges well under 50 yards. At first I thought it was fluke, then I was a little hesitant to come voice my findings, now I don't really care if people ridicule my opinion on this. After enough time spent in the bush I think I've come to understand why this supposedly impossible feat is entirely doable.
The first reason is that wind on those big timber ridges rarely blows the same direction for any great length of time, as well it is channelled by the landscape and timber, it is split up into many winding little currents like a creek but far more random. This makes it tough for the hunter, but it also makes it tough for the game to use the wind effectively. While I've never had much luck stand hunting in bad wind, when I'm on the move I don't think my scent pools the same way, and while the game may smell me once in awhile, they don't really know where I am or where I am going. Another major factor is that game in the timber is very often encountered coming from entirely different directions than one expects, in that case no matter how well you feel you are playing the wind, having it in your favor over the deer when it matters most is pretty much a matter of luck.
The second reason is because of how a big timber animal responds to a threatening smell. A timber animal is accustom to escaping wolves and other natural predators. The biggest mistake a bush deer can make when trying to elude its natural predator is to tire itself out before the attack, they don't start running until that critical moment when the attack is imminent. I've watched a few deer that were being trailed by wolves, as well as tracked enough of them myself to know what they do when they know they are being hunted. They try to lose the hunter by wandering through areas where many other deer have been, sometimes they will come up their back trail and jump off to the side, other times they travel up or down a stream... but even when they are forced to break into a run they stop once again as soon as they feel they are out of imminent danger. In open country a deer will sometimes run a long way before it feels safe, but in the bush it might not even run 100 yards, then it watches its back trail, if it determines the threat has been thwarted it then goes about its business. If not it keeps trying to elude its tormentor while saving up energy for the next critical moment.
When a timber deer smells the hunter he might start moving, he might think about pulling some sneaky tricks, but often he doesn't really know where the hunter actually is, and he isn't going to make the dash until he needs to. Usually he is going to have a pretty tough time keeping track of that hunter scent the whole time he is being hunted, and if the hunter is careful how he moves and can shoot quickly, the methods that work on wolves for that deer can be beat.
Just my observations.