Winded: Hunting Whitetail in High Winds

I think every year since my first year as a deer hunter, here in this lovely piece of heaven we call Wisconsin, I have heard a hunting friend of mine say, “I ain’t hunting today. It’s too windy.” For years, that made sense to me. When I was a kid, being out in the tree stand on a windy day was brutal. It was cold. It was miserable. If it were me, and I was a deer, I would just hunker down and not move unless I absolutely had to. So it made sense that I would not see anything on those windy, rough days.

But then I actually started to think about it. As I developed as a hunter, I had a thirst for knowledge about the behaviors of the animal. You know the old adage that to find a deer, you must first think as a deer. It sounds silly, but how else are you going to learn. So I thought a lot about it. What is a deer. What drives a deer to do deer things. What are its main goals. And what are a deer’s needs. When I started down that rabbit hole, that theory about not hunting just did not hold any water.

A whitetail deer, being native to most northern regions of the lower forty-eight and well into Canada, is well suited for poor climates. A little wind is not going to bother them much in their day to day. Now, if you get a hurricane that blows through, I guess that kind of wind might make them think twice. Think of all the people you know who work outside. While in some circumstances jobs may be a little more difficult, the day still goes on. Just dress for it. And that is exactly what the deer does. There is no one better dressed for the weather than the whitetail deer.

While high winds will not deter movement, they absolutely alter it. One of the big things I realized is that if I can find a small pocket of lower elevation, the noise from the wind is greatly reduced. Being a little quieter, deer tend to find those to be more secure bedding areas. In my area of Wisconsin, where I hunt, there is a good mix of farmland and hardwoods. What I like to find on days of high winds is that lowland swamp. A place that not only is sheltered from the wind, but also provides good bedding cover. High winds make a lot of noise, and that takes away the deer sense of hearing for protection. So bedding in thick cover low in elevation is a prime spot to find deer. I have found that concentrations of deer in these areas spike. And when you have more deer in a bedding area, especially during the rut, they are going to move each other around in the cover. They will tend to change beds many times during windy days.

There are only a few things in life that a whitetail needs or wants. They are not human. They do not have a quest for the meaning of life. They are not out for fame or fortune. They are simple critters with simple needs. They need to eat food. They need to drink water. They need to procreate. I would put sleep in there, but that is not high on a buck’s priorities in November. Sleep is really just a relative term with wild animals anyway. So every day a deer only has to survive. That is it. Unless the weather is extreme, surviving still must be done. So it needs food during the day, and it needs water. During the rut though, a buck only needs one thing. A girlfriend. And good bedding cover is where he will look.

Wind also covers a lot of hunter mistakes. It can hide that snap of a twig under your foot from being detected by nearby deer. It can also mask movement. While the wind blows strong, everything in the forest is moving, giving you a little more freedom of movement. A good strong wind will also help control your scent. If you have light or no winds, the scent you create around your stand will linger longer and be stronger than in high winds. High winds will move your scent away quicker and disperse and dilute it in the air much more quickly, making it harder for deer to smell you. There is no fooling a deer’s nose, but it might make it less effective.

I finally got my chance to put what I have learned to the test this past season while bow hunting Central Wisconsin. As I looked, fairly disgruntled, at the weather forecast for the day of the hunt, all I saw were the winds. Forecasted winds of fifteen to twenty miles per hour with gusts over thirty five. I tried very hard to talk myself out of going. No way those deer were going to move. But I had to tell myself, “Self, you studied for days like this. Get your butt out to the woods.”

So I pulled out my OnX app and started looking at my area and the topography. I identified the food sources I thought the deer would want, then worked on identifying areas of dense cover with low elevation. I found one stand location that had some agriculture that butted up to a low wooded creek bottom. This creek bottom is too thick to even attempt to hunt. It is about one hundred fifty yards wide and a couple miles long, filled with small trees, making it impossible to see twenty five yards, much less pray for a shot. While it does not make a good spot to get into and hunt, it is a great place for deer to hold up. But I still had an issue. The wind was blowing the wrong direction. It was blowing directly into the creek bottom. If there were deer there, they would surely smell me. Which brought me back to another of my hypotheses. Strong winds help hide smells. If I sit at a slightly higher elevation, my scent will blow over them and diffuse.

So I got back to my stand location, a large wind fallen oak tree on the edge of the bedding cover. It did not take long to see my first deer. A very mature beautiful doe. Being the first week in November, the lady got a pass. One by one deer could be seen moving around, slipping in and out of the bedding cover as young bucks kept the party going, harassing all the does that were just trying to relax. The deer all made it a point to stay in the cover and not venture out too far or for too long. But all I needed was one mistake. I knew that just before sunset, those deer were going to want to make their way to the food. While the creek bottom may have water, it is lacking in the food department. All I had to do was wait. I could tell there were quite a few deer using the wind break of the elevation, and one was bound to come out on my side to hit the corn to my north. With about a half hour of shooting light left, it happened. An eight pointer made the mistake of tailing a doe that tried to make her way to dinner.

While hunting high wind conditions may not be ideal, it is far from impossible to put your tag on a deer during these days and can actually be beneficial to your hunt. Using the high winds to my advantage was really the key to this hunt. I used it to hide my entry and scent. I used it to mask my sound. I used it to predict where the deer were going to be. I used it to help conceal my movements while turning to position myself for the shot. I used it to predict what their behavior was going to be like. Hunting in high winds should never be overlooked. A little adjusting of your tactics and a little planning and research, and hunting high winds can be some of the most exciting experiences. Remember, the deer are out there regardless of the weather. A little wind is not that bad. Just step back, take a look at the big picture, and go hunting.

I hope you all found this article informative, and I look forward to your feedback on experiences you have had hunting high winds. Good luck to all my hunting brethren hitting the woods this year chasing whitetails. Do not be afraid to hunt in any type of weather conditions. The deer are still there, and they still need to survive. So just because the weather is not ideal does not mean your hunt will be. Thanks for reading along.