I do not smoke but I am just curious if there is a rule to this and in your opinion does it bother the deer or animal? do they even care? Because we use scents to cover our human body smells so.... Are you jeopardizing your hunt by doing this?

The best scent control is to hunt with the wind in your favor. I have a good friend who has smoked in a box blind or bow stand forever. He still was very successful since he hunted with the wind in his favor. He used no cover scent control either.

Okay I wanted to use this for another topic but here goes. How do you play the wind in your favor when you don't know which way the deer are coming? I hear people all the time you want the wind to shoot west to north or east to west. How do you really know when deer just come from any direction.

If you are stalking or still hunting you try to walk into the wind when hunting. If you are blind hunting over a feeder or food plot then you make sure the wind is not blowing from you to the food source. Scouting and setup ahead of time will help with your choice of what to do with any wind direction you encounter. Deer will need water, food and during the rut find the does- the bucks will be around them.

Exactly. My father used to smoke heavy but never had a problem killing big deer. He is an avid bow hunter and would smoke in the stand. If you asked him, the hardest part was lighting the cigarette because the lighter made too much noise. He also doesn't use cover scent, he hunts the wind.

Find the well used trails and set up watching them with the trail out in front of you and the wind blowing from your left to right or right to left, also referred to as hunting with a cross wind.

What you want to avoid is the wind at your back blowing toward the deer you are observing.

There are times that the deer will surprise you, but they can be patterned just like any animal. When moving to a new area, it is a good idea to sit aways back and see how the deer access the area. Do this from different angles and different winds and see if the deer change their pattern based on wind direction.

Scouting is very helpful. I have different sets for different winds. One set isn't going to work for every wind direction, no matter how many stands you put around the area. You need a different set completely for different winds in most cases. I have seen hunters put up a feeder and put two stands, one on the north side and one on south side. Chances are, they will and are getting busted.

Most of my sets, I try to find a barrier that the deer will avoid and set up so it is down wind. I have used fences, ponds, creeks, the rifle blind, and other obstacles that I have noticed deer avoid. In thick areas, I have laid trees down across certain trails to make the deer choose another route. They will typically take the path of least resistance.

To help determine the most common wind directions, you can check out this website: http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/airquality/monops/windroses.html
It only lists larger cities, so you may have to look at a few around you to get an average. It shows the percentage of wind direction and speed broken down for each month per city.

I have found everywhere I've hunted in Texas that during hunting season the most common winds are a south to southeast wind or a north to northwest wind. I have one stand set up with the feeder to the northeast and one to the southwest, so that I can usually hunt both spots and be playing the wind. You have to be careful not to set up directly in line with the rising or setting sun on east/west set-ups, so I angle my feeder accordingly.

Okay!! That all makes sense now. Txshntr I had to look up sets but I understand now. Just to clarify. You actually sit out just to see the deer's movements? How they react to certain barriers? Sir, That is a lot! I am thinking just the time consuming you are getting sucked into. I have a lot of admiration for gentlemen like you. There is no way I could sit and watch deer and see how they react. That's like me fishing in one spot and getting nothing. If I see a huge bass jump out the water. I am moving my pole and line in that direction.

I know I need to come at hunting not in a fishing mindset. Again me being new to this I see there is a art a pattern if you will. Do you all do this or is that just personal preference to sit and watch?

There is so much when it comes to hunting. Playing the wind seems to be the biggest factor. If you can play that right then you don't need to use cover scent at all it seems like. As in inexperienced hunter I must have sat countless times to were the wind was not in my favor. I so thought this would be easy to just pick up a rifle and be on my merry way... NOT! Youtube is great but I think I am going to pick up a detailed book on hunting and hopefully it will give me all that I need. It gets rough paying 300$ here and there for a hunt and walking away with something you learned from it besides why you never got your deer. Just seems like when you think you got it down pact. I guess it's like poker. Takes minutes to learn but a lifetime to master..

I never mind sitting back and watching deer, some call it a passion and for others it is an obsession.

I still typically hunt while I am sitting back, it is more about paying attention to how they travel and use the terrain. It is truly amazing what you can learn. I have been at it for around 25 years and still learn something new every year.

On many places, it isn't hard to go sit in a box over a feeder or food plot and kill a deer, but I am not just hunting any deer. I figure the more things I have in my favor, the better chance I have.

Some will say I make it too complicated, but it is part of why I love doing what I do. I am also an avid bass fisherman and it really isn't that different. If the bass are moved up on the beds, you take notice and adjust accordingly. If the buck bass have moved up, chances are the females are suspended and not far away. Find the shad and you can find the fish. Sometimes that's off a point and sometimes that's on the bank. Again, you observe and adjust

For me, the wind is definitely the number one factor in success and failures for most hunters. There are other factors, but when determining a new hunting spot, this is the first thing I look at. And when/if you start bow hunting, it becomes even more critical.

Good luck

Been known ta fart in de blind, stunk so bad make skunk run fur cover. didn't bother the deer, me eyes watering so bad couldn't see threw de scope..

I never had a problem killing deer while smoking, the bets deer I ever shot was right after I flipped the lid closed on my Zippo. The noise spooked him and he jerked his up to see what it was, if he hadn't done that I would not have seen him.

I usually smoke a big fat cuban cigar when hunting. On days when the wind is really light the smoke gives you an instant visual on the wind direction. Based on my cigar smoke I have changed locations in order to keep the wind in my favour.

In addition to patterning to predict where the deer will come from you can also use the terrain. I like to park with my back to a river, lake or steep rock face as odds are the deer will not be swimming or climbing down a rock face and hence will not be approaching from my six.

Snoreing many a times went out tta de woods just ta relax end up taking a nape, & be woken by me snoring & deer feet away

BAM!

I have been debating this with one of the guys I agreed to let add a bow stand on my ranch. The guy is super nice and I was like, "sure.. you can add a couple stands... just maintain the corn and build them a certain way so they add value."

Well, he starts going, "I need to add 2-3 stands per feeder, so I can hunt in a certain one depending on the wind"

I was like, "wait a second... this area can support a bow OR a rifle.. i.e. set it up as a rifle stand and add a bow stand up closer to the feeder. Don't add 3 stands, as you will block the rifle stand.."

He seemed irritated and Iw as like, "wait.. what if the wind changes direction while you are in "a" stand?"

I just don't get it.. maybe I have been doing this wrong all my life. I wear jeans.. white t-shirts at times... I fart in my stand.. yea! I damn well said it! I do! I mask my scent by making one worse than me! hell yea!

What in the hell am I doing wrong? I mean.. sure.. I have all the deer meat I want.. but mfg.. do we really need THREE stands in case you do not want some damn deer to SMELL you?

Seriously. I told him to hunt a bow stand I set up. It is 30yards MAX from the feeder and smack dab "in the open" but backed up to a tree and he claims he did not see a thing because they could see him move. I was like, "well, tell that to the two guys that each shot one within 30 minutes of sitting in the stupid thing the day before.

I don't understand why people go to such great lengths to "bow hunt"

ok.. /rant off..

lol

I don't really smoke, but I used to enjoy the occasional cancer stick.

One time when I was hog/predator hunting I had deer all over me and the wind was blowing from me to the feeder, so I thought it'd be funny to see how fast the deer hauled butt if I blew smoke directly at them.

They absolutely smelled it right away and they absolutely did not run. Just kept sniffing the wind, looking my direction, going back to eating corn. Was interesting for sure and it should be noted that none of them were older bucks. The older bucks were right outside the stand begging for a drag.

Better watch it there, fella! The EPA is going to get you if those deer develop cancer from 2nd hand smoke!

R

Sitting a 100 yards away in a box is one thing, sitting 25 yards away from the same feeder is a much different. No wind is worse than a steady wind when hunting. That way at least you know where it is going. Sometimes winds will drift upwards and makes it appear deer are walking thru your scent trail.

Use to... even in a treestand... deer didn't care much.. but my stands are in the nosebleeds

FIFY

In the bottoms of east TX you are only kidding yourself if you think you can play the wind on 90% of the days. It changes, it swirls, it does this and does that. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Plus there is absolutely no telling which direction the deer will come from. Especially a mature buck.

Just the way it is. All the "hunt the wind" stuff is utterly useless. Now, out west spot and stalking - a completely different story.

No smoking in the stand for me. I guess if you do smoke, better have the wind in your favor, blowing from the feeder to you.

A deer can't distinguesh smoke from a cigurate from some one burning trash or brush pile. The bobbing of the head, twitching of ears, & tail, stomping is a deers way of communicating to other deer something is a foot

smoke does not bother deer. it's all the other things we do that get us busted

I used to know an old guy who smoked a pipe and always used some really stinking tobacco in that thing, onetime he wanted to go hunting so I asked a friend who was one of the guys who was always worried about smell and wind and such, if he could take the old guy out and told him the old guy smokes a pipe. My buddy said he had a blind that he had never seen any good bucks in but always had some does.

My buddy told me when the old guy showed up he stunk to high heaven and was not wearing any camo and when they got to the stand the first thing the old guy did was pee right by the stand and got into the stand and lite up his pipe.

My buddy said he figured they would not see a deer cause the wind was blowing from them into the field and this old guy did everything wrong when it comes to hunting.

Well it wasn't 20 minutes after they got into the stand, with that pipe stinking up the place, that the field started filling up with deer, he said more deer than he had ever seen were in the field and the biggest buck they had ever seen on the place came into the field and the old guy killed it.

I do not smoke so have no personal experience with so I don't know if this was just luck or the pipe smell threw the deer off. I just know that when you think you have it all figured out the deer do something completely wrong.