How Wind Affects Buck Deer with Dr. Robert Sheppard
Day 4: Using Thermals to Have a Productive Deer Hunt with Dr. Robert Sheppard
Editor’s Note: Dr. Robert Sheppard (www.bobsheppard.com) of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is a longtime avid deer hunter who approaches his deer hunting with the same intensity, quest for knowledge and scientific application of what he’s observed and learned, as he does the patients in his medical practice.
 A hunter also can use thermals to his advantage if the wind is slight and only moving about 5 miles an hour or less. If you’re hunting in the morning, you often can hunt from a stand with the wind at your back. With a slow wind and a rising thermal, your scent will be carried upwards above the deer. Then you can hunt out of a stand where the wind’s blowing in the wrong direction. I proved this point to myself one season. I was in my tree stand early one morning and spotted a fine 8-point buck.  The deer would have scored 110 or 120 points on Boone & Crockett. I already could visualize him mounted on my den wall. But since I saw him coming from downwind of me, I felt sure he would pick up my scent. However, the weather conditions were right. The time was early morning, and only a very-slight breeze was present, which meant my scent was rising. I watched the big buck come under my scent. Right at the point he should have winded me, he didn't. He could have continued to move into the zone where there was no doubt he would have winded me, except for the rising thermal and the slight wind carrying my scent over his head. The buck came on in my direction right under my scent. At 20 yards, I drew and released my arrow.  However, not only was I lucky to have the deer come close to me that day – the deer was too. I missed, and the deer went on his way.
If you understand thermals, sometimes you can hunt with a wind direction that normally will carry your scent to the deer. To know what’s happening with thermals when you’re in a tree stand, tie a small piece of string onto the end of your broadhead or gun barrel. In the morning, thermals will cause the thread to lift-up and settle-back down. In the late evening, the thread will hang straight down, if there’s no wind.  Although I'm a cardiologist and totally against smoking, to test this theory, light a cigarette in the late afternoon with no wind, and watch the smoke settle to the ground. In early morning, you’ll see the cigarette smoke rise, even with no wind. The way the cigarette smoke moves is the same way your scent travels.
To learn more about successfully hunting deer, purchase John E. Phillips’ books, “The Masters’ Secrets of Hunting Deer,” “The Science of Deer Hunting,” “How to Take Monster Bucks,” and “Masters’ Secrets of Bowhunting Deer” at www.nighthawkpublications.com/hunting/hunting.htm.
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