"Playing the wind" to me is just a cheap translation of "learning your woods". Every hillside, valley, hollow and ridgetop has it's own "personality" when it comes to wind direction. Learning the "prevailing" wind of your stand sites is a helpful tool. I have figured out for me personallyand my locations in SW Pa, that the prevaling winds are usually S, SW, or W during normal weather patterns. Later in the bow season, when low pressure weather comes into play, north based winds tend to take over on certain days, often causing me to flip-flop my approaches to hunting certain areas since the wind is coming the opposite direction. So what do I do? I have stand sites for the South and West based wind patterns, and stand sites for the north based patterns.

I truly believe I get busted every time I enter the woods because I can't fool every single deer out there. I don't let it bother me, I just base my hunt on a certain group of deer in a certain bedding or food source and be done with it. I concentrate on hunting them, not the entire local herd. If buck A busts me becaue I walked in on the wrong wind direction, that's ok, he'll have to get over it, because I'm gonna bust buck Bsince my stand site for that day is designed to kill him. You can't fool them all, but you can fool the ones you want to hunt. Break down the woods, break down the deer, it get's easier and less stressful.