Great advice but what if you hunt a stand that allows the deer to come from any direction.

My favorite stand, one that has produced very well for me is in the center of a funnel. Deer can and do come and go from every and any direction. The perdominant wind is from the west which is most favorable however, the last 3 bucks I've taken from this stand have come from the east but I arrowed them west of me (upwind). The stand is on the edge of a woodlot, overlooking agricultural fields and foodplots. The woodlot is connected to another woodlot (bedding area) by a hedge row. The deer seldom walk the hedgerow but walk the crp field that holds the foodplot. When in the stand you face west, upwind. Like I said tho, the deer do come from the east/southeast (downwind) many, many times. Although the wind from the west is favorable, it's constantly swirling and if you waited for a perfect wind, you'd never really hunt the stand and it'd be hit or miss at best.

I like Greg make sure my hunting close are as free from scent as possible but that also means I use Scent Killer (it cost pennies as far as I'm concerned and if it takes gasoline scent off my hands, it'll take scent out of clothes.) Any edge when the wind changes even if it's 1 % is good enough for me. I will never be scent free, I can only hope I reduce my scent enough not to alarm the deer out of the area. I honestly think that's the case as well. I've had deer downwind suddenly scent me but not blow and go. Not necessarily mature bucks but any deer around me is a good thing. Without what I feel are my scent practices, a blow and go is never a good thing regardless of the age class of animal downwind from me.

Hunting the wind is the number one priority, and if you have those stands that allow no other scent practices, kudos to you, that wouldn't fly so much in my favorite stands. Other stands, I could get away with not worrying about my personal scents because they have dominant wind patterns that rarely change but in my honey hole, it's being anal about scent control or you couldn't hunt it.