HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - Thermals vs. Wind Direction: Set up downhill or uphill?
Old 11-16-2018, 05:56 AM
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Father Forkhorn
Nontypical Buck
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: NE Kansas
Posts: 1,101
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Young gun, it's an interesting question. I can't be a hundred percent certain, but I suspect the thermals will work in your favor. My reading about them has always proposed that getting on a ridge early will take advantage of morning thermals as they rise. They take your scent up and away. The downward-moving thermal you are concerned about is not mentioned as any sort of problem in pre-shooting morning. It may exist, but it doesn't seem to be a serious problem.

See what others say, but I would look at it this way if I were in your situation: I'd need to be where the deer are going, and that means being exactly where you are thinking: 100 yards up at the foot of a tree on that ridge well before sunlight. I'd do it on the premise that using thermals is a proven tactic that leads to hunting success.

Is there any way to be off of "the highway" rather than directly above? That might allow any downward thermal to take your scent to a harmless place.

Another idea: read up on "thermal tunnels." not long ago, I read something on thermals that said there can be places on ridges, especially benches, where intersecting wind and thermals react to create a sort of circulating swirl. The currents don't go up or down but "round and round". A hunter in one can keep his scent localized around himself and that gives him an advantage.

if you can locate a bench on that ridge, that would be gold in any case. A big buck comes up the holler (maybe even getting pushed up by your buddies near the bottom), hits the bench, and gallops along it for his daily snooze. Except you're sitting there waiting on him.
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