Question for the people who choose their stand by wind
 

How do you decide when to hunt that stand? I have a treestand up right now that has a field to the west of it and to the north and east is timber. When should I hunt that stand in that type of location?

Depends where the deer are coming from normally. You want to set up your stand so that the deer travel anywhere but down-wind of you.

lol lets not have the "which way is up wind and which way is down wind...
the air that passes you is headed downwind,
so the deer can smell that..or hogs or whatever....your buddy lol if ya really stink....
so plan on being downwind on your property, that way you can "still hunt" your way up wind when ya get tired of sittin. and have a better chance of workin the whole property..
lol where i am, basically in a bowl..its real tough cause the stinkin wind swirls, like a very slow moving tornado that doesnt leave...i can watch the leaves go round and round and up and down lol soundin like the cat..in the hat

I have stands that are about as good in any wind, because deer can come from literally any direction. I have other stands that you need to be careful with.

Basically a stand should be positioned so that the prevailing wind does not blow your scent in the direction you expect deer to come from. After that, you can ckeck the wind before you hunt to see what it is doing on a given day.

That's is also why you should have multiple stands set to take advantage of any wind direction. Hunting as high as you can stand in your stand can help with a bad wind direction too. You can get high enough in the mornings that your scent will go right over oncoming deer. The area in your post sounds like to me would be best on a northwest wind if the deer weren't coming out of the southeast to the field to the west. You never mentioned what was to the south of you.

To the south of me is some prarie grass and then some more timber. In my area deer come from any direction so how should I go about deciding when to hunt the stand?

its hard to determine at first when you get a spot, but after hunting it a few times and knowing where they come from then you can place your stands alot better. as for your situation^ i would put in a couple stands or blinds that way you can hunt it in any wind direction

just remember that you don't have to necessarily have to be in a stand when you're out hunting. sometimes the ground spots against a tree are just as effective as a stand if not better and easier to get to. keep the wind in your face!:biggrin:

Much better to have your scent blowing towards where the deer are moving to feed, rather than blowing towards where they are coming from in the evening.
In the morning it is totally opposite. Better to have the wind blowing towards the bedding area than from the fields they are leaving.
If the wind isn't in your favor and you don't have multiple stand locations where one is right, you would be better off staying home, doing something else, than to educate them to your presence by hunting when the conditions aren't in your favor.

if you didn't scout it i would hunt it for a few days at the start of season to see where they are comming from, if you get busted every day on a early season west wind don't hunt it again until wind comes out of the north assuming their trails aren't comming in from the south. i have made my own cover scent with whatever i could find around my stand location and i believe it helps, if there is cedar around you use it because it has the strongest scent