Gunplummer

What nonsense. I am getting old now but used to bow hunt by moving around and I still pretty much rifle hunt like that. Depending on the weather I have really gotten close to deer using that method. I never said anything about "patterning deer". Get to know the area. After 10:00 on the first day of rifle in the mountains I hunt you are not going to pattern any bucks there. If you get out a couple of times and see deer, chances are they are strange deer moving from mountain to mountain. A topo map is O.K. for a guide line, but weather is a better bet. For years guys like me argued that deer could detect certain colors. Well according to biologists we were the village idiots. Now it is accepted that deer do detect certain colors. The sense of smell thing is way over rated. If a deer ran every time he smelled human scent, he would never stop running. I used to trap and know more than enough about leaving scent. I shot more than one buck on a windy day by catching him bedded on a little high spot in an open wooded area. I saw a lot more that got away the same way. They get up an sneak off when you are 300-400 yards off and most of the time you don't even see them get up. So much for thermals and bedding. Don't let any one(especially a biologist) tell you deer don't pick up movement at that kind of distance. I try to hunt into the wind or a cross wind when possible, but tieing your self down hunting according to thermal breezes and LETTING THE DEER PATTERN YOU is just wrong. The next time you are out in the snow, try to find some beds on a steep side of a mountain. I bet everyone is facing downhill into the lifting thermal currents. If it is a more open area and multiple deer, the beds will roughly have their backs to each other so they can see in all directions. Except for one bed off to the side in thicker stuff. The buck with a couple years on him will not trust the does senses. As I said before, sense of smell highly over rated, but it does sell stuff.

TURKEY FAN

Wow! We got some pretty intelligent hunters on this post, im impressed. You all have very valid points and opinions. In my 20 years of hunting on my property I have noticed that most of the resident deer travel with the wind at their back. I hunt in rocky Hilly terrain so most of the time the deer are traveling across which runs east and west on my land. So based off my observations whichever way the wind is blowing is the direction I know they will be coming from. I believe they do this cuz they are heading to a preferred bedding area they like based off the wind direction at that time.

Gunplummer

I can't argue with that. I hunt the same kind of stuff in Pa. and West Virginia and once they are scared good they run the steep sides that you can hardly stand on. There are so many variables with deer movement that it is amazing we ever get one at all.