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I have also heard that the wind does strange things in the mountains.

So, what can you tell a guy from Wisconsin about the winds at 10,000 feet?

The wind does also do strange BUT PREDICTABLE things in the mountains, well most of the time.

A few "climate" factors to keep in mind.

1. warm air rises

2. cold air sinks

3. most often, the dominate daily wind comes from a westerly direction.

So here might be a hunting scenario.

A high pressure system dominates the area. Clear skies are predicted. You are at your hunting area predawn. All is quite and you feel a cool breeze blowing in your face. Remember that cool early morning air tends to travel down hill, down valley, down slope, as cool air is heaver that warmer air. This is true if at 8000 or 10000 ft. Think of this cool air as a cool stream of water traveling down and across the landscape and has cooled all night under the cloak of darkness.

At this time it would be to your hunting advantage to be down wind of the elk or at lease cross and down wind. If the elk have been feeding below you your scent might drift to the elk and alarm them. You might have to circle around and get down wind or wait until they travel uphill to bed and pass by and then you can make a move from down wind.

If the elk are above you, and they are up wind, your scent will not travel that way and you can call and try to lure one to you or try to stalk one.

So now the sun has been up for an hour or two and the warmth of the sun is heating up the valley below and the hillside you are stand on. At some point,( usually around 8-9pm, the cool air of the morning will start to warm, and will warm to a degree that it will start to rise up the mountain. Remember, warm air rises.

Now depending on what side of the mountain you are hunting, the warming of the cool morning air may be delayed. As you know, the sun rises in the east, travels across the 'southern" sky, and then sets in the west. So the sun's warming rays, shine on the east, south and then west slopes. Those are the slope that are heated up the most and those are the slopes that the warming currents will start to rise earlier than on the more shaded NE, North, and NW slopes where the cooler morning air heats up later and this might delay the warmer up slope winds up to an hour.

Usually elk are bedded by 8-10 am depending on the availability of food, water, how far they have to travel to their bedding area, and how much hunting pressure is in the area. Sometimes elk with be heading to their bedding area (dark pine covered area) before the sun comes up. Elk also can head down to their bedding areas if they are feeding up higher on the mountain at tree line or above.

Ok, so now the sun has been up for a few hours and the warmer winds are coming up or even across at an angle, up the mountain. Remember, a high pressure is in the area with gentle winds predicted below 10 mph. You do not feel any gusts of wind blowing, just a gentle breeze. No clouds in the sky. The wind is now very predictable from a westerly direction and is rising uphill for the most part. You can plan your ambush, stalk or calling in set-up with some reliability as long as you know where the elk might be. You want to be downwind from the elk! so your scent does not drift to them. If you know there the elk might be or the direction they might travel, there is no doubt that when called to and if they approach, they will mostly likely try to get down wind of your position.

You hunt until 10 or 11 am, and not wanting disturb the elk in their bedding area as it is early in the season and you do not want to blow them out of the areas, you take a nap/snack break on the hillside away from them or you head back to camp and plan your late afternoon hunt. Depending on if they head down the mountain or up the mountain to feed later in the day, and that is usually around the time the sun hits the top of the trees or even just a 1/2 hour before sunset.

Now member, when the sun starts to get below the horizon, the sun's warm rays diminish their ability to heat up the landscape and this is when the land starts to cool and this cooler air starts to flow down hill. Also remember, that depending on what side of the mountain you are hunting, the cooling effect, down hill flow, will start earlier on those north facing slopes, than on those slopes facing in a southerly direction.

One may only have an hour in the late after noon to take advantage of the down hill cooling currents if the elk are above and will come down to feed.

So that other causes may change or affect the wind direction or it's intensity. A low pressure system arrives in the area, bring dark skies, rain, snow or lighting, and strong winds. Higher or lower temperatures can affect the currents and wind direction. The topography of the area, the height of the mountains or surrounding mountains, the steepness of the slope, the vegetative cover, changing winds from the normal.

There is no doubt that a steady predictable wind is our friend. A gusty, unpredictable wind is not good and sometimes, the best action is to back out and come back when the conditions are better.

Being down wind so that the elk can not smell me is my first and my top priority when elk are near when I am planning a stalking, ambush or calling setup..

I always have at last two puff bottle wind direction indicators in my pocket and most often, one in my hand.

I am sure others will chime in but this is my Wind 101 response.

My best, and keep the wind in your face and remember, you can not fool an elks nose. Paul

Thank you. That is exactly what I was looking for

My experience has been that elk will "typically" feed/graze heading into the wind/breeze. This allows them to smell any danger ahead of them as they feed. Keep this in mind when planning your stalk. Try to flank them as they feed . . . . don't get ahead of them . . . . as your scent will drift down to them.

Elk moving into the wind is a pretty typical movement when they are feeding or even spooked.

It is always a challenge to get the wind perfect when a wild animal is within bow range, but when it all comes together and the animal is near and can not smell you and has no indication you are there, then this is the moment of truth we all wait for.

My best, Paul

Best of Luck, Jeff

Mark

Be very careful at this time of transition and give the wind a chance to be steady up or down.

If you move in too fast and the wind has not completely made the change you might get caught with the wind blowing in the wrong direction and to the elk.

I have felt the warmer wind come up the mountain early in the morning on a more level hillside and more exposed to the sun, but just a 100 yards away, in a deeper depression, the cooler air is still flowing down hill.

One will feel this by just hiking along a hillside, and going from thicker trees to more sparse vegetation, and feel the warm and then cool air.

As someone said above, more elk have been saved by changing winds than any other event.

My best, Paul

The one exception to this is when they bed on the side of a long ridge, like a glacial moraine in a river canyon, for instance, where a prevailing mid-day breeze can often overwhelm the thermal.

I know a number of spots where the wind seems steady on one side of a ridge (south or west-facing. But as soon as I drop over the top onto the NE side where the elk are bedded it will reverse and swirl or whip-saw back and forth. If you like to hunt bedding areas during mid-day, know that for every elk you manage to get in on without being busted, you'll blow ten out that you never knew about.

If you have a chance to scout your area in mid-summer and want an eye-opener, take a few little Fourth of July smoke bombs into bedding areas at noon and watch how the wind moves the smoke around.

with some careful attention you can get pretty good at feeling even light breezes. the whetted finger, once calibrated, can be good for really light breezes. practice it to get better.

I also like to have threads I pull off a cotton ball that I put on my clothing for quick access with both hands free.

a break in a slope (e.g., at the edge of a ridge) will often back eddy. I've been amazingly close to animals down below the break when the wind on top where I was seemingly was blowing straight to them.

an animal will let you know in less than two seconds if they got your wind. since bowhunters have to get right in prey animals' danger zone wheelhouse, they will school you on every wind mistake you make. on the other hand, what a thrill when you get it right and they walk up right on you. I once had a decent buck walk past me at three yards and it was like he got goosed with a cattle prod when he scented me a few yards later- feet splayed out then froze for about 5-10 secs. I think he knew he should have been dead. Tiptoed off. good camo and the wind perfect. i

That was excellent.

For me personally.... no matter what the wind has been doing all day or all night.... nocking an arrow nearly always changes it....

great info here

we have discussed and cussed this topic in whitetail camp too

prey animals like areas of swirling breeze especially to bed.

as hunters we avoid these areas of swirling winds so the key is to intercept the animal on the way in or out which is much easier to type than actually pull off

Then at 8, give or take, when the sun hit the valley floor, it did a near-instant 180 and ripped up toward the elk. The one positive was that we could almost predict the switch. The negative was that it was right about when we were working into ambush range of a certain bull, after working around the smaller guys.

I've told this story before but I used to do depredation pig hunts with dogs at night on the state parks here. Every night those dogs would kill at least one skunk leaving them stinking so bad your eyes would water if they were close.

It never failed those dogs with a snoot full of skunk scent would find a hog as soon as 15-30min later.....and my guess is an elks nose is much better than a Catahoula's.

This bull was in the Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday, 20 feet off of the road, and he could have cared less about traffic and human scent.

Gee, do you think they know when we switch from being tourist to hunters?

My best, Paul

To the OP, remember, the time spent finding elk is an investment. Once you've made the investment and the investment is paying dividends, you don't necessarily want to give that up easily.

If you find elk in bed at 1030 AM or later, the temptation is going to be to go set up on them right then, especially if they're bugling close by in thick cover since you can get pretty close without them seeing or hearing you.

But if they smell you, they'll often leave the area and then you're back to investing that time in finding them again. Sometimes, the best thing to do once you've located elk, is leave.

The 1/2 hour before and after sunrise generally has a very predictable downhill wind. That wind will generally last longer than 1/2 hour after sunrise, but gets progressively more and more unpredictable depending on how the sun is hitting that particular topography. Sometimes you have up to a few hours, especially when it's cloudy.

Since you have no control over what the wind's going to do, the one thing you do have control over and can do is return the next morning and be a few hundred yards from where you can probably suspect there will be elk before the sun even rises or where they'll come to shortly, so that, as the sun comes up, you're already in position to get on the elk quickly and you'll have a reliable wind for a while. Often times, if you get in early enough, you can hear them bugling at night and work your way closer in the dark, staying downwind. We almost got dad a few shots on bulls when we worked in very close in the dark with a side wind and intercepted them as they moved uphill once the sun came up. Once, we sat in the dark in one spot for 2 hours freezing our butts off as we'd given ourselves plenty of time to get in and find the elk. Better too early than too late.

Even if it doesn't work out the morning you come back, you can back out again and try again the next day. The day isn't lost, just go hunt somewhere else and be aggressive there or try and find elk somewhere else so you've got a backup in case you blow elk out at your first spot.

In 2013, dad and I hunted the same 4 bulls for 5 days. I killed one on day 3 and by only hunting them with good wind, we never blew them out. They were gone on day 6 presumably because the bears really moved in on the carcass on day 5.

You have to consider your pressure though. If you're hunting in an area with a lot of other hunters, you may want to be more aggressive. I'd still rather be right on top of them the next day. If I were hunting an OTC unit with high pressure and found elk mid day, instead of try to go get them in their bed, I'd rather sit on top of a likely exit route for the afternoon and cut them off if they get blown out or sit on a nearby mountain top and glass where they go when they get blown out and if, by chance, no one pushes them, get on top of them early the next day.

Some guys prefer stalking elk in their beds silently or getting in close and using calls to bring them over and that works for them. It's very difficult though and as a beginner, you'll have a poor success rate most likely. Elk that respond to calls like to get close and wait for that wind to swirl before they commit so that they know if it's a hunter or real bull. That first hour or hour-and-a-half, they will not have that option and will either have to come in or circle. Swirling mid-day winds are a non-starter for me.

Take this all with a grain of salt because I'm not a very experienced elk hunter and both the elk I've killed, I've done so by calling them out of their beds. But the vast majority of our chances whether by ambush or calling, have come early before the elk have bedded and we sure have blown out a lot of elk between 10AM and 5PM.

Mike

Now the season has progress and it is late September. The aspen leaves have already gone through their color change from green to various shades of red,orange,yellow and maybe most of the leaves are on the ground.

Much cooler temps at night, even below freezing and occasional snow fall above 9,000 ft. Day time temps are 40 to 55 degrees. More cloud cover, more heaver winds lasting longer in duration.

Well, even with these changes, the cycle of cooler air draining down hill and the warmer air rising up hill still goes and can still be predicted. The changes just take longer in the morning and may start sooner in the evening.

We all acknowledge that hunters of elk live and hunt in various states from north to south and at different elevations, but these daily/weekly patterns as the season progresses, are the same but just slightly different from state to state.

My best, Paul

It is very hard to cut off moving elk, but if you find a feeding herd you may be able to work into the herd from down wind. that usually requires some quick hustling that can take your wind away!

Elk generally will tolerate noise since they are loud when moving as a herd (especially if you give a soft mew or two). So if you need to move fast to get downwind that is way more important than getting winded.

1. If you can feel the wind on the back of your neck, you're totally screwed.

2. The wind blows down the mountain starting early evening and does so until the time of the morning when the sun starts to heat the air. Then it blows up.

3. NEVER, EVER trust the wind when you're within 50 or so yards of a ridge line! It will lie to you every time!

4. Throw away your puff bottle and get a Wind Checker. Puff bottles will tell you what the wind's doing within a few feet of you. A tiny piece of cotton from a Wind Checker will show you what the wind is REALLY doing.

If you doubt that, get up on a mountain and use the puff bottle. Then throw up a tiny piece of a cotton ball. More often than not, the cotton will start off in the same direction as the puff, but then change directions a few times before finally taking off in the direction the wind is REALLY blowing.

Can you provide a website for Wind Checker? Everything I google comes up a "puff bottle". Trying to imagine what exactly you're describing.

Thanks.

I don't have a source, (If I remember, it is a lightweight synthetic/fiber that comes from a dispenser).

I use milkweed (Minus the seed). I have it in an old 35mm film canister. You can watch it for a long time. Teaches you what the wind is REALLY doing around you, not just 3' from a powder bottle.

1) To monitor the wind constantly, I tie a 3-foot long piece of white thread to my bow's riser. It's especially useful in light, switch-y winds that I can't always feel on my face. 2) Do not trust the lee side of ridges mid-day. Eddys form that play heck with the wind. The closer to the top of the ridge, the worse the problem is. Elk love to bed in these places; resist going after them there between 9 am and 6 pm. (see picture 1) 3)One side of a ridge can have an up-going thermal, while the other side of the same ridge can have a down-going thermal (see picture 2). 4) I love hunting in a steady drizzle because there usually isn't ANY wind; no thermals because it's the same chilly, miserable weather from mountain top to valley bottom, and the regional winds are calm/non-existent.

If I'm setup calling elk to me or a shooter I monitor the wind constantly & know exactly its direction so when the elk come my way I know where they can get to before they wind me, this tells me I/we must arrow them before they get to that certain spot! At times re-positioning before elk show up is necessary to maintain the right wind, it doesn't have to be in your face it just needs to be coming your way in no certain order.

ElkNut1

Question. I've had many experiences where I knew I would be winded and the encounter would be over. It was expected, typically due to a change in the situation. However I'm equally amazed at the times I wasn't winded when clearly i should have been. It was as if the elk didn't care. How did they not smell me and bust out? Sometimes this stuff leaves me scratching my head in disbelief. Have you guys experienced this as well? Last question, do you hunt the same areas two days in a row or give the area a day to "air out".

FYI, I'm kinda aware of the wind all the time but i'm not anal about it. I hunt where I want that day and not worry too much about the wind until i'm in close (50-100 yds). Thoughts??

I do know at night elk do not have the same fear around camps or camp ground spots, they've been known to come right up to camps in the middle of the night & carry on vocally & stomping around for long periods of time. Sometimes we have to get up & chase them away if we're to get any sleep, this is unusual but has happened.

There are times we hunt a spot 2 days in a row but only if certain we can pull a bull or two out of there in consecutive days. That's more in a run & gun frame of mind & we've taken bulls this way many times. In other situations with little sign or activity we do not waste our time to return to such areas the next day but will wait for later in the month before returning in hopes the elk are now there. -- If I were ambushing a certain elk or group of elk then you bet I'd be sitting my spot for whatever days in a row it would take to seal the deal.

I think I understand your thought on the wind & not being concerned with its direction every second out hunting, I do the same when moving to & fro knowing little is where I am at present. But when getting closer to elk I've heard or seen I adjust my thinking & position to get the wind right, a lot depends on the steepness or lack of it in the country I'm in as to the needed distance to be safe, the steeper the better if I'm above. When close to the same elevation as the elk I'm calling or stalking I try to get the wind hundreds of yards out. Your scent can travel a long ways in short order when on the same plane. But I agree that I don't be too concerned with wind when no elk are around & I'm covering miles of country, I'll wait for contact then adjust! Of course if slipping through a bedding area you must have the wind 100% of the time.

ElkNut1