Belchertown Bowman's Link
It has been said by a skilled hunter that deer will not likely enter my food plot unless the wind is favorable to them meaning they can check the plot out downwind before they even get to the plot. Or if the wind is not favorable to the deer, they may enter it at night.
It is my plan to examine when the deer are there,. what was the wind on that day and time,..? I will post my results in a couple of months.
I believe you can look at historical wind dates and time at this link.
So what do you think about that statement on wind being favorable and the food plot? Anyone with a food plot ever examine this? Do they always enter from downwind?
This is a tough one. Sometimes I think the "specific wind" thing is over blown, I mean, a deer isnt going to walk to Lake Ontario from Springfield to get a favorable wind to head south - obviously over stated, but you get my point.
I think there may be some "micro" dosing here. I deer will go where it wants to go, and it will use it's senses to do that safely. It's best sense, is it's nose, so... they are going to use it. But will they avoid a great food source if they can not enter with a good wind? My guess is 90% of the deer - no... but those 10% of deer that live a long time (say 4.5+ years), be it buck or doe, they do things differently. It wouldnt shock me at all if they prefer to approach a food source from the down wind side, even if it's a considerably harder path of approach.
Looking forward to your data!
As far as entering fields/plots, I was able to watch a buck, probably 2.5 years old, last season who went out of his way, two nights in a row, to enter a field at its very lowest point just at closing time. I later checked it with milkweed, if you were anywhere in that field after sunset your thermals dropped directly to the point where that buck went out of his way to enter the field. A couple does entered the field, but didn't follow that script. Maybe he'll be one of the bucks who gets old like Will mentioned.