Hunting in valley

[JoeB]

Looking for help with hunting valleys. Im usually hunting fairly flat ground and winds are predictable. This winter I scouted deep on some public and have a good looking area figured out, only issue is its a large valley. The cover and majority of sign is in the valley. Mostly open hardwoods on the hillsides, with one nice thicket up yop that has good sign. Hoping to hunt the valley more as it looks to be a great travel corridore during the rut. How would you hunt the valley? Can I use thermals in the morning help to take scent up and away? There is a nice valley coming down from the West that should help funnel wind with the open hardwoods on the east side of the valley that is more gently sloping and open hardwoods. Valley runs South to North North east with our predominant winds being southwest and north west with a front. Help me understand thermal better !!

 

[CaseyRyback]

Thermals generally blow 3-5 mph downhill in the morning until the sun hits and heats up the air. There will be a mid to late morning stall and thermals will switch 3-5 mph uphill. Along the ridge tops prevailing winds will override thermals.

 

[JoeB]

Thermals generally blow 3-5 mph downhill in the morning until the sun hits and heats up the air. There will be a mid to late morning stall and thermals will switch 3-5 mph uphill. Along the ridge tops prevailing winds will override thermals.

So if im setup before daylight in the bottom thermals will keep my sent in the bottommost of the worning? Theres a small ditch that I will set up beside just behind me but in the fall I dont expect any runing water.

 

[MarlinMark]

Thermals are predictable but very fickle with prevailing winds. I focus on the prevailing winds first.

Thermals rise with the heat of the day and drop with the cooling of evening. Heat rises.

 

[brancher147]

Winds will probably swirl unless they are running the same directions as the valley. Thermals will fall in the morning until the sun heats up the valley. If you setup next to a ditch your thermals could flow down the ditch like water in a perfect scenario

 

[Macintosh]

You just have to go and see what the wind does, there’s too many factors in play to say “it’s going to do this”. Being mobile helps a lot. Use your scouting time NOW to check what your common winds do in various aspects of the area. Milkweed is your friend, invest heavily in it.
Thermals its just a simple rule. Cold air sinks, warm air rises. The bigger the night vs day temp difference, and the less prevailing wind, the more this matters. But its always there, its just that during the day its usually overridden by the wind. Cold/cooling still air (pm as things cool off and cold AM before the sun hits an area) flows downhill just like water. Warm/warming (as the sun heats things up) air rises.
In whitetail country I find sinking thermals far more predictable and easy to use than warming thermals.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Unless you are hunting somewhere that is otherwise totally devoid of humanity, just go hunt. Especially during the rut. Go where the does are and you will find the bucks. Sure, if it’s possible to approach those spots with the wind in your face, that’s nice. But getting within rifle range of a rut-raged buck isn’t that hard.

In the valley I hunt, the winds are swirling and unpredictable. I can head up a ridge towards the mountain top and encounter wind blowing in a different direction every hundred yards of climbing or every hundred feet of elevation gain. In those circumstances, I just focus on moving slowly and not showing myself unnecessarily. Walk on the military crest of the ridge, with your most exposed side visible on whichever side has the least visibility. If the deer are alerted by a gust of wind, they might stand up from their bed and start to move away at 200-300 yards, but that just makes them easy to kill. They aren’t running unless they see you.

If you are staying in one spot on a mountain side, then pick a good choke point or perch, get there before first light, and position yourself wherever you have the best field of view. Then just stay still. You are more likely to bust a deer by scratching your nose than because it smells you.