Thermals rise as long as the air is heating, it can last 4+ hours until after noon.. usually at first light your thermals will drop until the sun actually hits you and starts to warm the ground.. Rising thermals on a cold day are by far the best time to hunt high for a rutting buck on really calm days.. There is a period in the middle of the day where typically the day winds take over and you’re not getting much thermal lift or fall usually for an hour or two then in evening they will fall like water and if you’re hunting above with no wind then you’re going to get busted..
100%…thermals go down all night,scent pools in bottoms..bucks are cruising low and they will stay low Until thermals Switch.i have also seen it take til noon sometimes especially the colder it is
Thermals can rise ALOT longer than that. Seen it happen when I was elk hunting out west on a south facing slop. They generally will rise until the temp either is stagnant for starts to fall.
If you used a marker, it would be much more visible than the fine point that you're using now. It's hard to seek for some of us older guys. But the content is great Lefty new jersey
This has always been confused me and I've never really taken thermals into account but this really helped me! I recently just moved to hill country which I'm not used to. Do you have an email that I can send you a couple spots from OnX and get your opinion on?
Yo that comment came from me! Thanks for making this. I'm a Missouri boy, moved to Florida in 2001 in my early twenties. I didn't really hunt much until my thirties in South Florida and now I've gone 4 years in a row to Illinois to a friend's family farm that borders Shawnee National Forest. It's epic hunting and I've killed a 2.5 year old there, but that's it. (Stuck a giant 2 years in a row but never recovered em) I've been watching every Illinois bowhunting video I can trying to figure it out better. Again, thanks for making this vid man I appreciate it.
@@Chestthumperoutdoors Once was a long shot and poor penetration. The deer ran onto the neighbor property and the guy is a RAGING DICK. Wouldn't let me look for more than an hour... The other wasn't an ideal shot and a giant 16 hour rain storm that struck an hour and a half after the shot. Poor blood and heavy rain = no recovery. Both would have been my biggest bucks ever. Suuuuuuuucks
My experience is different. I hunt a rut pinch on a ridge top. I’m facing dead east. Deer bed on that east facing ridge. Prevailing winds are west. West facing hill behind me where food is located. I wait until the sun hits the east tree tops and climb in. I can normally drop milk weed until noon and watch it rise right over the east facing slope tree tops. It damn near bulletproof…
Thermals are very locationally dependent. The next ridge over could be opposite of what your experiencing on that ridge. Nothing here are hard and fast rules, more like generalities that you can build off of to figure more out about your areas.
If I’m hunting a spot that is a small long peninsula like field that has a drop of down hill on all edges of field it drops down hill to creek on one side and river/ wetland marsh - swamp on the other and there’s a small strip of woods 50yrds wide max and deer bed off end of the field where drops off down to the water on all side basically and I wonder how thermals work morning and evening and I been hunting on ground under canopy of two giant holly trees that right against waters edge on wetland bottom side facing the field with my wind from north usually blowing towards field and yet they have cut my track entering and spooked but have been within feet of me at waters edge and never know I’m there even though there’s slight north wind blowing towards the deer supposedly and for first hour in morning and last hour of evening is usually calm and I’ve been lucky but it’s my entrance that gets me unless I use doe urine on boots works sometimes but spooks does sometime but the landscape has steep drop off on right side downt to a creek and the field and landscape gradually slants down to wetland water marsh were I sit up against under holly trees that are shaded all year ! I feel if I hunt right side my scent will drift down across field with landscape toward the larger body of water so I hunt against the waters edge or should I stay on right side and not have to cross field. ?
I would make my walk way longer by walking the outside edge of the field to your spot instead of crossing the field. Also rubber boots with your pant legs tucked in will help reduce scent on ground. Youre hunting in the right spot or close to it your thermals will be dropping down to the water. Another option is to move up off the water edge a bit more so you can shoot them before they cut your trail.
Hey man do know if you leave your scent in a specific area will the shift in time of the day make that scent travel up or down even though you are not physically there anymore? for example if I'm hunting downhill in the cold early morning and leave the area by 10 am or so will the scent that I left downhill now flow uphill as the day gets hotter around noon?
Thats a great question that I cant give a confident answer to. The best answer I can give is it probably does, but I think deer can also tell if youre still in the area based on the density of your scent there, so Id not worry about it too much. I think the deer are going to be much more influenced by constant pressure in the same place over and over.
@@Chestthumperoutdoors I feel like that's the reason I never see or kill anything. I'm probably going to take something really smelly to mask my scent and of course shower with scent blocker! I also believe never setting foot in an area where you plan to shoot an animal your scent will stay there for weeks!
I understood this better than i have many other videos covering this subject. Has me questioning how this applies to my hunting spots more than ever and have lots of questions left but very helpful video!
@@Chestthumperoutdoors honesty i barley know what you showed and even some of it i didnt know about how the "hubs" work or what caused it. i was thinking more like strategies to hunt the hubs or scenarios where you strategy changed
