You and I both know the story well.
Here comes a whitetail — down the trail, across the field, into the food plot, through the cover, you name it. All is looking good when …
Whoomp! Up comes the deer’s head, ears perking and nostrils working. Perhaps the whitetail stomps or high-tails off. Just as likely, it skulks away like a ghost. Either way, you think …
What just happened? The wind was good. You were still as a statue.
It is convenient to blame such situations on some magical sixth whitetail sense. There is no sixth sense. But there are two factors that almost make it so for the whitetail:
*A deer’s magnificent nose, the effectiveness of which we humans cannot begin to understand
*The intricacies of thermal air flow (often simply called thermals), which can carry human scent in manners that can mess up a hunt fast
Thermals aren’t always as simple
