Steve Bartylla and Safe Winds

Steve Bartylla and Safe Winds

Steve, I just read your habitat book. Can you please further explain creating “safe wind zones/stands” with edge feathering and blockades. I think I get eventually learn how to keep deer from crossing this structure, but I don’t understand how I could possibly block by scent. What am I missing? Thanks!

Steve Bartylla and Safe Winds

Steve Bartylla Chuck, you aren’t using them to block your scent at all. You are using them to try to keep deer from the areas your scent is blowing into. Look at the cheesy drawing I just did for you. the green is field, the tan is woods, the red dots are stands, white arrows are the safe wind directions they can be hunted with, black likely deer trails and light blue is edge feathering, done to purposefully try to make it tough to cross. By leaving those 2 openings in the back corners and discouraging them entering/exiting along the edges, you’ll have most of the deer, particularly the larger racked bucks, entering and exiting at those corners. Does than mean no deer at all will be entering and exiting the field in places we don’t want them to? Probably not, as does can snake their ways through tangles of trees far easier than bucks, but those wind directions are now much safer, as no where near the number of deer will be entering/exiting where we don’t want them to/far more will be using the corners, due to the edge feathering blockages we tried creating. The edge feathering or more pure blockades do nothing about your scent at all. They can just be used to help keep deer out of certain areas, helping to create safe wind directions…hope that makes more sense.
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