Thermals Explained Using Video from Our Past Hunts

The video is a great illustration of how thermals can make it very difficult to get close to a deer or set up for a deer to get close to you. Dr. Grant Woods explain thermals in more detail in this video. Cold air sinks and hot air rises. Think of a hot air balloon. When they want to get higher, they’re turning the heat to it. When they want to come back down, they turn the heat off; the air cools and the balloon sinks back to the earth. Air masses – even those not contained in the hot air balloon – do the same. When the sun rises in the morning, it starts heating up the land and the air; the air rises up the slopes. And when it cools during the late afternoon, it sinks back down just like water running downhill.
Many research projects have shown that deer move primarily at dawn and dusk. Grant believes deer have adapted to moving during those time periods because that’s when the thermals are most likely to be swirling. In mountain terrain, air temperatures or thermals can be more unstable than on flat land. When the sun comes over a mountain or a hill, it’s gonna warm up a south facing slope or a ridgetop much faster than a north facing slope or a valley. (Watch the video for more details like this on thermals and strategies for deer hunting in flat land or mountainous land) The GrowingDeer team has used the knowledge of thermals shared in this video many times in the past to tag good bucks that are in areas that normally I couldn’t even hunt because of swirling winds.