For those of us who live in areas with high wind. Don’t blow the wind; the answer to hitting center by holding off.
We’d stalked as close as possible to the big prong- horn buck. He was getting nervous, and we were out of cover. The distance was 440 yards—exactly a quarter mile. Doable in calm conditions, but a cross-wind was gusting. Uncomfortable with the shot, I lay in the sparce, sun-dried grass and watched the conditions. I had the right rifle, cartridge, and bullet; a super-accurate custom 6.5-284 loaded with a streamlined Nosler AccuBond. Finally, prone and steady, I held the crosshair about nine inches into the wind and squeezed the trigger.
Impact was too far back. I’d underestimated the wind drift by half. Running the bolt fast, I compensated accordingly and finished the buck.
Thankful I’d managed to rectify my mistake quickly; I began running through what went wrong. Clearly, my read on the strength of the wind was off. Plus, the wind was gusting, which made it much harder to predict. And exacerbating the issue, there were very few good environmental indicators (tall grass, tree leaves, floating bugs) of the wind’s strength. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have taken the shot.
That was a long time ago. In the years since, I’ve learned more patience, and my willingness to risk a challenging shot in unpredictable wind conditions has decreased. I’ve also learned a few things about reading wind more effectively.
By Joseph von Benedikt
