Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Homemade wind indicator......Anyone?

I have heard that there is an inexpensive way to make your own scent free smoke in a bottle or wind detector. If so what do you use (talc, baking soda, corn starch, flour) to keep from buying those expensive little bottles of smoke in a bottle or wind indicator?

Thanks!

Grab a few puff-ball mushrooms, your bottle would work, or keep a baggy for them, they can come in handy for wind direction.

Dropping dry grass will give you an idea. Some say a wet finger held in the air will cool more on the breezy side, but it could be mistaken as a gesture anymore?

Tieing silk threads or frayed cloth to your rifle barrel or bow-limb is handy.

Just watching and listening to the trends as mild gust come and go can give an idea to what the calmer breezes will be doing.

Little plastic squeeze bottle w corn starch...Works fine...

for many years bowhunters have been hanging threads/strings/yarn from their bows. A small feather on a thread works great

If you keep a cottom ball and tear off a few fibers it should work. Most of the time where I hunt the wind blows strong enough that one can slowly turn in circle whilst urinating. The direction that you're facing when your knees start to get wet is the direction that the wind is out of.

I carried dental floss on the front sling swivel for a long time. It was handy and helped and was easy to do.

Dober

I've been using dried milkweed seeds for years. I keep them in a small ziplock baggie. they work great. They also carry for a long distance especially out of a treestand, gives you an idea what the breeze is doing ten yards away not just right next to you. They are all over here in the east I don't ever remember seeing them out west though.

Nose spray bottle with unscented talc or colored chalk for chalklines, thats what I carry. 58gscott

I hunted with the fella below. Here is a pic of his set up.

chalkline chalk has worked for us.

But I always have some type of light thread on something too..

what i did was i bought one of those hunters specialties wind indecators and whenever it starts getting low, i just refill it with cornstarch. it works great and its very inexpesive.

Baby powder and bean soup

milk weed seeds. i pick a gallon ziplock full every couple of years . i carry a 35mm film canister stuffed full of the seeds when hunting. it gives you a lot better read on the wind than powder

Baking soda has seemed to work real nice for me. I just saved those nice little squeeze bottles I used to buy in the store for wind checkers and refill. The baking soda is scent free too, which is a plus.

Been using corn starch in a squeeze bottle for years. The thread on the recurve limb works real well - like the corn starch betterer.

I have pulled a thread off of my sock and tied it to a swivel works great when the wind cannot make up it's mind. Yarn works good as well. I fill my squeezer up with corn starch.

...I tie a nylon thread around my rifle muzzle, about 4" down I've skewered a downy feather on. This rig gives me a constant read on air currents.... If it rains scent goes to ground anyway, and by the time things have dried out , I'm back in bussiness with my feather rig. A mini balloon stretched over the rifle's muzzle, rain/dirt and debris proofs my gun.

I buy a ton of the HS windicators at Walmart at the end of the season. Can be had for about a buck. They get refilled with cornstarch as needed. I use mine for calling foxes, most stands are with in a few hundred yards of the truck. Inside of my truck looks like I am a coke addict by the time the season gets over. Might have to try some chalk at least it would be blue.