I saw a picture online; it made me laugh and hit the nail on the head. It was a photo of a piece of paper with hundreds of tiny, blurry words written on it. It was titled “How to Read the Wind?” I said to myself, “Yeah, that looks about right.”

I have spent an insane amount of time studying books, reading articles, and watching videos on visual reading conditions. Unfortunately, taming the wind gods isn’t that easy.

Mother Nature changes her mind more than my girlfriend trying to decide on a place to eat.

Every location is unique. Conditions can also change multiple times a day at the same venue. You could write a dedicated instructional for every competition shooting range in the world. I can guarantee they would all be different.

There is certainly no one-size-fits-all when it comes to this.

Next is a cautionary tale of when I realized how little I knew about how to read the wind. After this, I realized how much work I had to do to compete with the best.

Once upon a time:

It was my first match at a notorious venue. I spent a large chunk of the winter months memorizing flag and wind charts. I told myself, “I’m going to nail it today.”

While traveling to the event, I turned on the radio. The announcer said, “We are expecting light winds of around four mph today.” I think most of them are drunk all day.

I arrived on the field and observed the flags. “You guessed it. They are all standing as if they were trying to tear themselves off the poles.” According to the charts I studied, that’s supposed to be a 15+ mph wind.

Then my eyes start to twitch as my brain begins to short-circuit. “Great, now what am I going to do? These flags are lying to me.” At that point, I overhear a conversation between two shooters, veterans of this turf.

So I went with what I heard because I had nothing else. I was lucky. I would have been racing for last place if I didn’t overhear that conversation. I ended up breaking my record twice that afternoon. I also took what was in the books with a grain of salt.

Like yourself, I have clicked on articles like this, thinking, “this is the one.” It took me a while to realize I wasn’t going to find the answers I was searching for. The reason? This skill is entirely hands-on, and there is no way around it.

I’m going to tell you exactly how to read the wind: 

You need to practice all the time. When you think you’ve practiced enough, then do it some more.

At a certain point, it will just click in your head, regardless of your location. The best wind readers can show up anywhere, observe the conditions, and proceed to hammer the X-Ring.

There are several articles in my How-To Series that will help you hit the ground running.

Everything being equal with your rifle, gear, and ammo. You will be able to concentrate on your wind reading skills. It would be best if you had all of that other stuff straightened out, or you will never learn how to tame the wind gods.

I know it will seem like a lot of work, but when you’re behind the trigger, you’ve learned to make peace with the wind. It is a lot of fun, and you will leave the people who haven’t mastered it in the dust.

Now, put this article down and get shooting.

5 Gun Nation How-To Series

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