Don't feel bad. I've been bowhunting for about 50 years and I still don't have it figured out. I've never been good at playing the wind. I'm fine with understanding thermals in general and dominant wind direction. The problem is all the back eddies and such. Swirls and back eddies can change with changes in temperature making the micro-climate wind different than the dominate direction.
When bowhunting, it is often preferable to set a stand so deer will approach from behind you. Provided you can sit motionless and let them pass, it provides great shot opportunities. Most new bowhunters don't do this. Because of their movement and scent deer approaching from behind pick them up and avoid them. Most will spot deer coming from in front or a side and then control their movements.
I've been a very successful bowhunter despite my lack of ability to play the wind. How? Scent control. I wash clothing in hunter's scent free soap with no UV brightners. I keep my close in a sealed tub and don't put them on until I'm ready to enter the woods. I don't drive with them on. I shower with scent free soap immediately before I leave to hunt. I wear carbon coveralls to help hold in any scent. Rubber boots are a must as is a full carbon headcover.
In the mountains, you have predictable thermals and deer have a general predictable morning and evening travel directions based on dominate wind direction and the thermals. When food and bedding are separated, there will be general travel from bedding to food in the evening and the reverse in the morning. Deer will generally bed and move in a way to be wind advantaged. However, in more rolling country like were I hunt, deer tend to meander, again wind advantaged. Directions of travel are much less well defined.
Early in my bowhunting career, I got blown on most every hunt. Once I became fastidious about scent control, I rarely got blown. Most of my bowhunting was from treestands and the elevation helps with scent control as well. Now that I'm older, I only use ladder stands which are not as tall as I would hang my hang-on stands or I would go in a climber. I'm also using box blinds more often. They also help hold in your scent, but present their own challenges for bowhunting.
For rifle or muzzleloader hunting, I'm much less concerned about scent control. There is a big difference between getting withing 100 yards of a deer and getting withing 20 yards for bowhunting.
One more thought on scent, you hunting environment plays a role. In a big woods setting, deer rarely encounter people. It takes much less human scent (in PPM), to alert a deer than it does in a suburban or ag setting when humans are in deer habitat regularly. Deer quickly learn how to coexist with humans.
I've told this story before, but in the suburbs, I've bowhunted on small parcels. I was in a tree about 30 yards behind a house. Kids were playing basketball in the driveway in front of the house. The neighbor was mowing his lawn with his lawn tractor. I watched a half dozen deer feed on acorns about 30 yards from me. A dog in another neighbors yard was barking. The deer ignored everything. They were in a wooded riparian buffer behind the houses. At one point, the neighbor got off his tractor. It had a bagger on it. He removed it and stepped into the woods about 5 yards to empty it. He was not even going in the direction of the deer. The deer immediately looked at him, froze, and then took off running.
As long as people, dogs, and whatever, were where they were expected to be, deer completely ignored them. The moment a human stepped out of the expected zone into the riparian buffer, they immediately went on alert.
The point of this story is that deer react differently to scent depending on their environment. I know some bowhunter that are great at playing the wind, but for me, the key is scent control.
