Hi guys, I've scouted a HUGE (136 acres) plot of public land a bunch of times this summer and have lined up a few trees I'm brining my climber too this season. I've also had a great opportunity to meet THE ONLY OTHER LOCAL HUNTER in the area. How said all the local guys are to old to climb the hills anymore, so they stay down at the base of the forest in ground blinds. So here's my question... because of the scarcity of human presence at the top of the hill and the weight of my big climber, would you lug it in, lock it up in a very hidden section. As I've said I've been up there a number of times - ZERO evidence of any human activity at all each of the times I've been up scouting. I've spotted more scat and scrapes closer to the top which is why I feel it might be worth it & it would reduce the amount of sweat generated on the hike in. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I leave stands out on the public land we hunt, only a handful of guys hunt the island and if anyone else was to come in and steal a stand, we'd find out about it. Basically, gonna be up to you. If anything, buy a lock on and some sticks and remove the two bottom sticks when you leave.. or lock your climber to the tree with a cable. Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
Not legal in Wisconsin so I would not leave my stuff. Also I'd be very upset with myself if i left it and some took it. Maybe just hunt on the ground?
CHECK your State regulations. Here in Kansas you can not leave a ground blind out overnight on public land but you can leave an elevated stand... but if someone else gets to it before you they can use it. 136 acres is not huge, but big enough to hunt, like you have found most will not travel far from the truck. I have learned to use others to push deer to me. About 09:30 most leave and this makes the deer move... then when they come back in the afternoon. Also here there will often be a food plot and people will set around the edge. I look for trails from bedding / hiding places about 300 yards back in from the food plots. The deer have places where they stage before dark so they can enter the field after dark and feed till before daylight. You have to play the wind in Kansas but I depend on others to help move the deer to me. So you are right to pack that stand back aways and be ready to drag a deer a mile.
A few times I have cached some gear in the woods when I had a deer to drag out and didnt want to carry everything at once. Would just hide it back in some wooly stuff and cover it good....a whole lot safer than leaving it hanging in a tree. Also yet another reason to carry a garbage bag or 2 in your in your gear.
I leave my stands (even climbers) overnight on public land all the time. Just lock them to the tree. I go in deeper than most and try to be first into the woods. Sure if someone beats me in and takes a pair of bolt cutters or battery powered grinder with them I'm probably out of a stand; but I guarantee I catch somebody in the woods with a set of those tools and that person isn't walking out of the woods on their own 2 feet.
