Breaking your silhouette in a tree stand.

My ladder stand is up about 17' and has pretty good background now, but once the leaves start falling, I'm going to start to stand out. What if anything do you use to conceal your silhouette up in the tree. Blinds seem to cover the lower body but not the upper body when you are going to need to draw and aim.

I was thinking of buying some camo netting and 1/2" pvc, Attach two pieces of PVC onto the back of the stand, and wrap the netting on both pieces and around the back of the tree making a big camo netting fan behind me.

 

Just be still lol.

 

I like the tree hugger technique...

 

All fine and good until a deer comes up behind the stand and presents you a shot. I've shot several deer behind my stand.

I like to stick a few branches in the front corners of my platform that give some cover but you can shoot around.

 

This is what I do also-- I always carry long black zip strips and can rig up cover very quickly.

 

Find a tree that is the trunk is wider than your silhouette at stand height.

 

This helps when your worried about straight on and from behind.. but no so much from the side views....

 

I trust a lack of movement, and surrounding vegetation at that point.

 

Pick a better tree. Groups of trees are the best if you have them. If I'm doing a run and gun type hunt in an area I almost always try to find atleast 2 trees together to get in the middle of. A group of 3 is killer though.

You will be surprised if its your first sit in an area once your sitting up in the tree looking around, you will see better trees to sit in. Then you can adjust from there.

 

My favorite set up in my area is to hang in an aspen that's tucked into a balsam. The aspen is easy & quiet to set up in and the pine gives me cover.

Obviously this is not applicable to many areas you all are hunting.

 

Here is about what it would look like once the leaves fall and what I have to choose from. This angle and spot is not exactly where I am, but close. There are not any big diameter trees and big clumps.

 

I always try to get in or next to a hemlock so far it's done me well. If not then like another said a tree with two or three trunks

 

This is what I do.

 

I read an article i think on outdoor life where a guy would cut out a silhouette of an upper body out of plywood and paint it camo then just attach on the tree when he hung the stand. It made sense for getting the deer used to a human silhouette in the tree, blocked the deer from seeing movement from behind and made a good back rest too.But would be pretty useless for non permanent stands though

 

You will for sure stick out like a boner in speedos with that set up. you can buy clamp on branch holders that will hold those evergreen branches (Douglas Fir ?) for better cover.

 

What we normally do is try to find a double tree and we tie the ladder stand to two trees which makes it very stable and gives some better cover. We then brush the stand in mainly using oak branches trimmed from live oak trees. Oak leaves will stay on even after they turn during the fall providing all season cover. I have also been set up in a pine tree and used pine branches which worked well also.

 

Use a climber and climb high. i usually hunt at about 22-24ft.

 

I've clamped branches to trees before. I've also had bad luck in general with ladders and like to shoot from behind with a hang on or climber.

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For a evening sit always set the stand in the shadow of the tree from the setting sun.i like beach as the leaves are just a bought the last to fall off my pines are way to small