Let me preface this thread by saying my thread is not about killing big bucks. I am talking about deer hunting in general. I hope this might help some of you that are having difficulty in determining where to EXACTLY place your treestand location on any given hunt. It is not about just setting up your stand and waiting, it is about giving yourself the best possible chance to kill a deer every time you hunt. I do not have the ability to run trail cams, scout at sun-up and sundown, put out food plots, etc., so I have had to develop/modify a general deer hunting system that helps me kill deer. Although not as specific in nature as some of you guys, and admittedly not as succesful in terms of killing big bucks, it does get the job done on deer in a pretty tough hunting environment. It is first light and you have never stepped foot in this particular hunting spot. You scramble to find a tree to set up in as the sun slowly starts to cause the darkness to transition into a grayish haze just prior to sunrise. You waste no time finding a tree that fits the bill in terms of size and has no limbs to impede your ascent to twenty feet. You begin sweating as you quickly work to set up so the deer won’t see you setting up at sun-up….. You ever have that uneasy and rushed feeling? Or how about that same scenario except it is the afternoon and you quickly rush to set-up to in a marginal tree to maximize your hunting time instead of taking your time to find an efficient KILLING tree to hang your stand. What you need to do is SLOW down. Examine every angle, every cover line, every elevation change, and every topographical feature before choosing the tree that will be your home for the next two to twelve hours. Why get up at 4am, drive two hours, and waste time away from your family, to just quickly set-up without any rhyme or reason except you feel like the area holds deer? Wouldn’t you rather take your time in finding the tree that gives you the best chance at killing a deer that day? I used to rush at everything I did in the deer woods. I was extremely worried about setting up and being ready 30-60 minutes before sun-up, even if that meant the location of my tree stand was not favorable. Those days are over for me as I strive for efficiency as I hunt. I would rather take the additional five to twenty minutes to find a tree that gives me the best shot at killing a deer that day. If I set up 10 minutes after sun-up or only get one hour to hunt before sundown because I slowly and methodically look for a tree that gives me the best chance to arrow a deer that day, then so be it. I would rather have deer come by at 20 yards or less during 25% of my hunts, than see deer at 50 yards during 100% of my hunts. I hunt to KILL deer not hunt to see deer. Everyone’s hunting areas change week by week, and sometimes day by day. So we need to be flexible, sometimes setting up in areas that we have never scouted or have only limited experience with. You might have to give up a potential deer travel lane(s) to gain 3-4 more potential deer travel routes. No tree stand location is perfect; one can always be busted by deer. But you must strive to set up in a spot that gives you multiple deer travel routes that are upwind of your location or are at such an angle that the deer won’t smell you until they are 5-10 yards from your tree stand. Hopefully by that time you will have had a chance to arrow that deer. Never put all your eggs in one basket, meaning do not focus on just one travel lane because it has big rubs, deer tracks galore, or the travel lane just appeals to your visual senses. Deer can and will come from any angle based on cover, topographical features, the wind, food sources, human pressure, and several other factors. However, deer seem to have some rhyme or reason for how they travel past your stand, so you have to put all those factors together and hone in on a central location where you can shoot to hopefully more than one travel lane. Here are three maps starting with the big picture and moving into a more detail close up view. There are other factors such as downed trees, fences, thickets, etc. that may cause you to move 20-30 yards here or there, yet I will not get too focused on those things as those are site specific to your unique hunting grounds.
