A deer hunting thread in August...

[katman]

Bet it feels great putting a few miles on the boots.

[jonsimoneau]

Really good stuff Ryan. I guess I'm not the only guy crazy enough to be in the timber in the summer. All of my main setups are pretty much ready but I like scouting new areas in the summer. Public areas mostly. Then I'll go back and check them out again in the winter. And decide if I wanna hunt them the following year.
    Those "situation" stands are my favorite as well. They are really pretty hard to find but when you do find them you can count on them. The very best tree that I've ever picked out just happens to be on a parcel of heavily hunted public ground. 3 hours from my house.  I honestly still do not understand what makes this tree so good. The only reason I even found it is due to hunting multiple other trees in sight of this tree and noticing that 90 percent of the deer movement happened to go right by this big pine tree.  Perfect!  One evening I watched a mid-140s 6x5 walk under it. Good deer on heavily pressured public property. I got a stand in that tree the next day and shot the buck from a whopping 8 yards. Since then either myself or my close friend have taken numerous deer from this tree. Mostly does but still. It's so good that I have actually driven 3 hours just to hunt that tree for one evening! I have spent probably 40 or 50 hours scouting the area all around this tree to try and determine what makes it so good so that I can repeat it elsewhere but I still haven't figured it out for sure. I do have a few theories though. Until then I will keep hunting it!

[Barry Wensel]

Ryan: I don't want to take away from the basics of this great thread but I wanted to add a sidenote the readers will likely get a kick out of. I can't believe you have hit forty. I somewhere too have a couple letters on file corresponding with your dad back in the early '70s. Because of our mutual love for mature whitetails we were trading theories. In one letter I recall him telling me he and your mom had a new baby boy who seemed to be "a pretty good little guy" (or words to that effect). You were probably impressing him because you slept dry that night. Ha. Talk about making me feel old! Here's to sleeping dry. Keep up the good work. BW

[K.S.TRAPPER]

Great thread! Been scouting for a month now 14 stands up at this point. Picked up a couple of our old spots again and been setting on bean fields and taking picks a lot of evenings.

 

 

Love this time of year some beautiful sunsets!!!

Thanks for bringing it up Ryan and good luck this year.

Tracy

[jonsimoneau]

By the way Ryan. Could you point me in the direction of the battery powered pole saw? I didn't know anybody made one of those but was thinking not too long ago as to how handy that would be.

[ChuckC]

yup, its that time already.  Thanks for letting us tag along.
ChuckC

[RedShaft]

Hi Ryan,
Redshaft again... Lol

When setting your stands taking in the consideration of the line of travel the deer will be taking or you assume most will take, what direction do you like to place your stand?

Lately I have been setting stands so I am behind the tree until they are where I want them to be. Unless the cover is REALY good. I also hunt low 10-15 ft. And have found most time when the deer are at my tree. There attention is now ahead and i am more comfortable and can get away with allot more. ESP hunting public lands. Luckily I still have good hearing and it's Pain to look over your shoulder all the time but it's been a big help for me.
Also this would be my right shoulder as I am right handed and with can't of the bow a right side give me better lower limb clearance.

[Ryan Rothhaar]

Jon - check Amazon, it is made by greenworks.  Has held up good so far - did several hours of pretty heavy trimming along our pasture fence this summer, limbs/trees up to 6 inches dia.  Been happy so far.


Brad - that's interesting.  Mostly I have brushy enough trees that I don't need to setup (or really couldn't due to limbs etc) facing away.  I guess if I could call it I'd have the deer come in from over my left shoulder, crossing from left to right in front, quartering past.  Given the tree allowing it, I set my stands so what I think will be the primary shot is at about 10'oclock looking forward from the stand.  I like to put the right hip against the tree and shoot left of center in front if that makes sense.  I don't really think about this - it is just the way pretty much all my stands end up.  Putting the hip/cheek on the tree guarantees bending at the waist and good treestand form.  I was hunting with a buddy of mine out West, he is always in big diameter trees - and I had a heck of a time shooting out of his stands.  He faces them directly to the primary shot, my right elbow consistently hits the tree.  I watched him shoot out of his stand and he gets on the front of the platform away from the tree and puts a heavy cant to the bow, no problem for him, but doesn't work for me.

[Ryan Rothhaar]

Don't be afraid of little trees either - I'm a big fan of getting up in regrowth cedars around here, and have several stands in trees around 8 inches in diameter, and 5-8 feet up.  Plenty of cover in the cedar, trim out minimal shooting lanes and don't jump around so the tree shakes!  I've had good bucks go past close by with the tops of their tines at about platform level, never had a clue.  Think of it as a ground blind on steroids!  I have a cedar I've been watching in a grown over pasture here, blackberries, multiflora, and jap honeysuckle vines, for several years.  One or two more summers of good rain and it will be big enough to hang a stand in.  Its a dandy spot and I'll have one as soon as the tree gets big enough.

R

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Great Thread Ryan.

Thank you for taking the time to share.  I have taken some new ideas away from this.

[Fritz]

Thanks for thread Ryan. I needed something to get some "fire" going in my veins. Life has been getting in the way. X2 on the battery pole saw! I been using one for the past 3 yrs. Works great.

[RedShaft]

Ryan,
Thanks for the reply. One thing I would like to point out is that I hunt all public land. A lone wolf hand climber is what I'm in. So it it harder for me to find that "tree" with good cover and in the right spot. I have had to do this out of necessity. So that's why hidding around the tree works so well for me.
I really want to get a fat and light setup wih a hang on and stick for a in and out type set up on a daily basis like my climber. So if I had a spot I could use the lock on n take down the same day.

Also you point about hunting small trees is very good and what I have found. My area has multiple small parcel clear cuts. Some are older now with little larger trees than saplings. And I have found no one.. Is hunting inside them. I have been able to climb 8-10 max remember young small tree an do well because they are not used I even seeing anyone in there. It does feel odd sitting low in a small tree but you get used to it. Only downfall is the deer come into you quickly due to it being an old grown up clean cut. N they don't seem I hang around. It's a move through spot for them.

[slivrslingr]

Good thread Ryan, best of luck to you when you finally get to sit in your stands.  

August 16 is the opening for archery here in some of SoCal, going to be very hot and dry.  Finding water is the key, it's tough hunting but there are deer in the hills.  With a new job and a new pup, we'll see how much I get out.  

One like this would do nicely!  He'll die of old age as he lives in a National Park, but a guy can always dream.
 
 

[jonsimoneau]

Thanks for the info on the saw Ryan.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Great Post Ryan.. I hope you can share more as new stands get set.  Its nice to see a hunting thread once in a  while.

[Liquid Courage]

Never hunted from a tree stand myself. I just scrape out the leaves around a tree and sit in a swivel chair, and then after about 10am I stalk in whatever direction puts the wind hitting my face. Not sure why, but I have taken more deer stalking than sitting. Got my "stand" picked out, same as last year. Lots of hogs and deer on Pine Log WMA. There is a hog hunt on Pine Log THIS WEEKEND that I did not find out about until yesterday due to the regulations coming out late. Can't wait to get out hunting again as the freezer is empty.

[Whip]

Great stuff Ryan.  I'm like you and love hanging stands. I've been hunting my place for 18 years now and every year I come up with new spots and get all excited again like I've finally discovered "the secret".  

It may only mean moving to a different tree 20 yards away, but sometimes that's what it takes to get the wind just barely in your favor versus not quite good enough.  

Some work out, some don't, but over time I've ended up tweaking set ups somehow and have a good selection of proven stands now.  It never keeps me from looking though, and I can't wait to hunt a couple of new ones again this year.

One other thing I have done more of recently is to sometimes add supplemental cover to my trees if they don't have enough of their own natural cover.  I cut limbs from other trees, haul them up, and tie them around my stand.

Good luck this fall!

[Ryan Rothhaar]

Hi Joe - good point about adding cover.  I do that quite a bit too.  For sure when I'm pruning limbs from around the stand when I'm up in it the limbs don't get dropped to the ground, but tucked into strategic places on the backside of the tree or amongst other limbs to increase the cover.  Another thing I do quite often is tie limbs back rather than cut them from around the stand - I get a string tied on a few feet out from the tree, put it around a bigger limb, and use the bigger one for leverage to pull the smaller limb out of the shooting lane, but leave it attached to the tree for cover, then tie off.  I've pulled lots of cedar limbs, beech limbs, or pin oak limbs (all of which hold leaves a long time when cut off green in the summer) up into a stand and tied them around for cover too, over the years.  I've even been known to drag up a 15 ft long section of 4 ft tall 2X4 welded wire fence up into the tree - wire it in place like a cage in front of and around the sides of the stand, cut shooting holes into it with pliers, and weave cedar or pine limbs through it and zip-tie limbs onto it if there is a REALLY good spot with no cover.  Looks like a giant squirrel nest, but the deer get used to it by season.  I've killed a couple really nice bucks from these squirrel nest stands.


By the way, where you headed to this Fall, Joe? any big plans?

Ryan

[Ryan Rothhaar]

I read Barry's recent article about stands yesterday and his point about hinge-cutting to influence deer movement reminded my of some recent setups, and future plans.  Hinge cutting and deer movement is a big topic for the past few years in the QDMA crowd.  As a relatively new landowner I've been reading some of that information and am excited about the possibilities.  For this you really need access to your own property, or at least sole access to private land with a landowner that will let you chainsaw trees on his land.

I made a short hinge-cut pinchpoint this spring on a setup on my place to constrict deer movement across a ditch from a 40 yard wide swath to a 20 yard wide swath so all of it would be in range from the treestand.  I think this is a great strategy, but a guy needs to really think about what he is doing and why, because 5 minutes of running the chainsaw can take 40-50 years of tree growth to fix.

R

[Gen273]

Ryan,

Thanks for the post, it was very informative and interesting.