Now that you have done some scouting, determined deer are in the area, and frequently using the trails you check out. It’s time to find a good place to put your deer stand. Here are 10 tips on selecting the best spot from what you have discovered in your scout.

1. Find a tree off of the edge of the feeding area not too far from the trail you followed in while scouting. This way when the deer come out to feed in the morning you will be able to see them as they enter the field. Some times you will even have luck in the evening when the deer are coming back to feed again.

2. Look for good funnel areas along the trail and set up a stand near them. Many times there are openings in the woods deer use as trails but they funnel into one small trail. That is where you want to be.

3. Remember the scrapes; Bucks will check back at these spots from time to time to make sure another buck isn’t in his territory. It might be a good idea to set up here and see if you can get that buck in the morning when he is checking out his turf.

4. When you were scouting you may have found a bedding area. If so a good spot to put your stand would be near where you think the deer will be exiting in the morning, but you better be very quite when entering your stand the morning you plan on hunting.

Once you have picked one of these spots or even a few of them here are some other tips to keep in mind when placing your deer stand.

5. Place your stand at the very least 12 feet off of the ground. Remember the higher you go the less chance you have of a deer seeing you. I suggest you only go as high as you feel comfortable. There is noting worse then not feeling comfortable in your tree stand.

6. Also when placing your stand keep in mind where the sun is going to be. You don’t want it in your eyes when you expect to see a deer. One other thing I try to do is put the stand were the sun will warm me up sooner in the morning which will allow me to stay in my stand longer during the day.

7. Make sure you place the tree stand appropriate for being left or right handed. If you are right handed you want to place the stand so you expect the deer to come in from the left. Just the opposite for a left handed shooter. This just makes for an easier shot with less movement in your stand. One thing I have found out though deer are very unpredictable after the gun season starts, and some times you will have to make shots in some awkward positions.

8. Clear a minimal amount of brush and branches so you have some shooting lanes. I have always thought that if you clear too many branches and brush you will loose some cover and make yourself more visible to the deer.

9. Make sure to find a good place to enter and exit your stand. Usually I will clear more brush here than I will for my shooting lanes because being quiet is the key.

10. Lure the deer into your shooting area

Learn how in Part 3 of How to get a deer this season.

If you know of any other tricks please feel free to comment on them.

~ Ben G.

Related links

10 Tips for Deer hunting on Public land

11 Tips How to get Hunting Gear on a Limited Budget

Good reading

Treestand Placement - The little things

image credit Zachary Airtraps

1. First make sure you are out in the woods at least five days before you plan to hunt. At five days you are very close to pushing your luck, but for the most part you should be ok.

2. Start out by identifying a food source then and work your way back into the woods. A corn field, bean field, clover, or even hay fields are all ideal places for deer to feed.

3. Find the major trails to and from the food source and follow them into the woods. Deer will travel a long way to get food. We have shot deer out in the middle of a 30,000 acre WMA and the deer have corn in their digestive system, so be prepared to have to walk a long distance.

4. There will be many trails that intersect the trail you start out on. My suggestion is to find the one that looks like it has first been used most recently and second looks like it has the most traffic.

5. Keep your eye’s open and look for the tell tail signs of deer.

6. Droppings will tell you how often deer frequent the trail by the amount of droppings. They will also tell you if the deer have used the trail recently. Fresh droppings are usually shiny and will squish if you poke them with a stick. Old droppings will look dry and crumble when you poke them.

7. Rubs are sign of a buck being in the area. Typically you will find them on trees that are about two and a half inches in diameter to about four inches in diameter. They will be anywhere from two feet to about three and a half feet off of the ground. You will know that the rubs are fresh if there is still moisture seeping out of the tree or the rub looks greenish in color.

8. Scrapes are another good sign of Bucks being in the area. Most often you find these by a tree that juts out further than any of the other trees in to a field or open area in the woods. This tree will typically also have lower hanging branches on it, but not always. A scrape basically looks like a deer cleared a bunch of grass out of a small area from a foot in diameter and can be up to four feet in diameter.

9. Eventually you will have walked far enough to find out where the deer are bedding. These areas can be quite different form one to another. Here are a few good places to look, really tall grass, thick brush, dry swamp, pine trees with nice sized open areas underneath of them. Basically you have to think like a deer what would keep you out of the wind, keep you some what dry in the rain, and allow you a good place to stay away from predators.

10. Pick the best place for your deer stand.

To find out more on picking the best place for your deer stand check back for part two of Tips on how to get a deer this season.
Let me know any steps you might have added to the list or even expand on some of the steps I posted.

~ Ben G.

Related links

10 Tips for Deer hunting on Public land

11 Tips How to get Hunting Gear on a Limited Budget

Scouting for Turkeys

Good read

Scouting for deer

Daffy is a great helper

On the way back to the car we ran into a very nice man named Tom H. (I can’t remember his last name). He lived across the county road from the state forest and walked the forest road we were on just about every day. After chatting for about 20 minutes, Tom gave me some good info. Tom said “He very rarely sees turkeys along the forest road”. Now more bummed then ever, Daffy and I headed for the car, hopped in, and were off to find our next spot.

After driving for about a half an hour I finally found the last spot we were going to be able to check out for the day. We walked for no more then 10 minutes and saw a set of turkey tracks (woo hoo!). I thought to my self, “after all of the crap we went through today we did it”. Daffy and I fallowed the tracks for almost an hour. Along the way we found a bunch more tracks, and I had a turkey answer my calls a couple of times. Then we found what looked to be a roosting spot, and couple of promising fields to set up and to shoot a turkey in May. After Daffy and I found the fields we went back to the car and called it a day.

Lessons learned Saturday, persistence pays off, get a map, talk to who ever you can they always have some advice, scouting for turkeys is fun, Daffy blends in with the snow really well, snow shoes would have helped out a lot, ice is slippery, I will have to do some more scouting, sometimes dumb luck is the best luck.