Deer hunting BS thread

Nice! Good luck Sat!

 

Needs another year

 

Looks like we could get 10-18 inches of snow this weekend…love it, good hunting for the rest of the season. My buddy has 5 acres of standing corn and about 15 acres of standing beans.

 

I can’t wait

 

I’m just wanting one more doe now, I haven’t even hunted for 2 weeks. I know I can pretty much guarantee myself another doe and I’ve been hoping we’d get some snow.

 

Still nocturnal here

 

My buddy has about 20 acres of standing corn and beans and with the snow this weekend and colder temps the deer will be piling in to the food in the late afternoons.

 

I hunt an egg laying farm. The facilities take up a small part of the land, but as you drive out there is woods around the plant. Driving out last year I spotted a really nice buck after a doe right next to the houses. Got out and watched him for a time. Crew was gone for the day so could easily have shot him. But that's not really deer hunting is it. That was opening day of gun season last year. I bagged him the next morning.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FR3geeYBzNw

 

Questions for ladder stand guys. Whats a good height? I think mine is sitting at 18' seems decent set up with wind direction and the way they come in but ive been spotted few times by wise doe in stand. Should i move it? Conceal it more? Get higher? Let it be?

 

First of all deer aren't 'wise'. They do however have a survival Instinct that has been honed through thousands of years of being hunted. So they are either seeing you or your stand sitting in the open, or poor camouflage. Hearing you, coughing, wind up watch on you ticking. Or smelling you. Or they came through there before and you shot at them or in some other way gave yourself up. That goes back to the survival Instinct. 18 ft is more than High Enough.

 

I personally prefer 20-24 feet however, concealment and scent control are critical. I’ve also killed some good bucks out of ground blinds so again, concealment and scent control are crucial and playing the wind if possible.

 

I play mine by best lines of sight. I've got a 15' stand I have left a ladder section out of before because the canopy started obscuring vision at 15'. But I also exclusively gun hunt so getting spotted is pretty rare for me in a stand

 

Any height will do, so long as you can see them (and make a good shot). Pretty sure the ones I have are 18', and I know they feel entirely different because of the trees/terrain they're on. One is in a river bottom on a flat and it feels 12' tall. Another is in a pine on the side of a ridge and it feels 24' tall. Of course they're both the same height, but the surrounding and canopy, or lack thereof, make them feel different.

I wouldn't necessarily replace it with a taller stand, and I'm sure you probably put it in a great spot, so don't know I'd move it either, but who knows. I'd definitely go for concealing it more before I chose to deal with moving it, I know that lol.

 

Im thinking a couple things happen. They are educated/wise by other "hunters" in the area. The young ones dont look up in the stand. The older does do. Maybe my sihlouette? Ive had a youngen walk right under my stand so its not scent. The old does clearly look up and back out. They dont snort out either.

In my ground blind ive had them sneak in and catch my movement but even at that ive shot one buck out of ground blind and one out of ladder stand. I might try to find a good cover for my ladderstand. Right now its just the rail and below covered.

 

Strap you a few branches/small trees with good foliage to your ladder tree and "brush" it in. They obviously know somethings out of place there, kinda like a shooting house on a field. They'll likely always know its there, but if you can make it harder to tell whether someones in it or not, I think that'll help.

Of course, you can always just shoot them before they see you

 

I had a stand that stuck out like a sore thumb about 12’ high and shot a lot of deer out of it, one was the 13 pointer with a bow that took me a week to kill cause I missed him the first two times.

I’ve always told my friends and kids old does are harder to kill than a big buck, cause of that motherly instinct I reckon.

Scent control and wind direction will help you as well as what others have mentioned too.

If it’s meant to be it’ll be, like me and the 13 pt

 

Up north all we hunt from is ladder stands. We put camo burlap on the shooting rails. And like @Off Topic Guy mentioned, small branches over my shoulders on the tree to cover my head movement from deer in my blind spot. I put this up a couple months before the season to get the deer comfortable with it.

 

I know its a small property but maybe consider putting up another stand or two? That way you can bounce around depending on the wind.