The pitfalls of Pre set stand locations?

[jonsimoneau]

You know its been said a million times that the best chance to kill a deer is the first time on that stand. It's true if you think about it. Nearly all my deer were killed either the first or the second time in that tree. Not just a few big bucks but all the deer. So I got to thinking about this. Obviously we all know here that Dan and Andrae hunt different trees nearly everytime they hunt. It obviously works for them. But I have always thought that Pre hung stands when rotated enough could be just as effective. But here is the problem. Are they really being rotated enough? How much time is enough to wait before hunting the same stand a second time?
Well two seasons ago I learned just that and some people may be astonished. Myself and two buddies gained access to a piece of ground in the holy grail Pike County Illinois. The property was not huge and only had about 90 acres of timber on it running along a creek. After getting permission we hung trail cameras and were not surprised when we were getting some big bucks on the camera. After all its Pike County. Should be a piece of cake right? WRONG!
Next we hung stands. We did this about 2 months before season and we hung them all in one day. Picking stand locations was pretty easy since the entire property was one giant funnel. We hung 12 stands in total. We only hunted this property on weekends and not every weekend since it is four hours from where we live. This is a quick breakdown of the way the season went. We had been getting pics of a very nice buck with a weird anlter on his right side. His left side was so big that it dwarfed the right side making him look like he only had half a rack. We named him half rack. Half rack was sometimes bedding in a 2 acre patch of CRP. We had a stand in a funnel near there. Opening weekend that year we had cool temps and things were looking good. I decided I was going after half rack. I chose the stand near where he was bedding and my buddies chose different stands in other areas. The very first night, here he comes. I'm gonna kill the big one the first time in stand! He comes near but does not come quite close enough for my recurve range and I let him pass. No problem I thought. I had his number. I knew where he hung out and it would just be a matter of time.
Now think about this. We had 12 stands. And three guys hunting. We only hunted there on weekends, and not every weekend. However if you do the math NONE of those stands were going unhunted more than two weeks in a row. That seems like plenty of time, but I can assure you that we all noticed the way the deer were avoiding every stand after the first two weeks of season.
We would all go to a stand, and pretty much all of us would see deer each time on stand but the deer always seemed to skirt every stand we had. At first we thought it was just bad luck and we just needed to put our time in. That is until my second encounter with half rack. One morning in late October when things were beginning to heat up I again went to the stand that I had seen him in opening day. And it worked! Almost. He came through early in the morning on his way to the CRP. But not only did he not pass close enough to my stand, he went OUT OF HIS WAY to avoid it! He knew there was a stand there and he knew it was dangerous. He actually had to expose himself to an open field during daylight to get around the stand and get into his bedding area. If you saw the way this land was laid out you would see that this was not coincidence. He did it on purpose.
I continuted to get pics of half rack all through the season but we never saw him again, and according to our cameras he pretty much never left the property. He had simply learned where each and every treestand was and avoided them all.
But he was not the only deer to do this. By November, EVERY deer was doing this. We continued to see deer on most sits but they would never walk by close enough to our stands.
By mid-november my buddy had had enough of seeing deer avoid our stands. He went and setup on the ground in a ghille suit in one of the areas we did not have a stand and killed two P&Y deer in two days. Both deer were taken near a spot we had a stand but he knew the deer would not walk close enough to the overhunted stands for a shot so he improvised and killed them from the ground with his recurve in a ghille suit.

After the season was over I concluded the following: We started out with good intentions and good ideas. But the stands were getting hunted too much. Two weeks is simply not enough time to rest a stand. The local deer dont forget where they are. And it is easy for them to get around them. I mean think about it. If you were trying to move through a property and you knew where each and every stand was at, even as a human being, you could very easily do it without being detected by the people in the stands even if every single one of them was occupied. Think how easy this would be for a creature such as a whitetail. I think that after encountering human scent the second time near each stand they just simply avoided them all together. No the deer did not leave the property. And they did not go nocturnal. They simply avoided each and every one of the twelve stands we had hung. Maybe the preset stand thing would have worked if we had more stands and bigger property and only hunted each stand once every three weeks. Either way the lesson really hammered home for me that season and I spent alot of years hunting in similar fashion with mediocre results. I hope that in coming seasons I remember this lesson and do not make these mistakes again. Last season I did not get to hunt much. This season just as a test, I will try to hunt only with my lone wolf stand and hunt a new tree each time I am out. I bet the results will be noticeably better.

[Brandon]

awesome read, and i agree.

[dreaming bucks]

awesome read, and i agree.

X 2

[MOBIGBUCKS]

Yup, I agree

I do have some presets though...They are good for about 1-2 hunts a season at the most. The rest of the time, my LW is on my back. However, it is getting heavy and I would love to get a treesaddle to try out. Unfortunatley, they are out of business.

[rutnbuck]

Happened in Pike County for me also, opening day he slipped by my stand and I moved my stand following afternoon to the leeward side of the ridge and he came right under my stand. Lights out!!! I prehung that first stand in July with a camera near by and had him on video. That was in velvet. Pictures from the camera diminished as season went on but they had beaten down trail around me through the sumac. This is a good lesson, keep moving around. Use dummy prehung stands and then setup out of range with the Alpha. Your right, they are still around but they do know that those stands don't belong. Deer know their surroundings so well but you would too if you lived there but they can smell much better giving them even that much more of an edge. Great topic!!!

[rutnbuck]

Happened in Pike County for me also, opening day he slipped by my stand and I moved my stand following afternoon to the leeward side of the ridge and he came right under my stand. Lights out!!! I prehung that first stand in July with a camera near by and had him on video. That was in velvet. Pictures from the camera diminished as season went on but they had beaten down trail around me through the sumac. This is a good lesson, keep moving around. Use dummy prehung stands and then setup out of range with the Alpha. Your right, they are still around but they do know that those stands don't belong. Deer know their surroundings so well but you would too if you lived there but they can smell much better giving them even that much more of an edge. Great topic!!!

[JakeJD]

However, it is getting heavy and I would love to get a treesaddle to try out.

I cannot recommend the Tree Saddle enough. A Tree Saddle and about 15 Crandford folding steps makes for an unbeatable mobile set-up (all for around 10 lbs.). Lighter than any other option, more adaptable to every tree and every situation, and hides the hunter better than any other option.

[Brad]

I am trying the same strategy this year, never hunting the same tree twice. I may hunt the same general area later during the rut or late season, but it will be 30 or 40 yards off the other tree etc. I think if I mix it up like that my luck is bound to improve. I have a buddy that has some very nice deer on his wall and does pretty good most years, but he has sat in the same ground blind 3 out of the 4 evenings that the season has been open.

[FRH]

I've been hunting on our farm for 13 years now and this is the first year that I'm not going to hunt it until end of October when bucks start showing back up. I too would give a stand a 2-3 week wait but I'm starting to realize that just wasn't working. It's better to keep it scent free and take advantage of it when the time is right.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Zap]

I have shot two p&y bucks and six doe out of the same stand in the last four seasons.
Farthest shot was thirty.
Hunted it last eve and let a doe walk at 25 or so.

Go figure...

[bowhunter15]

My opinion is if I'm going to prehang stands, they are most likely rut spots where I could be intercepting deer from miles around. Then I feel fine hanging them in say, August or so. But if I were ever to hang an early season stand... perhaps an oak ridge that the deer funnel to 80 yards from bedding, I would hang that stand in the spring and make sure that first sit or two counted. My buddy's dad has had the same stand up in northern MN for years and years. Sometimes they move it from tree to tree, but always covering the same trails. They usually only hunt it during the rut, and it always seems to produce giants. It has earned the name "the widow maker" for that reason.

Even with that being said, I still like being mobile even during the rut. It certainly worked last year. But I believe even Andrae once said, that a mistake a lot of hunters make is backing off when a stand is hot, instead of pounding it until it goes cold.

[Ack]

My opinion is if I'm going to prehang stands, they are most likely rut spots where I could be intercepting deer from miles around.

Yup.....this^^^^

[Stanley]

Good read.

[phade]

I utilize a ton of prehung ladderstands and hang ons in small lots. This is in addition to my mobile sets. I usually ran about 20 stands for each hunter...with my hunting partner, we had about 40 between the two of us. That gave us enough rotation through the season, especially when you are willing NOT to sit them and go mobile when needed. Some stands didn't get hunted in the season at all. Others got 2-3 sits spread out and a few were hunted hard for a short period when the rut hit and entry/exit/wind was prime.

Four hunters makes that only a 3:1 ratio. Ideally the minimum I would prefer is four in such a situation since you each could conceivably hunt one each half day if needed (assuming Sat-Sun hunting only). But it also opens the rotation up a little more. 5-6 would be great in that situation. But, bottom line, you need to be ready to be mobile. Overhunting prehung sets is the #1 fault with them in my opinion. Yet, I still believe in them if there is enough to use safely -what that number really needs to be depends on the particular situation. Your friend going mobile was the ticket.

I wonder how much impact you had if you did hunt half days and went to new sets? Or was your group all-day hunting? I think the half day sets on 90 acres means 16 trips in a given day on that ground (four in, four out for am and four in, four out for pm). In two days, that's 32 adventures to alert the deer. Cut that in half for all-day sets or short moves to new stands midday.

[Rutnstrut]

I believe IF you have clean entry/exit routes and IF you hunt stands when conditions are right you can hunt stands multiple times. I also think the reason I have success with this is. I wait to hunt my best stands until late Oct, I only hunt a stand under optimal conditions, good entry/exit routes. But I believe my biggest tool for my pre set stands paying off is sitting all day when I do hunt them. IMO the repeated entry/exit does the most damage to a stand site. I also believe a lot of hunters hang cameras too close to their stands, and check them to often. I should add that I also have several prepared trees for my climber, should I need to switch things up.