Thanks for the comments men. I want you to know I wasn't upset or complaining I just wanted you to know I haven't participated in much except the political forum because most of the posts are about a way of hunting that is foreign to me so I can't comment on what I don't know. I started hunting on the ground in 1959 in an area that had few deer and since doe licenses were almost impossible to get we were pretty much relegated to buck, of which there were few. We did have phenomenal wild pheasant and rabbit and squirrel hunting and if I never shoot another of those species they don't owe me a thing. To this day wing shooting is my favorite hunt. My Avatar is my present young Llewellyn setter Brandy, who turned 2 in May. She has had well over 150 birds shot over her and has a nose that is amazing. We hunted on the ground because we hunted public land and treestands were not the norm and ladder stands and climbers were not even heard of yet. While we were not successful I continued to hunt deer and saw doe each time out but couldn't shoot them. In 1964 I graduated High school at 17 and a week later I was in Navy boot camp which severely limited all my hunting because I was usually at sea in deer season except for one year. I was separated in 1968 and picked up hunting where I left off. In the 70s our deer population exploded and there were good populations in all counties and I continued to hunt public land and finally at 25 I killed my first deer. There have been very few years since that that I had to eat tag soup. As of this year I have 57 years in the field hunting small game waterfowl and deer. I no longer trap. Over the years and especially after I was employed by the PA Game Commission I learned a lot about deer habitat, food, bedding and shelter areas. I never hunt bedding areas, but I will hunt trails near them. Now I hunt a permanent treestand that I built on a property owned by my wife's family, this is the second one I have build as I lost the first one due to a sale of a piece of the property. This will be the 13th year I have hunted this property and I know where the deer move and where they go on windy and nasty wet days, I know what they eat on the property and I know bedding areas. The 5 of us who hunt the property all hunt from tree stands. At times if movement is slow, as it tends to be after the first day and the hunting pressure on neighboring properties has gone, we will occasionally stand hunt till lunch and after lunch a couple of guys will do a slow quiet walking drive, which is not the noisy hooping and hollering drives you hear about, but a quiet slow walking movement through holding cover, usually a stand of mature pines with perhaps an occasional knock on a tree trunk with a stick towards some men in stands. We don't want the deer running as fast as they can when they come to the standers, we want them just moseying well ahead of the drivers to the standers. At times if I am the only person on the property I will go in the stand for a while then still hunt along a few deer trails. I usually get two doe licenses and of course my buck tag comes with my regular license. I have only killed two deer twice and that was for the land owner who was under the weather in deer season. I target mature animals, either sex and consider a big smart doe as good a trophy as a buck. There is a reason you see buck following a herd of doe, when the rut is over, they use them as mine canaries, if the doe make it through the buck then follows. I always pick a pinch point or funnel area showing heavy use to build my stand and I pick trees that allow me 360 degrees of visibility. Below is my stand, one shot from the back from a silage hay field and the other directly in front in the woods. In the shot from the woods you can see my truck in the field
In the first picture, there is woods to the left, right and front with a 35 yd wooded ravine with a stream at the bottom to the right and of course the field to the back when facing forward. Today I put the finishing touches on the blind to get ready to take my grandson doe hunting for the youth doe season. later
