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Reprising the "I don't get tree stands" post from 2013

11K views 79 replies 38 participants last post by  GF. 
#1 ·
Okay, so I am bored. I started thinking of old posts, greatest hits so to speak. And that brought me to tree stands. I don't get them. I can't imagine ever wanting to spend the day sitting in a tree. So I am going to reprise my post asking, why do you spend so much time sitting in trees and why do you find it so enjoyable. The post is from 2013 and I have to admit, I still don't get it. Think of this like all the sports networks replaying old games while they wait for new games to come back.

https://tradtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42263
 
#63 ·
If I over do the Super Male Vitality, I get to be a sex crazed nut job. I was first just going to say, 'takes one to know' but that would be rude.
We must remember that Hank T is not a hunter, so the sit and watch idea is quite foreign to him, but i bet the 'scnj' thing may apply. My son is trying to talk me into a Lone Wolf climber, he says he will send one to me if I promise to give it a try. It is quite easy to shoot downward from a open tree stand with a canted longbow, I am considering it, since my landing gear is not what it should be. My right ankle and right knee are still paying the price of a rather fast steep hill side head 'em off at the pass that got me two does last season. Why is it that the down hill leg always gets the worst of it? My great Ojibwa gramma would have been proud of me, but I didn't feel very Native American afterwards.
 
#64 ·
I hate tree stands. Takes a lot of the joy of hunting away. Though there is the same serenity up there to be found as there is on the ground.
Around here, getting an unaware mature deer inside shooting distance takes a blind or tree stand. With the tree stand offering a better shot angle.
With the time needed to set up a compound shot this is even more so. Im in hopes that traditional gear will take some of that need away.
I will be spending this year on the ground 100% as that is my passion and I am already awkward enough with the taller bow, no need to be awkward and in the air.
 
#65 ·
Hank

The only way I can explain it that might make sense to a non hunter other than trying to explain how it up’s the odds of being successful, And in reference to your O.P. is to say that, every time I get up in my stand it is not like watching a rerun sports game, but like being in the front row during the playoffs of whatever you’re preferred sporting events are. and really special hunts, like in the heat of the rut, or opening day is like the championship game. no to hunts are the same, and if they are you probably need to relocate your stand, a.k.a. change the channel if we’re still on our sports metaphors. One last thing to add here is that, every hunt is not going to be the most exciting intense game you’ve ever watched but neither is every single sporting event you watch you get through the slower times Because you know it any minute the play or a deer of a lifetime could break loose / Step into your shooting lane. I hope this makes sense, at least I gave it a try right?
 
#67 ·
Immature deer will tolerate a bunch

I posted a video earlier this year of me on the ground with a dink buck who could see me but not smell me basically walking around me not panicked

Mature deer are a different thing

I've learned a lot about mature bucks and doe over the years

If you trigger one of their main senses you get a very different effect than if you trigger two or more

We kill a lot mature bucks on archery pushes

I say pushes because archery pushes are very different from deer drives with shotguns or rifles

With archery gear you have to move the deer so that the deer stays calm and does not panic and run

To do this you have to trigger only one of their senses

The pusher gives them their wind or at times let's them see them or hear them

As long as only one of their acute senses are triggered they will move off often still browsing

If you give them 2 or 3 triggers they will bolt making for a very hard shot

I've posted this video before of a well executed push

Great job by the driver ..... not the shooter ...I missed :)



We know a thing or two about moving deer

One day of archery pushes

 
#69 ·
If you hunt public land, a treestand is a requirements not to piss other hunters off.
On treestands, 5-8 times the amount of hunters can hunt independent in the same area than two or three guys on the ground. Especially true if the land is surrounded by hardly hunted private land. I am talking of about 80 to 100 acre tracts here and not some wide open western area with millions of acres. If there are no guys out there and all of a sudden there are guys walking around all the time without their smell dissappearing quickly, the animals will avoid that stretch of land fairly quick when there is any heightended activity, like during weekends.
It is also true, that if the human activity level is fairly consistent thoughout the year, the deer are used to a certain level of human scent without being perceived as a danger.(State parks for example)
If a place is hardly ever hunted, deer are super sensitive to human scent and react completely different as when used to a certain scent and activity level.
 
#72 ·
Steve, you know, I am just here to get the conversation started.

My old climbing partner, and best man at my wedding, had a sign on his cubical at school that was a take off on the famous quote from George Leigh Mallory who perished near the summit of Mt Everest in 1924:

Why do you climbs mountains?

Because it feels so good when I stop.

Mallory response was, because it is there.

Why do we do things that are uncomfortable? Because we are idiots, and I am at the front of that line !!!!!
 
#75 ·
I think it was an article in Traditional Bowhunter a few years ago. It was about personalities of bowhunters. Said that some where like birds of prey, some like cats, and some like dogs. A couple of my buddies are dogs. They can't sit still. Got to be moving and pushing all the time.
 
#77 ·
I am with you on that. I am definitely more of a multi-pitch sort of climber, though, at my age I am just trying to get back to where I feel confident leading again. And Yosemite is spectacular. You need to figure out how to get there and do some climbing.
 
#78 ·
Counting the deer that i killed this past year, i have killed 52 Iowa whitetails with recurves and mostly with longbows , all from the the ground. One thing that i know for sure is that one can never say a for sure anything about Iowa whitetails. Once when riding with a farmer, he got out to open a gate to let cattle get to another field. A nice buck stood, not 50 yards away and watched. That same buck had seen him many times out doing his work and did not fear him or his tractor or pickup. A week later a hunter in a full height ladder stand, across the pond from me, drew on him. The buck turned and looked square at the hunter. The hunter froze at full draw, I think there was one of those inconvenient trees blocking his shot. I watched as he slowly caved under the draw and weight of his bow and let down, with the buck staring straight at him, the entire time. The buck simply moved on. Two days later the same buck was coming past moving straight up wind of me, about 90 yards away. Somehow a small branch fell from a tree, maybe a squirrel, without any hesitation, the buck ran straight at me, it came by me at full speed, no chance for a shot.
Which reminds me of another strange one, a hunter hit a small buck, cutting the leg. I offered to help track it, just in case. The day was very hot for November, the blood trail was almost non-existent. The four of us managed to track the deer for over a half mile. None of us bothered to take a bow other than the compound hunter that hit what he thought was solid a leg hit, turned out to be a minor nick. During that tracking, I could have easily have shot the area dominant buck and one other. They both came rushing in close to see what the commotion was all about, rut action on a very hot day. On the other side, I have seen deer watching a car that was a half mile away stop on a gravel road, bust off of their day time beds and run until they topped a minor rise in the terrain that was over a mile away. I was just glassing the valley and was sitting on that lookout for over two hours, they were up wind of me the entire time. Apparently those deer did not like cars that stop. One thing I do know about deer when ground hunting and my wife has proven on numerous occasions with close deer. NEVER LOOK THE DEER IN THE EYE WHEN HUNTING ON THE GROUND. She has killed a number of deer that were staring her down while she sat on her seat, while she stared at the tops of her shoes. Then when the deer starts moving on, she takes one smooth shot. Her closest kill was less than ten feet. She was simply resting on a blow down taking a rest, the large doe came within a few feet of her, while she had no cover.
In our smaller public lands, the deer are much better at patterning the hunters, than the hunters are at patterning the deer. The hunters do their land staking with their tree stands and march out to them, no matter what the time is, who else is hunting, or what direction the wind is blowing. Leaving the best places to hunt, where no one wants to or can put up a tree stand. It can be fun, productive or relaxing to seat in a tree stand, but it guarantees nothing.
 
#79 ·
When I first got into bowhunting, after shooting “seriously” for a couple years first, I was determined to hunt from the ground. After two unsuccessful seasons I learned a few things. The areas I was hunting on the East end of Long Island were just not suited for stalking and still hunting. Had a lot of close encounters, but getting a shot on a relaxed animal was just not happening. The underbrush was too thick for even the slowest stalking to be quiet, and without DEET which stinks to high heaven, I was getting covered with ticks. Lyme disease is something I contracted four times living out there. So tree stand on the 3rd season and two weeks in I connected with a big eight point, first deer, first buck, and still my biggest to date. Now that I’m in Massachusetts I’m going to try the ground game again this season.
 
#80 ·
Given a choice… I will hunt from the ground whenever possible. That said, here in the east and in much of the Midwest, it is a whole lot easier for people to share the limited public ground and fill a tag or two if they get themselves and their stink up off the ground and stay put, rather than chasing the local herd all over Hell and gone. I do think, though, did the guys who insist that you will never kill a “trophy” deer from the ground are missing the point of the exercise.

And frankly, I always find it just a bit ironic when someone who claims to embrace “traditional“ bow hunting because it is a “greater challenge“ will turn around and say that you really have to be up in a tree to be successful.

How do you “succeed” in a Challenge by making it easier?


But I have no intention of ever hunting mule deer or Elk from up in a tree - not so long as I can still hike. The whole point of being out in the woods is to be Out There In It. Not sitting in the middle of thousands of hectares of wilderness staring at the same acre of habitat all day long; not hiding inside of a tent; not staying put so that there’s no chance that you’ll get lost… if you don’t want to get lost, you just need to carry a map and compass and pay attention as you go.

Although, truth be told… I always carry not one compass but TWO. I don’t have much of a sense of direction, and I’m ornery enough to argue with one compass../ but not dumb enough to argue with two.
 
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