Editor’s Note: One of the most critical keys to successfully taking a deer every season, whether you’re hunting with a bow or a gun, is stand placement. How do you know where to put a stand or how many stands you need, and how do the Hunter’s Specialties’ pros consistently take big bucks all over the United States and Canada? For the next few weeks, Hunter’s Specialties’ professional hunter Eddie Salter will give us the critical keys to stand placement for hunting deer. The way to consistently take bucks every season is to learn the deer’s stomach. By that I mean, you need to know:
* what a deer’s eating
* where he’s eating
* when he’s eating
* and where he is when he’s not eating.
If you can answer these questions, you can take bucks regularly. There are two places where I like to set tree stands – along the trails that the deer takes to go to or leave their food. However, no matter how much you know about that deer, if he knows you’re in the woods looking for him, you won’t be successful.
Although we all wear camouflage, camouflage by itself doesn’t prevent the deer from seeing you. I like to have my silhouette broken-up by branches, limbs, brush or some other type of natural cover. I don’t like to sit in a tree stand without branches covering at least part of me. If I’m using a ground blind, I always lay trees, limbs or bushes against it. So when you’re considering a stand site, make sure you pick a tree or a place for your ground blind where you can be hidden.
One big mistake I see many hunters make is they don’t consider going to and coming away from their tree stands as a part of their hunts. I want to have four or five routes that I can take to my stand site so that I can get there, regardless of which way the wind is blowing. I look for routes that will allow me to go as silently as possible to my stand.
I don’t like to talk to anybody as I move to my stand site, and I try to get my stand up as quickly and quietly as possible. I never understand why a hunter will take his buddy with him to put-up a tree stand, and they’ll talk, laugh, bang-around and make noise, get the stand up, and leave, and then return the next day expecting to see a deer.
I assume when I’m putting-up my tree stand or ground blind that I’m in the deer’s living room. He may be close, and he may be able to hear, see or smell me. Therefore, when I go to put-up my tree stand, I use all the Scent-A-Way products, just like I do before I hunt. I wash my body and my clothes with Scent-A-Way soap, spray-down with Scent-A-Way spray and sneak into my tree stand, just like I will on the day I plan to hunt from that stand.
My hunt begins when I step out of the truck. From the time I leave the truck until I’m back at the truck, I move in stealth mode. I’m conscious of the wind and walk as slowly and quietly as I can and put-up my stand with the least amount of noise possible. When you’re putting-up a stand, you are where the deer is expected to be, and he may be close-by when that’s happening. Therefore, my number-1 rule for putting-up tree stands is, once you find the place you want to put the stand, become the hunter.
Become the Hunter
Here’s what I mean by become the hunter:
* Look for several routes you can take to get to that stand. Choose the route that lets you move quietly through the woods and has the least chance of being seen.
* Get into that stand with the least amount of motion and noise on the day you’ll hunt there.
* Be just as conscious of the wind, your human odor and noise when you leave your stand as you as when you go to the stand.
To take big bucks, the bucks don’t need to know you’ve been hunting them. If you can get in and out of the area where you plan to hunt without the deer seeing, hearing or smelling you, and if you’re scent-free and quiet when you’re on the stand, you’ll drastically increase your odds for bagging a buck from that stand.
