Evolution of tree stand use. From the ancient Phoenicians to modern day.

Okay, maybe not going back quite as far as the ancient Phoenicians, but….

Like many deer hunters in the upper midwest, going back about 15 years ago, we slowly changed our hunting style on my farm so that we hunt almost exclusively from tree stands. This was a change from a more mixed style of hunting where we sat in tree stands in the morning and evening, but during the day we would either still hunt and drive deer. We would also just “ground sit” and watch open areas, travel routes, etc.

We changed for several reasons:

1. My perception was that more often than not, still hunting and driving deer didn’t produce great results for us, but it was highly successful at driving good deer across the fence so the neighbors had great results. More ofen than I care to recall, I’d hear a shot from across the fence about 15 minutes after I entered the woods on foot, and guess what happened….

2. There were fewer of us hunting every year, so drives weren’t as easy to organize and we couldn’t do large swaths of territory anymore.

Hunting from open tree stands worked well for years and it did accomplish our goals as far as fewer deer bumped to the nighbors to shoot.

But now it is becoming more difficult again for one reason: Deer in my area now look UP! They check out the stands in the area from long distances away and I don’t care how good your camo is (during bow season), they see you!

It used to be very, very rare in my recollection for a deer to bust you in a tree stand. I remember the first time it happened to me, a fork horn walked out on a sight lane and he stopped and looked right up directly at me and made eye contact even, and then threw a fit, even though he was upwind. I thought that was really weird, I’d had dozens of deer walk across that sight lane and never even glance my way.

But then it became commonplace over time. Now on my property, even bow hunting in full camo, I can sit dead still, downwind, and the deer still clearly look up at me.

Has anyone else noticed this trend of deer looking up at stands even at relatively long distances?

So now we are having to evolve our stand game again toward enclosed stands, not for comfort, but for concealment. We are now using ground blinds, box stands, and I’ve even started to use “tree blinds” where I’m using a portable stand, but only about 4 feet off the ground so the low brush provides more concealment and breaks my outline better.

How has your use of tree stands evolved?

If the stands are permanent I think they get conditioned to them being there, but if its a stand that gets put up just prior to hunting it they will absolutely notice a change in their environment.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

How has your use of tree stands evolved?

Like you, we used to conduct drives on large pieces of land when we hunted in the Chippewa National Forest. There would be 6-10 of us and we’d set up posters at strategic locations and then the drivers would walk slowly through the piece. It was very effective later in the season to get the deer on the move, and I enjoyed it because sitting in stand for days on end got old after a while. We always established shooting safety prior to the drive.

We stopped doing these drives for the exact same reasons you already mentioned. Lack of hunters. Although we harvested a lot of anterless deer during these drives, we never got that many bucks. Quite often, if there was a sizable buck in the piece, it would escape via a different route or double back on us whereas the antlerless deer ran out where we expected them to. One time we even had a buck escape us by swimming across a lake. I think they were simply smarter than the other deer.

I used to sit in a stand that was about 10 feet up. Then we moved it higher and higher and higher lol. Now the stands I use are at least 18 feet to the platform, and I have one that is 24 feet. When I stand up in that one my head is at 30 feet because I’m about 6 feet tall.

My Father has transitioned to a completely enclosed Stump Stand now. Its made of molded plastic and has shooting windows. He puts a comfortable swivel chair and a buddy heater in it. He is on blood thinner medication, which affects his circulation, and as a result he gets colder more easily. Plus he’s 74 years old so climbing into a high stand now just isn’t his thing. I still hunt from an open air ladder stand. I can hear better from it and my shooting radius is much better.

I can’t say that I have ever had a deer actually look up at me though. I’ve had deer walk pretty much right underneath me too. Maybe its because I’m a little higher up. I should also mention that all my experience is with firearms, as I do not archery hunt.

Im a little late to the game in my life as only being a serious bow hunter for 3 seasons now. 100% public land on top of that so I do see some pretty pressured deer. I think deer looking up is common in areas they expect pressure. When I first started I hunted a lot of areas that received hunter pressure and if i was lucky enough to see deer they would check certain trees. Theres two ideas to avoid that, hunt trees with more cover which is an easy switch. Or move to areas with less hunter pressure. Deer are much more relaxed in areas they do not expect a person to be. I have evolved from sitting trees with no cover in high pressure areas. To a better mix of cover/areas that do not get nearly the pressure. Only 3 seasons so take it for what its worth.

CaptainMusky wrote:

If the stands are permanent I think they get conditioned to them being there, but if its a stand that gets put up just prior to hunting it they will absolutely notice a change in their environment.

All of my stands are left in place year-round, so it isn’t a case of a stand just appearing somewhere as I would totally expect them to notice this.

What’s interesting to me is how adept they’ve become at checking to see and noticing that there’s a hunter in the stand. Even from very long distances, like across fields.

This season I started to use “dummies” in stands. I put a couple of wraps of burlap around the chair to simulate a big camo shape being in the stand all the time. Results have been mixed.

But for firearms hunting where you have to wear orange, forget it. You’re going to get busted no matter what. They see you 100% of the time. Some deer will keep coming and just “keep an eye on you”, but I also see a lot of direction changes and even “uh-oh” where the deer turns around and goes back into cover, even at hundreds of yards away.

I hate tree stand hunting. I put 2 up this year and have only used the 1 when I was out with my kid. I am jealous of heated box blinds but I hardly find sitting in one of them over looking a food plot as hunting. Fred bear style is the way I like doing things, hunting from the ground and doing it solo. Not deer drives. But the box stands has revolutionized hunting so the nit very hard core guys can sit all day in heat and a nice office chair. Make noise and do what they want all while the deer have no idea.

But don’t get me wrong. One day when I get old and don’t want to sneak through the fields and woods, I will be in a box blind with a Mr heater

Grouse it sounds like the deer you hunt have evolved much like the walking dead zombies who can now scale fences and stairs.

I grew up hunting NW Minnesota public land, where there were about 2 trees per county that could support a stand. We exclusively did deer drives, unfortunately this group was all my Dad’s buddies and only 4 kids, so most of those guys have aged out. For the last few years up there the 4 kids did almost all the drives, but now most of the older guys don’t hunt at all or if they do it’s on private land with stands. Like Bearcat I much prefer ground hunting, and only stand hunt for gun season. This year during rifle season I shot a doe that came out of really thick cover, and as soon as it stepped out it looked right up at me even though I didn’t move and was downwind so I agree with your premise Grouse. Since we are on my brothers land we will be putting up more enclosed stands, which is a big trade off as I don’t think you can see or hear as well, but you are a lot less likely to be spotted moving and can sit longer.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

This season I started to use “dummies” in stands.

LOL that’s quite the tactic. A manican in a tree…bet he can sit there motionless for a VERY long time.

gimruis wrote:

LOL that’s quite the tactic. A manican in a tree…bet he can sit there motionless for a VERY long time.

Yes, it sounds totally OCD, but…

I should mention that my property is in the Hinckley area, so we are up in the popple/birch country. Most trees that are big enough to serve as stand trees are straight up and down trunks with no branches and surrounding trees are similar so that they offer no branch cover to break up your silhouette. Up in the mid-levels of these trees, you can easily see through the trunks for long distances because it’s like a forest of telephone poles. It’s not like being in hardwood or pine forests with the mass of lower/drooping branches and the large trunks that can be used to break up a stand hunter’s silhouette.

So I felt like I had to do something. Since there’s no way to hide the stand from the deer, I was hoping that maybe I could get them used to a “big camo thing” being up in the tree and they would conclude it doesn’t pose any threat.

Results were mixed, but encouraging enough that I’m going to keep trying.

A buddy of mine has about 60 acres of prime river bottom land that they hunt. Has around 6-8 permanent stands spread throughout. Opening weekend consists of about 6 hunters covering the property. Probably too many for that acreage, but they’re in it more for the fun of deer camp vs filling all the tags. He has, I believe, 8 cell cams out and regularly sees deer. This year, on 3 different occasions over the week, they had photos of bucks passing by the stands just minutes after the hunter left. One was less than 5 minutes later. Could be coincidence, but we’re convinced that the deer have THEM patterned vs the other way around. We talked that they maybe need to run 2 man stands and have one person leave about 15 minutes before the end of shooting.

I allways sat on the ground.Nice tree to lean against,cut some leafy brush for a little blind/concealment.Have shot many deer from 10feet away to 100yards.Why sit 20feet up in a tree with the cold wind blowing driectly on you and no concealment what so ever?Makes no sense to me but enjoy all ya want.

Initial thought that came into my head is that your too exposed but just a guess without seeing the setups myself. I’m not particularly tall but I’ve got wide shoulders and go 260# and it’s rare that I get picked off in a tree, but I don’t hunt in very open woods and almost never hunt field edges so my typical stand has a lot more cover (primarily a bow hunter so prefer them up close amd personal).

Second thought that came to my head is that you’ve got too many people moving too much up in a tree that’s conditioning deer to look up. Pressure can condition local herds, I see it between my family WI property and my in laws place in MN, I get away with WAY more at my inlaws than I do at ‘home’ because the deer are not as locally pressured.

Growing up, we would build stands from only what we could cut nearby that were wide open. Find a suitable clump or group of trees, and cut young ash, maple or birch and build small simple platform to stand on with a railing to lean on. We would always build them in october when wearing light clothes – resulting in rungs spaced wayyyyyyy to far apart for a short guy wearing heavy bibs once cold weather arrived!!!

Now, If it doesnt have windows, a roof, and heat, it seems like no one will sit in it!

Deer in our area are looking up all the time – definitely a result of our heavy local hunting pressure – and an enclosed stand goes a long ways towards concealibg a hunter.

Thats how stand hunting has evolved for our crew.

I’ve actually went the opposite way. When I was younger I would sit in permanent with 3 sides on them so partial protection from the wind, but as I’ve gotten older I let the kids have those and I either set up a portable or sit on the ground. No real interest in the fully enclosed blinds, I feel like the windows are too narrow, i need everything above my chest exposed to for visibility and lining up a shot. I will say we stopped doing deer drives but because we have a small patch of private and don’t like to scare deer out of it similar to Grouses example. Rarely would shoot bucks that way. I also sit way less nowadays because I like to Pheasant hunt midday.

Had bucks eyeball me in a stand twice this year, and once last year. I would say that all three of them were looking at me as soon as I was looking at them (i.e. I didn’t move or make a noise to let them know I was there first). The second one this year was nice enough to bound off about a 100 yards and then stop and quarter away from me just long enough for a double lung shot. I definitely believe the deer are smart enough to look for us, especially bigger, older bucks. I mean heck I’ve literally seen deer in my suburban neighborhood look both ways before crossing a street! They can definitely be trained and conditioned.

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I pretty much just bow hunt so I would say 90% of my whitetail hunting is being done in tree stands. The other 10% I just set up in cover on the ground.

The 2 properties I hunt in Nebraska I have 6 lock on stands with 20’ ladder sticks. I can’t think of a single deer in the 12 years I have hunted there that has looked up at me in a tree. These stands only get hunted in the rut as well.

All early season hunting is done with a mobile set up consisting of a lock on stand and 4 climbing sticks. Depending on the tree average height is 16 to as much as 20’. These set ups are vary rarely hunted more then twice in a year. Can’t think of ever having a deer look up either.

Cover in the tree is great to have but I worry more about being silhouetted then anything. Having good cover behind you to break up your outline helps a lot.

I have a buddy who just stands next to a large tree. Shoots a nice buck every year.
I have tried it but my spots are far thicker than his, but I have had deer within 5’ before they smelled me.
I did try someone’s enclosed blind, complete with windows, on a frigid day. I hated it. I couldn’t see or hear all the little things that make waiting for a deer entertaining.
But I will admit I prefer my ladder stand with the camo netting.

Tom schmitt wrote:

I couldn’t see or hear all the little things that make waiting for a deer entertaining.
But I will admit I prefer my ladder stand with the camo netting.

That’s partly why I can’t stand to use an enclosed stand. My Father uses a Stump Stand that’s molded plastic and has windows. I sat in that thing once and couldn’t hear anything. Then I also realized my shooting radius was limited to where the windows were too.

I’ll stick to my ladderstand too as long as I can climb in it, and tolerate it.

I hunt in a perm at about 12′. Its on 6X6 legs and the box is about 8 feet square. It has a shingled gabled roof and sidewalls at 30″ +/- an inch or two. The NW corner has about 1/3rd of the west and about a 1/3rd north walls have walls to roof finished solid as a wind break, that corner since the most prevailing winds come from that direction in the late fall, otherwise the stand is open.

There’s a permanent bench built into it that is fairly comfortable. I put a couple padded cushions down and can sit all day without any discomfort. The access ladder is wood with 5″ deep treads…. super solid footing for climbing up.

I’ve been standing in the blind when deer have come into the shooting area, and I think once in the last ten years I have had one look up at me. That occurred last season when two major league bucks strolled thru the day after I used my buck tag. They both looked right at me and since I couldn’t shoot, I waved at them. They just walked away after taking a drink from the water hole we maintain.

I think a lot of factors play into deer behavior around raised stands:

* resident deer grow accustomed to not only the stand but people working in and around the woods thru the off season and can get seasoned to the smells of those people so that they are far less likely to be so wary.
* I think that for the most part across the southern part of the state we are seeing far fewer people in the woods….at least in the first season and in area 341 where I hunt. Fewer big drives are happening and the deer, without the “big push” tend to stay more relaxed. Resident and peripheral resident deer just aren’t being upset enough to make them real way. Where I am at I know the deer are moving between properties all day freely with little if any shooting.

A total of four deer were taken from this stand within a week…. two during the last week of bow hunting by the landowner and two by myself. I literally shot both of my deer standing within mere feet of gut piles, so that pretty much dispels any old ideas that gut piles spook deer. There’s a maintained waterhole within fifteen yards of the stand and more than anything I think that the deer use this water so regular that it creates a “safe zone”. I watch deer there several times thru the season. This year I had a pair of orphaned fawns there several times a day for three days before they moved on.

Every stand and location will offer different circumstances so I don’t believe in any one-size-fits-all. Sure there are generalities but there are enough other variables that will make each stand location unique.

Here are fawns that came to play.

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No mention of tree saddles? No better cover in a tree than hiding behind the tree.

tswoboda wrote:

No mention of tree saddles? No better cover in a tree than hiding behind the tree.

I bought a saddle this ear but not sure how much I enjoy it. Being on the ground is way better.

tswoboda wrote:

No mention of tree saddles? No better cover in a tree than hiding behind the tree.

I had never seen these before, but since I have really gotten into watching the hunting public stuff I see they use them a lot. They look intriguing for sure.

tswoboda wrote:

No mention of tree saddles? No better cover in a tree than hiding behind the tree.

Thats what I do all of my hunting out of. Three seasons in it and its pretty effective. I like it more from a sense of quick setup.

Bearcat89 wrote:

I bought a saddle this ear but not sure how much I enjoy it. Being on the ground is way better.

By better do you mean more effective or more fun? I think hunting from the ground is a lot of fun and but I can’t imagine leaning against a tree being more effective than hanging 20′ up that tree.

I think saddles are the future of tree stands, so I guess the future of tree stands is ditching tree stands – at least for mobile and public land hunters. You can be 20′ up any tree in the woods in 30 minutes or less for only 15 lbs on your back.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I bought a saddle this ear but not sure how much I enjoy it. Being on the ground is way better.

By better do you mean more effective or more fun? I think hunting from the ground is a lot of fun and but I can’t imagine leaning against a tree being more effective than hanging 20′ up that tree.

I think saddles are the future of tree stands, so I guess the future of tree stands is ditching tree stands – at least for mobile and public land hunters. You can be 20′ up any tree in the woods in 30 minutes or less for only 15 lbs on your back.

I hunt river bottoms so the further up I go the less I see. 20ft up I’d be blind. I find the ground to be more effective. Now if I was on the edge of a field it would be different

Bearcat89 wrote:

I hunt river bottoms so the further up I go the less I see. 20ft up I’d be blind. I find the ground to be more effective. Now if I was on the edge of a field it would be different

Fair enough, every setup is different. I’ve definitely had sets where I climbed too high and killed my shooting lanes. I don’t hunt field edges, but usually feels like I’m doubling my shooting sight lines in the trees just by getting off the ground and over the brush. So like 50 yards instead of 25.

Also pretty sure drawing on a whitetail from the ground is above my skill level

I literally shot both of my deer standing within mere feet of gut piles, so that pretty much dispels any old ideas that gut piles spook deer

I shot my deer this year in sight of my stand on opening day. Gutted it, drug it to my truck and resumed hunting.
I watched another deer cross the blood trail from dragging the deer. He followed the trail back to the gut pile to have a sniff. He never got spooked.
Before I left I setup a trail cam to see how long it took for the coyotes to find the pile.
There were at least 5 different deer pictured checking out the gut pile.
From now on I will drag my deer closer to my stand to gut it out.

Tom schmitt wrote:

I literally shot both of my deer standing within mere feet of gut piles, so that pretty much dispels any old ideas that gut piles spook deer

I shot my deer this year in sight of my stand on opening day. Gutted it, drug it to my truck and resumed hunting.
I watched another deer cross the blood trail from dragging the deer. He followed the trail back to the gut pile to have a sniff. He never got spooked.
Before I left I setup a trail cam to see how long it took for the coyotes to find the pile.
There were at least 5 different deer pictured checking out the gut pile.
From now on I will drag my deer closer to my stand to gut it out.

The 3 deer taken this year between the kid and I were all in the same spot. 3rd one was next to the 2nd ones guts, it looked like a murder scene. I don’t believe guts scare any thing away