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Treestand Strategy
By Ken Piper
When you set up a treestand, play the prevailing winds, but also pay attention to the sun. If it's a morning stand, you don't want the stand to face the rising sun. It might be possible to set up on a trail or food source so you're never looking into the sun -- morning or afternoon. Some stand locations work best in the morning and others are better in the afternoon.
I'm always looking for what I call the perfect tree, but it doesn't exist in many situations. If I'm hunting a treestand with little cover, I'll "brush up" the stand with limbs cut from nearby trees. Even when you're 20 feet high, you still have to hide from the deer.
Two pieces of equipment I recommend for treestand hunters are a telescoping limb saw and a racheting hand pruner. The saw lets you cut shooting lanes, and the pruner is used for trimming leafy limbs that make noise if you brush up against them.
When you set up a stand, hopefully before the season, check out all your shooting angles and do your pruning during the setup. If you leave stands in place from one season to the next, don't forget to get in the woods early to adjust the stands to compensate for tree growth during the year and also to trim obstacles that have grown up in your shooting lanes. When leaving stands in trees after the season, loosen the straps or chains. This gives the tree a chance to grow without binding your stand.
When you approach a treestand, try to stay away from the trails you think deer will be using. The first chance is the best chance when you are hunting mature bucks. If the wind changes to an unfavorable direction while you're hunting, bail out of that stand rather than risk spooking a good deer.