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Hunt the Inside Corners
By Mark Melotik
It's a common dilemma for landowners who've decided to make the leap and install a food plot or two on their new hunting land, a move many figure will be the icing on the cake to their own personal can't-miss deer honey hole. Come season opener, they'll want to see first-hand the results of all their hard work and, in many cases, substantial investment. So, they erect a series of field-edge stands — smartly chosen to play off several different prominent winds — and then wonder why mature buck encounters don't happen.
The answer to this problem can be as easy as erecting stands in the inside corners of a rectangular field. In some cases, that means moving field-edge stands just a few more critical yards deeper into cover. But those few extra yards can mean all the difference.
When choosing which corner stand to use on a given day, you'll want to sit the stand that has the day's wind blowing over it into the field. In this scenario, you can intercept mature bucks traveling into the wind near the edge of the field. You'll also go undetected by deer that feel safer hidden in cover — those that prefer to observe the field and its inhabitants from just inside the timber or, later on in the rut, scent-check the field and bisecting doe trails.
For a general point of reference, place your stand 10 to 20 yards off the corner of the field edge, at a height that will blow your scent over the heads of bucks traveling between the stand and the field. From your perch 15 to 20 (or so) feet high, you might be able to see the field, or at least a portion of it — considering lush early to mid-season foliage — but that should be a bonus, not your goal.
Granted, positioning your inside-corner stands to shoot those faint buck trails might have you missing out on watching doe groups feed on all the lush greenery you created. But if it's mature buck encounters you crave, getting off the edge and hunting in a well-placed inside corner stand will make those evening sits even more productive.