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Tree stand locations

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NotEnoughDaysOff

Member
Hi all, new to the site. Not new to the sport, but looking forward to becoming a better hunter through this site. I've attached a photo of my farm, which to date hasn't really seen much for management other than 3 years of watching little bucks walk by. Last year I was fortunate enough to shoot a nice 9 pointer, but there is potential for better.

Anyways, in the photo, I've outlined possibilities of where I thought good spots for tree stands might be. We only have 6 to put up, and I thought I'd get some opinions on where you'd expect the best stands to be, and where terrible places are, in case I've chosen poorly. Up is north in the photo, and the fields are mostly CRP. The field in the lower left is beans this year, and should be picked soon, and the circle field in the lower right is hay. The woods are pretty consistently a mix of elm and oaks. It seems like there is sign everywhere, but our success hasn't been anything to brag about. Our time for scouting and hunting is limited, so hopefully some of you who have this down to more of a science will be free with your opinions.

Also, we are looking to plant some food plots to try to make the farm easier to hunt by making travel patterns more predictable, so suggestions on where to locate a couple of hunting or feeding plots are also welcome. To give you an idea of size, the outlined area is approximately 245 acres. Thanks in advance.
th_Farmtreestands2.jpg

th_Farmtreestands1.jpg



http://s1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd455/russrmartin/?action=view&current=Farmtreestands2.jpg


Tried getting a larger photo, but no dice. Try the link and hopefully you can see the full size image there and some of the potential stand sites that we are thinking of.

Due to the nature of the field north of the buildings being somewhat central to the property, we thought about putting a large feeding plot somewhere near there, which might allow for placing stands around it and hopefully catching deer moving into or out of the property heading to and from it, but I'm not sure if that's a solid plan or not. Still brainstorming right now. The good news is we can do whatever we think is best, no restrictions, so I guess if this were your property, what would you do?

If the link doesn't work, I'll try some more tomorrow. Thanks again!
 
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That pictures about dang near impossible to tell even what were looking at, if you could blow the picture up we might be able to assist you :way:
 
I agree with Booner, if you could get a bigger picture on here we will be able to better judge it for you. From what I can tell you have a dynamite piece of land to hunt there.
 
I'll see what I can do. The photo was taken from google maps, so I'm not sure if there's a way to get a higher resolution or larger picture, but it's worth a shot.
 
farm

The stand locations look OK, but most are close to the farm/building site. I'd stray off more, maybe even hunt the east timber more. Food plots will definitely help as would some timber work (remove some elm trees). Go to Dbltree's site and look up timber stand improvement or hinge cutting

If this property is in Iowa you should be seeing more mature bucks.
 
First of all, thanks to LC. The obvious question is how did you do that. :) I'll have to play around some more.

The farm is located right across the river, in the bluff country on the Wisconsin side. The patch of timber on the East side is two hillsides facing each other, with no real valley in between. We've shied away from hunting down in there mostly because of all of the warnings about swirling winds, etc and all of the things you hear about the benefits of a sanctuary. Most of the stand sites I showed are places we have had stands in the past, and are on the upper ends of the ridges where wind is predictable. All of the fields are ridges, and the woods are mostly fairly steep hillsides. We've done OK seeing deer, but I know guys who hunt around us that spend a lot more time in the woods, and they have a lot more success, I presume because they are in the right locations. On my stand sites indicated, we've typically hunted so the wind blows from the field to the woods, hoping that the deer would be far below where our scent is carried. I've often wondered if that was backwards and if it would be better to hunt so scent is carried out into the field. There are generally no deer there, but if there are, they'll surely catch your wind. How do you other hill hunters work the wind?

Also, during the rut, do you guys go for broke and hunt the best spot in the woods, period, and hope that scent control will work if you are in a valley or ditch?

On the tips of the fingers, we could do blinds in those locations, but they are just ditches, with no real viable trees. That's a great idea though, as it just allows for more places to sit, leaving 6 other stand sites still open.
 
I am sure the property isn't as flat as it looks in the picture if it bluff country.I would assume the darker green parts of timber are higher groung than the lighter color green.In my opinion all of your red dots look to be "easy access" sites.They may be good and they may not.The problem I have with all of the site except on (the farthest right dot) is that all would be what I consider evening stands.It would be hard getting to any of them in the morning without bumping deer from the fields.
The farthest right dot looks good to me.It looks like a transition zone between higher ground and bottom ground.
Its hard to tell any bottlenecks or funnels when you can't tell elevation changes.But that is what I would be looking for in my scouting.Some places that funnel the deer movement.
As far as wind switching in ditches and valleys..That is very hard to cope with.One thing you have to consider more than wind is the thermals.Hunt higher in the mornings and lower in the afternoons.Thermals rize as the air warms in the morning so if you are kinda high its hard for deer to smell you from anywhere if you are high.The opposite is true for the afternoons.During the rut it makes no difference.Deer (bucks in general) can be anywhere at any time.
Good luck with your season.Looks like a great piece of property to me. Just remember...every mistake you make will make you a better hunter if you learn from it.
 
farmtopo.jpg
Archery95, you are right, the property is anything but flat. I know it's hard to tell much without elevations. I'll try to post a topo of the area as well.

The stand you identified is actually in the valley, where two major draws come together as one and head north. It has made for a very good stand on opening morning of gun season, when the woods are full of hunters and the deer are running around, but with the location being in the valley, it's not been very good for bow hunting thus far.

With the major portion of the field being CRP, we haven't had a large problem bumping deer in the morning that I'm aware of, but it sounds like that could change now, with future plans for the field to be cropped. It almost sounds like if the fields are on top, and woods on the hillsides and bottoms, my best bet is going to be afternoon hunts in low lying areas???

I had thought about intensively clearing the squarish section of woods with the powerline right of way through it leaving only oaks, and planting a food plot in the powerline. This chunk of woods features a draw that runs from the lower left corner down to the treestand location Archery talked about. There is a possible pinch point that would allow for stands to be put on either side of the draw to allow hunting in multiple wind scenarios, though I'd have to think about the thermal issue some more.

My hopes are to learn from your guys' mistakes more so than my own. :)
 
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