I took a chain saw to dad's old stand area and the deer skirted it into the thicker areas. I had the same conversation with a guy at work who spent a lot of time cutting shooting lanes. After a day of watching the deer go around those, he got his buck by setting up in the thicker stuff behind them. I've always been a proponent of just getting up higher in a tree stand and looking over the underbrush. The deer move through that kind of cover more slowly and naturally. In pressured woods, security is job one for a mature buck and if they make it past opening morning, they are in the thicker stuff where I've found them.
