This is a perfect example of why I don't have a stand in a spot all the time. It rarely works. Things change year to year. I've shot nice 8pts 2 years in a row now in northern WI on public land. Highly pressured public land. We've never shot a buck in either spot before. But the sign was there this year and last. I also don't dick up my stands by sitting them in a schitty wind or even a an OK wind. Pressured deer won't go there in daylight if you hit it on a bad or iffy wind. They just won't. Plan on seeing them at night on your camera and that's it.
Believe it or not, there area spots on public where others won't go. Go there. But have 4 or 5 of them so you can hunt one from any wind direction.
This. The one exception might be a large geo barrier deer need to navigate - some of those make for semi-consistent success IF there continues to be some sort food for them in reasonable proximity. And that's getting harder and harder to find.
With the low deer densities in the big woods, things change on an annual basis. The compounding factor in all of this in northern WI is folks dropping bait piles a couple weeks before the season in areas that are convenient for them (hunter). A lot of the sign you might have been noticing suddenly goes dry because there's a new artificial food source two miles away.
IMO, Wisconsin's biggest challenge in the national forests isn't the wolves or the litany of other things that get mentioned - IMO, it's lack of forest regeneration. Deer are pretty resilient but no food for them in combination with prolonged cold and deep snow spells doom.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/X0n16mr.png)
