I'm always a little reluctant to go walking around during the gun season because invariably I'll jump something up and get it killed by some other hunter. The best stand sites that I've ever found were from snow tracking a big set of deer tracks and setting up a stand the next year somewhere along that route that gave me an advantage. Topography does funnel deer movement. I was talking with Greg Miller at a deer seminar and he told me that he has left hunting Price County because it was too big and too flat and the deer could go anywhere. Another thing I'd heard and already mentioned in this thread was that if you want to shoot a big buck, you need to hunt where one lives. I think that I've morphed into hunting like tzone's two buddies. We only get a 9 day gun season and opening day is sacred. The deer have to be there somewhere and they can't all be down wind. A stand site for me will take advantage of the prevailing north west wind, but I'd still probably hunt a good stand in a wrong wind. Back in my youth I'd hunt high enough in a tree that it didn't seem to matter much.
Shaman, I think that a minor move should be in order. Last season hunting the only decently large stand of regenerating poplar trees within miles, I got the feeling that it was like being in the right church, just the wrong pew. The only shot that I heard close that made for coyote, crow and raven gut pile scavenger noise was on the other side of that stand of poplar. That stuff grows thick and visibility is pretty limited, but I'd read that it will hold like 13 deer per square mile. Way more than that mature maple.
I have hunted Price co. Wis for 35 gun seasons and it is the hardest place I ever hunted deer. I saw a buck this gun season and before that was 2009. It took 14 gun seasons to see a buck. As for hunting the big woods, I just hunt along the S. Fork Flambeau River cause I have river frontage. There is more sign along the river , perhaps cause it is one of the only places with a ridge . There is a trail along the river that runs for miles. Other than that , the trails are so faint that you can hardly tell they are there and very hard to hunt deer in wolf country cause deer dont follow trails much cause if they follow trails, wolves pick up the pattern . As for hunting a stand in the big woods, I hunt it a few times a year and that is it . They are just too remote to put up with much human scent.
