We have a club environment with say 15 members sharing 2,000 acres of Southern timber lands, woods, creek, sand roads (public and logging) and pretty much contiguous land. We have places that produce year after year but the deer are stand wise and seem to always be looking at them when they step out in a power line or road. Someone shoots a nice deer, that stand gets checked out a bunch.... doesn’t produce again.... overhunting.
We have some stands that have been in one spot for 20 plus years and the saying is, “that spot used to get good deer wonder why no one has got anything lately...”. If you go there and look around the trails go behind the stand location deer are bypassing it. Solution, climb 40 to 50 yards off the stand and trails, and you get a nice deer. Climb high. Tell everyone you shot out of the stand, they go there and don’t see anything.... go back and climb... ;-).
Our biggest disrupter is clear cutting of timber which causes us to reposition stands in surrounding areas.
OP was right on about old locations... we see a “new great spot” and then look around and usually find some old boards nailed to a hardwood or remnants of an old stand... everything has been hunted before...
It’s hunting and it’s fun!
Last edited by 240NMC; 01/23/19.
