Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Do you leave your rifle in stand between hunts?

I sit on a rock or a log. Ain't no leavin' nuthin'

I never bothered to lock it until last week, but this thread got me to thinking that wasn’t too smart.

I only leave my gun , bow , climber and back pack in the woods if I need to drag a deer out. I always get a deer right at dark and is dark by the time I start dragging. I burry it in leaves or under a log. Before first light , I am there to pick it up and this is on high pressured public land . never had a problem and never keep bullets in the pack or gun.

This thread is eye opening. Not in a good way either.

HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!! Why would you do that?..........Apparently you've never killed a deer going to or from your stand?.........And then there's thievery to think about. Sounds like laziness to me. If I have drag one out daylight or after dark. My rifle/gear goes into the locked up truck. Then I go for the deer. Not hiding my high $$$ in a brush pile either.

This whole idea is utterly bizarre. People really do this?

Never would I leave a gun in a blind I don't trust people.

I drag with my rifle over my back. If it doesn't have a sling like my flintlock, I walk it twenty steps ahead then drag the deer up to it. Repeat as many times as needed

You will stop that the one time you go to retrieve it and a rodent has used the buttpad or stock as a tooth sharpener.

Gun to the truck then back to get the critter if I need to make 2 trips.

I've never heard of anyone doing this, even on private land. We don't trust anyone here in the Northeast. Heck trail camera theft happens here allover routinely. Another reason I don't use those either.

What's weird to me is people leaving their stand in the middle of the day, during hunting hours.

What's weird to me is people that can sit in one for more than an hour. Diff'rent strokes.......

Still hunting without a weapon is just walking in the woods lol.

Never....

Not so with the Ruger American Predator I have in 6.5 Grendel.

that sucker is accurate as hell, tosses off abuse, and punches way out of its weight class...

Shrap, not all of us can either afford or would want to hunt with a gun collection as beautiful as you enjoy....

My Ruger ain't fancy, but it certainly has done everything I ask of it, and then some..... there is beauty in that alone also...

and I don't have to worry about it getting scratched up or banged up out in rough terrain or bad weather...

there is beauty and convenience in that also....

I've never been trusting of the public EVER, to leave anything some Beavis or Butthead would swipe.

I can't even fathom leave a rifle behind. I don't even leave my rifle behind to move elsewhere to take a dump.

Don, the difference in the habitat we hunt might ‘splain some of that. There’s seldom a dull moment in the Eastern hardwoods. Wildlife density, not necessarily deer, is high and there’s almost never a time when there’s not something going on: birds, rodents, small mammals of various sorts. I once spent a bunch of deerless hours watching a woodchuck (he was living in the woods after all) trundling back and forth with his mouth stuffed with leaves, plugging up the doors to his den for the winter. Another time on a snowy day I watched a big fat ringneck a few yards away feeding off multiflora rose hips, jumping up and plucking them one by one. Wish I had video of that, but it was long before smartphones and video cameras were about the size of a handi-vac. I’ve had birds land on the barrel of my rifle, squirrels come within inches of climbing over my head, and the mangiest-looking fox I ever saw would’ve stepped on my feet if I hadn’t moved to ward him off. I’ve had some really close encounters too while still- hunting, though often those involved either deer holding tight in hopes I’d not notice them, or moving towards me on their own. Haven’t touched one yet, but have been about ten feet from one that moved the last few yards towards me, then fed off without catching my stink.

A few years ago I was hunting with some friend’s at a private ranch that was owned by one of the friend’s family. A little over 500 acres down a 2 miles private dirt road. There were several of us there for a weekend. As we were leaving we found some odd traffic on the way out and then a sheriff’s vehicle. Not a half hour down the road my buddy receives a call from his dad that his dad’s car and several items had been stolen from the property, including a few guns left in a wooden gun cabinet.

The cops found the guy in front of a cheap motel room down the road in either Killeen or Copperas Cove, I can’t remember, still in possession of all the items stolen from my friend’s dad. Nothing damaged or missing. They found him not an hour after he drove out in the stolen vehicle.

Everything was stolen from the house as the father ran down the hill to do some chore. He was only gone for maybe a half hour from the house. We all said goodbye to him just prior him going to do whatever it was that he had to do. That means the Norwegian who stole the goods had been watching us in hiding.

You never really know who may or may not be somewhere. So, no, I don’t leave guns lying around.

For sure...

That took some scouting and planning I’d say…