Strangest place for a stand?
Whitetail Deer
I took these pics the other day. This rural cemetery borders the east end of one of my hunting properties. There are always new rubs and scrapes in this area each year. I haven’t set a stand up in this area as of yet, because I feel I have a couple of other stands that aren’t that far away from this spot, that are better locations, IMO. Oftentimes I park at the cemetery and walk from there, into the stands to hunt evening sets. Walking back to the truck past the cemetery after dark doesn’t bother me. I’ve also set up on the west fencline to the cemetery and called coyotes in the middle of the night when we have snow and enough moonlight.
My question is...where is the oddest/strangest place you’ve hunted or put a stand? It doesn’t have to be just whitetail related.
Back in my young and dumb days, used a old time climbing Baker treestand (new back then) on a pole on a knoll of the inside bend of a clear telephone/power line...8^) Worked for the phone company so was used to climbing poles back then...
I was definitely skylined and must have stuck out like a sore thumb... Only did it once or twice if I remember right and don't believe I even saw anything... Geez, I wonder why...8^)
I’m waiting for pics of a Little Tykes playhouse with a guy wearing all yellow inside of it!
Well, I've killed 4 coyotes in my slippers out the front room windows? Had a nice 5x6 wt buck walk under so close I had to get out of my chair to watch him go by.
When I was a kid we would rifle hunt from the back of the old cemetery overlooking a field and draw, Deer ran it all the time, used to sit on a tombstone every year. Could even still tell you the name on the tombstone yet.
When I kick the bucket if some random dude uses my tombstone as a deer stand that would be cool. If the guy buried there was not a hunter I hope it was a former PETA member!
He died in 1884 guessing he was not a pet member.
Not sure this fits exactly but I killed a big buck in Alberta years ago in a spot just beside a little turn out off a 2 lane highway. Set up the stand the morning before and got dropped off and slipped in before daylight. Noticed a set of tire tracks in the snow on my way in, and a strange smell. As day broke I discovered someone in an RV had apparently pulled in and dumped their septic tank right under my stand! Guess what? Rattled in and killed a great buck an hour later!
Heck, Kia wasn't even afraid walking by there in the dark t-roy! :-)
I shot a deer out of the window of an abandoned house in an old farm yard. Actually have used abandoned farm houses as stands quite a few times in my life. Nothing like a ready made blind! Just be careful, because more than once I haven't been the only inhabitant. Coons don't like being disturbed in the dark. :-)
I’ve killed several yotes in my gotch out the back door.
One of my favourites was setting up a decoy on the edge of my yard and calling in a P&Y to 25yds with deerslayer. Boy did he come running in to the snort wheeze. Left about 50 does standing in the alfalfa and came screaming over. Yard didn’t bother him one bit. We set the blind up that day
bolted a loc on spirit to a windmill in WY for antelope.
Just be careful if you stand up in one of those things.
Iv shot antelope from the top of a crude oil tank.
The neighbors actually helped me hide getting to my tree. I would start up the tree behind the sign. The sign was there long before I started hunting that place so I don't really know what the whole story was. I just kept my hunting on the down low in that area.
Like 'bou, a jimmy rigged hang-on treestand on a windmill for antelope. Not real sturdy, TOTALLY exposed to the elements, but man the view.......(and chip shot on the lope)
I killed a few deer from an old farm house that was part of a working dairy farm in the early 1900's. I actually had to bring in a laddewr to get to the second floor cause the stairs going upstairs collapsed. I also have a stand we call the road stand, it is 15 ft off a main road that is used heavily by joggers and bicycle folks. I have seen some great sights from it as the path leading off the road looks good to the joggers and such as a place to pee. Seen a lot of womens hineys from that tree and have killed 10 or 12 deer from it as well. Shawn
Busta......That might be even better than Nosejammer!
The ad campaign to pedal it might be a little tough, though! ;-)
A buddy of mine has killed some impressive bucks near Strasbourg VA in the woods (median) between the north & southbound lanes of I 81
One of my best stands was inside of an old, abandoned farm house. The only down side was rat and bird droppings everywhere. Clothing, equipment and self had to be decontaminated after leaving structure.
Have also used abandoned, rusting farm equipment for stands when rifle hunting.
Deer are totally comfortable around they types of structures.
I've hunted deer and elk from the top of stacked bales of alfalfa. Killed several coyotes off my elevated rear deck on my house. Used a an old abandoned harvester as a blind a few times. I've also stalked bucks that were bedded in a junk yard full of old vehicles and machinery.
Matt
Where do I start.....a guy that was working for me just got into bowhunting. He bought a Bear Whitetail bow and some arrows. His cousin had permission to a piece of property and when the owner slid out of time he snuck this guy in. He puts him in a vacant lot at the end of a cul de sac on a 5 gallon bucket thinking he won`t see jack.
A doe walks out from behind a couple of evergreens followed by a buck. He shoots the buck and calls me all frantic. I tell him to meet me and all I see is horns and legs, this thing barely fit in a S-10. It netted 158" and dressed at 242 lbs. The mass was as big as a beer can. Was his cousin hot....lol
Z wasn’t it you who was hunting from a house and forgot to open the window? Crash!!! Lol
Set my DB pop up in the rancher’s junk pile once at daylight and killed a goat at the water trough about 10:30 once near Gillette.
On the same ranch I hunted out of his barn the day before over a water trough but the cows kept the goats off of it. Perfect set up though, had one of those Dutch doors that you could just open the top. Black as hell inside but the view was narrow.
On another place a blind made of round bales stacked on each other. Talk about a narrow view ! Like shooting through a culvert !
I set a stand in a tree at the oxbow of a creek. Second time in was right after a heavy rain. I didn't use a flashlight to walk in and I walked to the stand and couldn't locate it. Walked back out a little ways and back in still couldn't find it. sat down and waited for daylight and saw that the creek bank, tree and stand were gone. Never did find that stand even after walking the creek looking for it. Glad I wasn't in it when it washed the bank out.
20 years ago, I had permission to bow hunt a golf course that was bought out by a developer. There was a concrete block building near the back of the golf course that served as a men’s and woman’s restrooms. During the late season in the snow, I noticed a lot of deer were crossing a creek near the bathrooms. The bathroom doors had been taken off, so I decided to put a portable blind in one of the restrooms. My blind fit perfectly in the doorway and I was protected from both the wind and snow. My first sit was on Christmas eve and I shot a nice whitetail doe. Not many guys can say they shot a deer out of a bathroom on Christmas eve.
Wasn't me but had a neighbor that would sit in his old abandoned pickup and just roll down the window to shoot(gun).
Im Turkey hunting, northern va. Old abandoned barn with a loft above, so theres an opening on tne gable end,perfect for shooting down on a bird. I climb the ladder to check out the loft,,look over at opposite gable end..a dead vulture laying in the leftover hay.i go down to inspect it. Christ her eye is open and shes actually shielding eggs,i can see one at the edge of her wing..sooo for 2 weeks we were bff up there a few times,,i was church mouse quite,,she didnt whip my ass... i didn't kill a bird, probably best for me,, she'd probably put a beak thru my spine if i did,,,it was super peaceful and cool. Well until her big sexy bf tried to fly into the gable opening, thru my face...but that's another story.
I was told by a biologist to hunt next to a dump. I asked how close and he told me I better be able to hit the dump with a rock or I was too far away.
Mrs buzzard, left corner,, looking dead,but not....
When I started bow hunting back in the late 80's, one of my cousins owned 40 acres and let me hunt there. At the west edge of the woods was an approximately 1 acre field of second-stage growth. A previous owner of the property pulled an old VW bus to the edge of the woods to use as a blind. The bus was a white commercial vehicle, and had the name "William Phelps Plumbing" on the sides.
The bus had double doors on both sides, so you could shoot into the woods or out into the field, and had a plastic milk crate to sit on. I never did kill a deer out of it, but I'll never forget the cold, quiet morning I was sitting in it and a big black walnut fell out of the tree next to it and hit the roof. Sounded like a gun went off! Let's just say it's a good thing my pants were already camouflaged.
Killed my buck out of this Double Bull by an abandoned ranch this year. Deer were coming out of the hills to feed in the stubble field just before dark. You can see my camp trailer in the background. Tough 150 yard hike that night..
Killed my biggest archery whitetail out of an old abandoned farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere two years ago.
Turkey hunting in Kentucky several years back, guy on the neighboring property was hunting his cattle pasture out of a rust covered abandoned pickup truck. Made for an interesting turkey blind. Would not be surprised if he deer hunted there too.
Had a place to hunt that was 740 acres here in WV . It had 3 different abandoned homesteads on it . One homestead had a old collapsed house with an apple orchard , on edge of orchard was the outhouse in perfect shape. I wired the door opened and killed several deer from sitting in there.
I had permission by the owner of a sleep away summer camp to hunt its property from Oct 15th on. Sat on about 40 acres. Used to hunt right out the door/windows of the bunk houses. Today its a housing development..
Hot tub. Doe trail went right past my tub. I put a little curiosity scent behind a tree so I could stand and draw. Nothing like doe hunting naked.
Pics, or it didn’t happen, BullBuster.
On second thought, we’ll take you word for it ;-)
I always thought the bulldozer stand was unique. It was an old bull dozer that died in the woods years ago. My mentor made a seat where the old seat was. He saw a lot of deer there over the years. I guess the stand was not so special after all.
Took this from my turkey blind on a neighbor's property. As you can see, it's an old grave from an early homestead. My neighbors had a new headstone made before the original was too faded to read.
I have climbed a tree in my backyard to kill deer that were eating my wife's day lilies. One time I double lunged one at 7:18 AM and the second one at 7:22 AM. The second one was smelling the bloody fletching from the pass through on the first deer. The both ran about 50 yards and fell within 10 feet of each other.
Taking a break from building my kids' playhouse as I read this-it's up on 5' posts and 25yd from a very well-used mule deer trail that comes off the neighbors' and into our property. I told my wife the height and placement is totally coincidental, but that I may have to pull a tag for our unit one of these years and shoot buck out of it :)
Lou’s pic reminded me of setting my old T5 blind up against a hay rake. I was watching a decent pronghorn buck that was eating his way across the alfalfa and inching my way. It was an uncommonly still day for Wyoming and I didn’t have my blind staked, when a big gust of wind blew the sucker up over my head. I was lucky enough to make the grab and pull it down just as the goat jerked his head up. I don’t think he saw anything except a sudden movement, but he changed directions and slowly fed right out of my life, which was lucky as it turned out. I killed a bigger one the next day.
Mule Power - "Z wasn’t it you who was hunting from a house and forgot to open the window? Crash!!! Lol"
Ummm, yep...8^)
RE: first pic, most of the deer around here are ghosts anyway so I feel lime I'm huntig a graveyard.
Thread is about strange places for a stand so I was doing a emergency repair in a hospital one night and had to replace a 21' vertical piece of 4" pipe five /6 floors up in a Chase (60') and skinned up there and hung a lonewolf on the pipe next to it for a working platform. Saved lots of time. Never been over 16 foot in a tree stand ever .
I've killed a deer and a coyote from underneath a shot-up battle-tank used as a target by the Army.
I use to set one up against a power pole until they utility company took my stand. I’ve also set a ladder up against an irrigation circle. Not many trees where I live so I do what I can to get off the ground.
I've hunted the McAlester Ammunition Depot in Oklahoma. Special draw, special rules, traditional only, some monster deer. It's not uncommon to have a stand set up within spitting distance from a bunker filled with apparently "out dated" bombs and ammunition. I didn't know it had an expiration date.
There is an off limits area where disposal/demolition occurs promptly at 11am. The first time you experience it it's alarming when you hear the explosion and the earth shakes. I've felt the shock in a stand 10 miles away on another property I hunt.
No lie, I shot a deer out of a 10 yard dumpster behind a church once. Was situated in the perfect spot where deer crossed the railroad tracks right behind the church, but no trees suitable for a stand. Guess that's my "strangest spot".
I used a coil (actually two coils stacked) of corrugated plastic drainage pipe in the middle of a huge alfalfa fiend once. It was a GREAT blind!
Shot a doe a few years back from inside the barn on my dad's property. The door inside the blue circle was slid open and the doe was standing at the red "X" when I shot her. That is also where I shot her again as, apparently, 5 yds is not in my comfort zone and I spined her.
Ah geeze, don't start talking about shoot from buildings, you'll get flamed... Trust me, just ask Mule Power...8^)
My Dad shot one out of my kid brothers bedroom window once. Mom was in Disney with my sisters.
Uh-oh, here we go...8^)))
There's a guy I fish with here in Ky whose son kills these great big whitetails bucks. His dad, my fishing partner, shows me these pics every year and the bucks are 150 class+.
I said, "Man, your son is a good hunter." He says "No, my son has an apple tree in the back yard of his farm. He gets out of bed early, makes coffee and toast, sits at his kitchen table with the window open and kills his bucks out the window on opening morning of gun season. It scares the heck out of his wife because she's still in bed."
I don't get it, it's just not hunting. Great stand location though.
I was hunting some heavily pressured public land and trying to find the least pressured area to set up. Spent a long time one afternoon trying to put my stand in a huge tree that I couldn't reach around. Took forever to get it up, and by the time I was done I only had 45 mins till dark. I decided to still hunt my way back, and saw a few deer in the process. One was a very nice P&Y caliber buck that walked into a field, right by a telephone pole. I had brought a climber on the trip with me, and decided that there was little, to no chance these deer had ever been hunted from a telephone pole as it was way too exposed, and nobody would be that crazy. I went in the next afternoon and climbed up the pole in my climber. I felt like the biggest moron sitting 18 feet up that pole with nary a twig around me. I knew I would have to keep perfectly still, and even then I would most likely get spotted. Saw some deer here and there 80-150 yards out, but nothing close. About a half hour before dark, a decent buck made his way towards the field, from behind me and to my right. A couple bleats on the can call turned him my direction. He quickly closed the distance and soon was walking directly behind me, on par to come out behind a bush 12 yards to my left. As he went behind the bush I came to full draw. Just before he cleared, he stopped, turned, and began to rub the guy--line support pole that was cabled to the main pole I was sitting in! I could literally feel the vibrations in my stand! It was unreal. I held at full draw for about a minute, and he finally stopped rubbing, stepped out, and I drilled him. He nose plowed down the powerline, through the snow, and about 60 yards out flipped himself end over end. He got back up and made it about another 100 yards before going down for good. I could not believe it. One of my more memorable hunts. 2 years later I went back to that same pole and killed another buck 15 minutes into the morning sit, Not more than 5 feet from where I had killed the first buck 2 years prior! The second buck had spotted me right before I shot him, and I decided to try to find a better setup, and I eventually did, but I'll never forget those two hunts.
I would shoot a deer out the window of my house if I could. It is just a $300,000.00 stand in my opinion. More power to him. I just cannot afford a house in a place where you could do that.
If I tried it the fear is the deer would die in the tennis courts across the street, or the post office parking lot or the grocery store parking lot. Not to mention it is illegal to shoot in town.
Which reminds me of a great story, I got the kids red rider bb guns for Christmas one year, they were probably 8 and 6 years old. We have a privacy fence that just angles across one corner of our lot and the wife has bird feeders on it. I gave the kids the ok to shoot squirrels off the bird feeders as long as the fence was in the background if they missed.
So they are home with a babysitter while wife and I are out shopping, when we get home the babysitter says the cops visited and Boy wonder (6 year old) was reprimanded for shooting squirrels in town. So I ask boy wonder what happened and he says " I stuck the bb gun out the window and popped at a squirrel, (missed) and there was a cop at the stop sign on the other corner of our lot. He turned on his lights and came and knocked on the door.
He told me it was illegal to discharge a firearm within the city limits, and I responded to him "Its a bb gun there is no fire involved, dad calls it an air gun".
The next morning I was walking to work and a cop I knew came out of the coffee shop with a huge smile on his face he had been waiting for me to walk by so he could tell me the story, it was almost word for word what Boy wonder had told me.
Gotta love the small town.
oz
Some of these stories reminded me of weird places I’ve shot stuff with a gun like tank batteries, hay stacks and I killed my first deer out of the hopper of an old combine.
