Where do you set your treestand?
Elk
When bowhunting elk in September with a treestand, where's your favorite place to set up your treestand: 1) By a water source. 2) By a wallow. 3) Close to a bedding area. 4) Close to a feeding area. 5) On a travel route between bedding and feeding areas. 6) Smack dab in the middle of a bedding area. 7) On an escape route. 8) Other.
5) in fact I just set this one a couple weeks ago
5 has been most productive overall for me as well.
Both 1 and 5 where they are together.
I hunt an area that is usually DRY so shaded water holes are good. Fortunately my best water hole is between bedding and feeding areas but stand placement and timing access can be important due to prevailing winds and thermals.
Pardon the interruption but does everyone feel fine setting a stand in a big aspen? I do it but last season I looked around and saw so many quakies tipped over on the ground I started having second thoughts.
8... in the shade. I hate being hot. Early season
8... in the sun for late season. I hate being cold
I guess I’d call it 5, although there are no specific feeding or bedding areas anywhere close. It’s just a travel corridor they like to use during anytime of day. I’ve been in the same tree for ~25 years.
Wyobull... do you hunt it regularly (every day/ etc) every year?
What kind of patterns have you noticed over the years at that tree?
He's noticed a lot of dead bulls when he climbs down. :-)
lol Nick!
soccer, for these past 25 years or so, I’ve hunted out of my stand exclusively in the evenings. The late afternoon/early evening breeze is notoriously squirrelly in the areas I hunt. It took me several years of cursing those winds for screwing up many “can’t miss“ shot opportunities on the ground before I finally wised up. There’s never been a pattern, they just show up whenever they show up. I never bugle since I don’t want to call anyone to my location, so I use nothing but a short series of mews every 10 minutes or so. My tree sits on the crest of a little ridge 80 yds up from a small creek and 22 yds from the convergence of two regularly used game trails, so they show up from any direction.
5 for me, when I do it.. I've killed one from a treestand over water, but seems like they always come into water from above in the afternoon and always get my rising thermal. This is a survival mechanism for elk be cause predators wait near water. I have never hunted a waterhole on relatively flat ground where this can be managed. Travel routes are not destinations for elk, so spots can be found where the rising thermal isn't an issue.
In Pa for deer. I’m a run and gunner. I know that some day I won’t be able to be mobile so I’m holding out as long as I can.
Jaquomo: How high was your stand? I go up about 25 feet and have not had a problem with up drafts and rarely get caught with morning and evening diurnals. I often hunt on steep slopes.
Built one today at 15' for whitetails. #1, 3, 4, and 5.
I've never tried using a stand for elk before but thinking about trying it a few times this year. It sounds like evening stand hunts are fairly popular.
No way am I going past 12’ high in a tree stand for elk. No need to.
Here’s a pic of my son - standing in one of our tree stands. See him?
Morning and evening down drafts will bring your scent to the ground. If it does not have far to travel to get to the level of an elk's nose, you can be busted very easy. In some locations and at sometimes a ground blind works just fine. You can even take a picture of a hunter in some brush and not see him. For those other places and times, going up higher can make a big difference.
I set another stand today - over a spring. Should be good for elk and bear
Swede has a book on this subject, it's worth a read or 3.
I've only ever seen one elk in Bland County so I'd set my stand there. (Where I saw him)
Fuzzy: In early elk season, 1993, I set up my stand where I had seen a small herd of elk water about two weeks earlier. As I sat in my stand, I realized no elk had been there since. It did not take long for me to get out of that stand to go somewhere else. Do not determine to set your stand where elk have been. Find out where you can anticipate elk will be. That is based on evidence of continued elk use.
Swede the herd is about 125 crow fly miles away. Every 5 years or so a satellite bull will wander through. We're allowed to kill them in deer season but the chances are better on the Mega Million
Thanks, Fuzzy. With chances like that, I would find an actively used water hole in another area altogether.
The five elk managed Virginia counties are draw only. The surrounding counties allow elk kill on deer license but it's a matter of luck and persistence. If I live long enough I'll eventually draw a tag.
Over water for sure. Over an ACTIVE wallow second.
