Deer Hunting was different then.

[Grouse]

This is the way it was when I was starting out.  Times have changed, but I still hold on to the old ways.

[Grouse]

I wish this was still looked upon favorably.

 

[First-light]

We nailed 2x6's as steps in a tree. Made a little platform and stood in it for the hunt. Crazy! Yeah I lived those days and I'm happy to experience it. That's why camp fires are so important for old stories to be told!

[airedale]

Actually, I still pretty much hunt many of the ways described above, I am a ground hunter so there are no stands for me, I have piled brush to make a ground blind on good runs if I am in the mood for a sit. No phones either, I have a cell phone but it sits here on my desk and use it if I do any traveling, when I do use a phone it is an old conventional cordless house phone. I do have a pocket camera that I use quite a bit these days. Never checked one in at a country store either.

Al

[Daveboone]

Sounds familiar! Renailing the steps every year, balancing on a 2x4 for hours on end, Shivering in my cotton long underwear under two pairs of too tight blue jeans, wearing dads threadbare buffalo plad jacket...

You saw more shotguns and sporterized military rifles than production hunting rifles. Mausers, Enfields, Springfields, Carcanos, ...Mausers were considered the cream of the crop. Hell, I still hunt with and love mine, which was my dads. Granted, it evolved from the Herters stocked open sighted otherwise bare bones military rifle, to a synthetic stocked, scoped and tuned trigger modern rifle it is now....in the original awesome 8 mm Mauser. 

We considered it a good year if we SAW a deer. When I shot my first buck, everyone I knew came for days to check it out (it was a beauty of a north country 10 pt). 

[Four Seasons]

4 hours ago, Grouse said:

This is the way it was when I was starting out.  Times have changed, but I still hold on to the old ways.

Exactly. And they will never control the herd or harvest numbers until they make mandatory check stations again. 

[Gobbler Chaser]

There's still old rotted 2x4 steps nailed into trees on my property used by my hunting buddies from the 1970s who have passed on long ago. The wooden platforms have disappeared

[suburbanfarmer]

27 minutes ago, Four Seasons said:

Exactly. And they will never control the herd or harvest numbers until they make mandatory check stations again. 

That will not happen again, most other states have moved to instant online check in

[2012_taco]

I'm old enough to remember most of the above stories.  What I remember too, is getting together to apply for a doe permit. It took 5 hunters to get 1 permit to share. I remember the  guy carrying the permit was the only one who could shoot a doe that day. 

[GreeneHunter]

I still have the tree that I used the " Screw in Steps " years ago , up where I sat the wood is gone !

[hueyjazz]

How about the breakfast at all the diners that would open early.

And the stories at night and many of the same home cooked diners for dinner.

Zero ATVs used but an orange army 

(Sometimes Red mixed in)

[steve863]

I don't know.  With the hunters I was around in the late 70's when I started hunting, treestands of any sort were not very common.  You sat with your back to a tree somewhere and that's where you waited and hoped that a deer would come by.

 

 

[Northcountryman]

58 minutes ago, steve863 said:

I don't know.  With the hunters I was around in the late 70's when I started hunting, treestands of any sort were not very common.  You sat with your back to a tree somewhere and that's where you waited and hoped that a deer would come by.

 

 

That’s exactly the way my Grandfather used to hunt - never was he up in the air !! When did treestand  hunting become prevalent , anyway ?

[steve863]

6 minutes ago, Northcountryman said:

That’s exactly the way my Grandfather used to hunt - never was he up in the air !! When did treestand  hunting become prevalent , anyway ?

 

The tree climbing hunting tactic took off later in the 80's and 90's when bowhunting became more popular.  These days people seem to think that a deer can't be killed from the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

[JJBat150]

6 hours ago, First-light said:

We nailed 2x6's as steps in a tree. Made a little platform and stood in it for the hunt. Crazy! Yeah I lived those days and I'm happy to experience it. That's why camp fires are so important for old stories to be told!

A survivor of that era...     Can count at least a handful of deer taken from her.

[DoubleDose]

1 hour ago, steve863 said:

 

The tree climbing hunting tactic took off later in the 80's and 90's when bowhunting became more popular.  These days people seem to think that a deer can't be killed from the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

...and bowhunting became more popular when compound bows with let-off came out.

[Doc]

I had stick-built treestands even back in the 60's, eventually "graduating" to the old Baker climbing treestands. But somewhere along the line (about the mid 80's), I started getting a fear of heights, and have been a ground hunter ever since.

Yeah, when I started (early 60's) there were no videos or TV programs telling you how you HAD to hunt. We all learned from our elders or one of the hunting magazines. A lot of the methods were by trial and error. And of course there were the B.S. sessions around the coffee pot at work.

It all seemed so much more exciting before we all became educated and scientific about it all. Heck, it was years before I even knew what "scoring a buck" was all about. Didn't know.....didn't care. Counted points and that was good enough.

[Northcountryman]

3 hours ago, steve863 said:

 

The tree climbing hunting tactic took off later in the 80's and 90's when bowhunting became more popular.  These days people seem to think that a deer can't be killed from the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

Admittedly, I kind of think that, too in that I always feel like Im not actually deer hunting if/when my feet are touching the ground lol.

[suburbanfarmer]

16 hours ago, Northcountryman said:

Admittedly, I kind of think that, too in that I always feel like Im not actually deer hunting if/when my feet are touching the ground lol.

I agree with you, during archery I do like the whole setup of drawing & shooting from the tree

[Grouse]

When I got my hunting license in 1970, the first thing the older guys I hunted with said was "You need to build your deer stand now."  These guys were hunting from hand built wooden stands for a couple of years by the time I started going with them.  Each man had his own sand and hunted from it every deer season.

Thinking back, it was a rigid routine, but the group always got a few deer on the opener.  The stands were in the right place.

[steve863]

6 minutes ago, Grouse said:

When I got my hunting license in 1970, the first thing the older guys I hunted with said was "You need to build your deer stand now."  These guys were hunting from hand built wooden stands for a couple of years by the time I started going with them.  Each man had his own sand and hunted from it every deer season.

Thinking back, it was a rigid routine, but the group always got a few deer on the opener.  The stands were in the right place.

 

Maybe the hunters who had private land and didn't allow too many others on their land had these wooden stands, but hunting back then was very different where neighbors let each other hunt their land and there were many more hunters out there than we see today.  You'd easily have a dozen hunters or more on a hundred acres of land.  If everyone was hunting out of treestands back then they'd be within visible sight of several other hunters for sure.   I sure as heck don't remember seeing these stands in the late 70's where I hunted or heard anyone talking about hunting out of one.  You sat on a stump or with your back to a tree and that was your deer stand.   If you saw another hunter sitting close to where you were planning to set up you moved off until he was no longer in sight and set up there.

 

 

 

 

 

[nybuckboy]

In the old days you walked until you picked up a track of a big buck and you walked and walked and walked until you got an opportunity for a shot. That was before all the land was posted and you were welcome to walk a mile or two after a good deer. nowadays you’re lucky if you can walk a quarter of a mile before you’re on posted land unless you happen to be on state land. 

[steve863]

11 minutes ago, nybuckboy said:

In the old days you walked until you picked up a track of a big buck and you walked and walked and walked until you got an opportunity for a shot. That was before all the land was posted and you were welcome to walk a mile or two after a good deer. nowadays you’re lucky if you can walk a quarter of a mile before you’re on posted land unless you happen to be on state land. 

 

Yes, there were some guys that would walk and rarely if ever sat.

[Just Lucky]

8 hours ago, steve863 said:

 

Yes, there were some guys that would walk and rarely if ever sat.

My dad was one of those guys. He taught me a bit about that, but mostly let me learn from my mistakes. I got my last 3 bucks while covering ground.

Now he sits in his shed behind his house that over looks food plots mixed in a 10 acre golden rod field. Father time has certainly slowed him down.

With limited access to private land, still hunting, and tracking is becoming a lost skill. Most hunting is done sitting in a stand today, regardless of weapon. 

[Grouse]

I remember when hunting from a tree stand was promoted as being safer.  Shooting from a stand put your shots into the ground if you missed a deer.  Shooting from the ground was more likely to send your bullet farther into the woods and possibly strike an unintended target.  It was also thought to be safer to be off the ground when others were hunting from the ground in the same area. That idea did put a lot of hunters in trees.

Seems weird today, but these were real considerations back in those days.