When do you hunt your best stands?

[nybuckboy]

Just curious... we all have what we feel are good stand sites or we would not have bothered to set them up. There are certain criteria by which stands are judged.

Some stands are based on a good scouting and/or gut feelings... some stands because they have been proven winners over a few seasons.

So the question is:

When do you like to hunt your best stands?

and why?

[phade]

One piece of ground is a transition between mutiple food and bedding sources and it gets heavy traffic. We keep it clean until Halloween weekend.

[gjs4]

Should be a no brainer of an answer;

When the conditions are right.

RIght wind for entry/exit/stand..right deer movement...cnat forecast the time of the year.....hunting the chase phase of the rut is easy to see deer but rather hard to kill a mature buck.... but i guess thta all goes back to what youre after....

[WNYBuckHunter]

When the conditions are right.

RIght wind for entry/exit/stand..right deer movement...cnat forecast the time of the year.....hunting the chase phase of the rut is easy to see deer but rather hard to kill a mature buck.... but i guess thta all goes back to what youre after....

What gjs said. I dont have a best stand, I have stands (or locations) for different wind conditions. You should have at least two stands per huntable feature so that you can hunt the area with different wind directions. Its not always possible to do, but it is ideal if you can.

[wdswtr]

I have one stand in particular that is setup a little to close to a bedding area but it produces for me when I follow a couple simple rules. If in the bow season I play the weather and hunt it when the winds are right and there is a predicted rain soon after. I watch the radar before I go out to that stand when rains are predicted. I want to leave little sent behind and hope the rain helps wash that away or dilute it. Rest of my stands based on wind direction time of day feeding habits rutting activity and of course the stand that go in with me and come out with me puts me anywhere I want if the others dont feel right.

[Doc]

There are a lot of things that run through my mind when selecting a stand on any particular day. Most of the criteria has to do with what is going on with the deer at that particular time of the season. There are times about mid season and beyond when they are somewhat concentrated in the oaks munching on acorns. Other times they stay more in the valley eating whatever green stuff that's around. Bedding areas change throughout the season as foliage disappears. And then there is the effect of the early stages of the rut. There are certain stands that are set up in areas of traditional heavy rut activity. I also do some careful limited in-season scouting that might prompt me to choose stands in certain areas.

Small game season activity has become increasingly more of an impact on stand selection. There is also some hiking and biking activity that can force me to choose other areas. I hunt primarily state land, so my site selection is not always under my control.

Needless to say, no stand is ever used when the wind is wrong. That is a factor that is not only about the immediate stand location, but is also effected by where I expect deer to be coming from, and also how I might be forced to approach the stand. Sometimes the difference between apple trees bearing or not will have an effect on the selections of stands. I have also had situations where rain conditions would inundate my stand location or occasionally shut off access. Excessive rain is something that can shift bedding areas also which then effects which stand I might choose.

So it's not only a case of whether a stand is my "best stand" or not. There are all kinds of other influences that come into play with stand selection. It's more of a case of selecting the "best stand" for the situations of that particular day.

[G-Man]

i have a lot of stands, some are great early bow season, others are better later into nov, i have opening day gun stands, i guess my best stand is huntable in any wind direction on any day if you want a deer, it has had 57 deer taken from it since 1996. its 27 feet high 6 ft wide and 12 ft long. its my usual invited guest stand as long as there not afraid of hights

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[Fantail]

The approach to one of my stands is extra slow if the ground/leaves are dry. And so it kinda makes sence to hit it in the am or after a shower so hopefully I don't get patterned.

[Geno C]

i am going to slip into my stand where we have some nice bucks opening weekend... hoping to catch a big boy doing what hes been doing the past few weeks.

[CNYScott]

Moving my best stand this weekend - two years ago an adjacent tree fell against it and stripped a lot of bark off of my tree. It has slowly died and hardened since, but now seems to be getting a bit brittle and just isn't deemed safe. I got a nice 8-point buck from it last year, and a total of five deer in the last four years from it. There is no other suitable tree in that area so it kills me to give it up. I'm scouting a little deeper into the thick stuff and will be forced to cut a narrow trail to get to where I'm moving to with anything resembling noise control. The good news is that the location will put me closer to some big boys.

[First-light]

My best stand gets hunted the first weekend we are up at camp. It's a funnel and if conditions are right you see a ton of deer from it. Doesn't matter what time of season.