I’ve hung a stand at 3 PM and bagged a big buck at 6. I then went back to that same tree, put my stand up at 3 PM the same day next year and bagged a bigger one by 3:30. The truck was parked less than 100 yards away. Go figure.

That is not to say that you should not be careful. Back in the old days, when I hunted a 1st weekend in October bow opener, I used to do all my preparations over Labor Day weekend. That was still when I hunted with a climber. I would get in, prune limbs and cut my shooting lanes.

Now that I’m hunting out of heavy buddy-style ladder stands, I generally start work on a new stand site in August. July is usually too hot. However, I did set one in late September once and had shots at deer the following weekend and two in the freezer from that stand by Thanksgiving.

There is a huge difference between hunting an area that is nearly devoid of deer and one that is crawling with the critters. In the former case, it will seem like everything you do will have an adverse effect. If you honk off just one deer, that may be it for the season. In the latter, it will seem like you can do no wrong. In reality, neither is true. Some individuals will get wind of what you are up to and make themselves scarce. However, when facing a larger herd, you have more opportunities to screw up.

How can this be true? First off, deer don’t talk, and better yet they leave no written messages. If one deer gets wise and leaves, it creates a vacuum that another deer may attempt to fill. There is nothing to tell the other deer why the first one left. Second, deer do not reason well. There are deer that know I am up in that stand. They have looked up and seen me. However, I do not appear immediately dangerous. Therefore, they go back to feeding. In some cases, I have shot deer and had their buddies linger about trying to hoover up acorns.

This differs tremendously from the impression you get when herd sizes are small and hunting pressure is light. If you have staked out the honey hole, and a doe comes by and busts you. She’s gone. She leaves and goes to the other honey hole she knows and you don’t. She takes the bucks with her. It is tag soup for you. Without any competition from other deer, individuals will go where there is the least stress.

Based on all this, when would I suggest setting a stand? If you are in an area with high density, you may find deer coming out to watch you set the stand on November 11, and be so enraptured that they stay there long enough for you to shoot them. If there are few deer, high hunting pressure, and little in the way of mast to attract them, I would go in sometime last April.

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