Okay, I've got a question for you experienced tree stand hunters:

I've done more than my share of hunting, but almost all of it has been within 6' 4" of the ground. Two things I've learned over the years are: 1. A single experience doesn't count for hardly anything AND 2. What you see on TV and DVD's has very little to do with reality.

But in my ONE experience hunting from a tree stand a few years ago I had a buck (the only deer I saw from the tree) spot me instantly. He probably wouldn't have spotted me nearly as quickly if I was on the ground. That was the first few minutes of ML season in NE KS on private property so the deer hadn't been pressured for nearly a year. The stand was about 15' up in an oak on the edge of a milo field. I was careful to only slowly move my head. The wind was good and I was in camo (as I recall an orange vest was required), but that buck had me completely pegged from the earliest point he could have possibly seen me through the vegetation at about 100 yards.

While I ended up getting him (by hanging out of the back of the tree and shooting across a draw as he was going out), being up in that tree sure didn't seem like an advantage.

Obviously those TV shows aren't real life, but often those goof-balls are yapping with their camera man, moving around, mugging for the camera, pointing, waving, etc. with oblivious deer right under them.

Did I encounter a bit smarter buck or do the TV shows just cut the film of all the deer they spook off? Should the stand have been higher (there were some limbs around me but not a lot)?

All I do is sit in a deer stand. We have different types but I would say that they average 10-12 ft high. I believe you may have encountered a smarter than usual buck, or the wind could've been wrong or he noticed movement or a shape that was unusual to the area. I hunt some very pressured deer and have found that if I sit still and the wind is in my favor that they will walk by and not care.
I have also brought friends with to sit in my stand with me and found that we can whisper to each other and the deer don't know the difference. In my experience the TV shows aren't that far off from reality with the amount of talking that can be done without ruining a hunt, but it is a fact that a ton of editing and acting after the shot takes place to make it appear as if it was done before the shot.
Thats just my 2 cents but hunting out of deer stand is my favorite method of hunting deer.

I do most all of my hunting for whitetails out of tree stands. I enjoy the enhanced visibility the height provides, and have found that most deer do not spot me. As a rule I am generally 20ft or higher in the tree. I found that with lower stands I was being spotted on a more regular basis than in my higher stands so I made a change to all 20ft or higher stands.

The angles on the shots are obviously steeper with my bow, but I practice quite a bit from the height I hunt and have no problems.

Being a bow hunter, I have to be able to move enough to get back to full draw with out being spotted and the height helps there too. As well, I am not the best at being still in a stand and I have found that fidgeting is not well tolerated on the ground. The big guy I shot this year didn't spot me and I had to move around a bunch and position myself to shoot in a direction I was not planning to have to fling an arrow. Neither he, nor the young buck or the doe spotted me and I was in a 20ft stand. Here is the link to photos of him..

http://forums.accuratereloadin...3411043/m/1711093341

This year I had 12 bucks within 30yards of my tree, and I am convinced that the reason I see more deer than my hunting buddies is that they are morons.

Just kidding, but not about the morons part. I think it is because I am a good bit higher than they are and that the few that hunt on the ground have more issues with scent control.

I have filmed a decent bit of deer action from a tree as well and I have found that even with the exaggerated movements of getting the camera up and ready, moving around filming them, and then putting down the camera and picking up a bow to draw and shoot; a deer that doesn't come in warily looking around, and occasionally up, as though he has some indication I am there, is not going to spot me. Even whispering to clients or buddies doesn't seem to draw much attention. However, you drop an arrow off of your rest that clangs against the riser of your bow, or you move and your stand makes a metal on metal creek, the jig is up and usually gone!

That's my $0.02 on tree stands and height, and it comes from a decent bit of experience.

I also have done most of my hunting from trees over the past 25 years or so here in the Tennessee hardwoods. You are not invisible up there, but if you pick your tree carefully, with attention to the wind, and you try to find enough surrounding limbs (or a nearby tree) to break up your outline you will see many more un-alarmed deer, & they will be closer to you than hunting from the ground. You still have to stay alert, minimize movement & scent, & in general hunt carefully, but the tree stand is invaluable in many hunting situations. I prefer still hunting in high winds, & will sit on the ground in steep terrain with lots of "scrub cover", but prefer trees in most other situations.

Rather than write a long winded essay on hunting from tree stands, I'll cut it down and just say I think the problem was that from 100 yards away you lost your height advantage. At that distance the angles flatten out so that you were in his line of sight as if on the ground and therefore he spotted you. I've personally had that happen on out even farther where you'd never think they could make you.

I'm not going to get all long winded either but I will say I hunt 100% from a tree in my home state of Missouri and if I cant get 20/25' high I won't hunt that spot.

I use steps or a stick with hang on stands and I feel you must get up above the main trunk and into the limbs to break your outline.

I hunt exclusively in tree stands. I've had deer mosey in under my stand without them ever noticing me and I've had them pick me up and leave me wondering what the hec I did wrong. The beauty of hunting I guess.

I truly believe it's mostly about their nose. They pick up your scent even when you think the wind is in your favor. Also they have keen eyesight so if they see an object that's strange they will focus in on that object.

The advantage of hunting in a tree stand for bow hunting is far greater than gun hunting. But overall, I believe the advantage is greater in a tree stand than on the ground.

Again, just my .02.

I put my Tree stands about 20 feet up and try to get in natural cover(Pine boughs)Very seldom do I hunt the same stand two days in a row.I have about 15 stands on my property and use them according to currant wind conditions.If one stand is used often Deer can be conditioned to look at it.

The higher the better. My stands are 18ft or higher. Some days you can shoot and reload a muzzle loader in the tree without spooking the remaining whitetails. Other days they walk out and look right at the stand to see if your up there.

Some of the things you see on TV are probably fake or atleast things didn't happen just the way they are shown. However, I think more and more of them today versus a few years ago are real and the hunters do a very good job. One thing you will notice on the better shows, like a lot of other people have stated, is that their stand sets are very high and have good cover. Some people really like hunting from high up and some do not. Also remeber deer will learn your spots and look for a hunter in them if they are hunted regular. I try and only hunt my best spots a few times a year and only when the conditions are perfect, and I belive my chances are very good to see something in that particular area.

I hunt whitetails almost exclusively from treestands (I'm only on the ground when hunting with one of my young sons) which range in height from 12-20 feet. I prefer to put them either up against a tree as wide as I am or which has surrounding branches/trees that help break up my outline. Being up in a tree that is out in the open takes away most of the advantages of being up in the air.
I will say that if you are a bow hunter, there is a balance you have to strike between height and shot angle. If you are 20 feet up and the deer is 10 feet from the bottom of your tree, that is a pretty tough shot with a bow.
Scent also has a huge role to play in things. If you leave scent on the steps/ladder or on the ground and a really twitchy deer comes by and gets a whiff of that, you may not get a shot. I always wear gloves going up or coming down to cut down on scent. I also am a firm believer in rotating my stands as much as possible.

But sometimes you do come a cross a deer that has been educated somehow to hunters being in trees and you get busted. That's part of what makes killing a mature whitetail with a bow so difficult.

Thanks for the advice, I think those comments should help a lot of people. Reading this makes me think I probably should have been higher, although my background was broken up well with other trees. Shack probably has a point too that the 100 yards to the deer probably took away some of the advantage of the height. I really doubt it was scent because the wind was correct.

At any rate, it was interesting to try that style of hunting.

For what we do in this part of the west tree stand hunting would be ludicrous because the animal density is so low and the country is so big. It probably also depends on how you were brought up, but to me spot-and-stalk is where the excitement is. To sit in a tree long enough for an animal to come by in much our hunting areas wouldn't be the best use of a hunters time. I've always said if I'm hunting 4,000 acres I want to glass all 4,000 every morning and again every evening, but it's a very different type of hunting.

If I'm in an area where tree stand hunting is common again I realize 20'+ up is a better plan.

Thanks.

Our tallest trees are 10' tall so being high up is not an option. I bow hunt from 8' tripods and do not get busted from deer 3-4 yards away. It all comes down to movement, scent control and concealment. Movement being the most crucial. I break up my back drop by stuffing cut limbs into the limbs of the tree I am in. I do the same for what's in front making sure to leave a shooting lane or 2. When the deer start showing up you have to be very still. A lot of the times deer will walk up behind you and you don't know they are there.

I would bet you scratched your...nose, and he saw you before you saw him. When he walked out you had already been pegged.

Perry

I've never tried the adding cut limbs to my tree, but in our area that wouldn't be necessary. What I have done is try and "herd" the deer in a certain direction by placing limbs and brush on the ground around the stand to encourage them to go one way instead of some other..

Hey Kyler, Have a buddy sit in the Stand, if you can "easily" see him, then the Deer will spot it immediately - unless they are being chased. With the advent of Digital Cameras, it is easy to get flicks of the Stand(s) from various directions(with someone in it wearing full camo) and decide what can be done to improve the concealment.

The Height depends on where you have it placed. You can get too high and only be able to see a few yards from the bottom of the Stand. Plus if you go too high and the wind comes up, it will have you swaying so much that a "well placed" shot is impossible.

However, I do like to be way up high when the Stand is edging a crop field and the wind is down.

Good Hunting and clean 1-shot Kills.

I like to have a tree stand that is a minimum of 15', but preferably 20' and not just out in the open but concealed within branches of the tree it is in or concealed by branches of other trees around it. You need to have some shooting lanes, but not so many that it's easy for the game to pick you out in the stand. You may have to wait patiently for a shot to present itself, but in so doing you will be concealed much better. I like to have two stands in each area I plan to hunt so I can hunt whichever one of them keeps me in the best position in the wind. The stand needs to be large and comfortable enough that you can stay there for considerable lengths of time without becoming too weary. Proper stands in proper locations just can't be beat for whitetail deer hunting.

Here's where this really gets tricky, and that's where you're mainly a handgun or other short range hunter and therefore have to get close to a deer. That puts a different perspective on concealment, height, cover etc.

I'm not claiming to have any great answers here, except that it does give you something to consider in picking which area, back in the woods or on a field's edge, what kind of tree, how thick a tree, how high, and maybe above all, how close to the deer trail.

You have to have good cover for a treestand to work properly. There's really no point in using a stand unless you either need to be high for close range hunting(archery) or you need the height to see more ground.

On the TV show note, they film most of the show after the kill. I didn't know that until a show asked to film me in Texas last year. That's why it always appears there are several cameras and the guys are talking in a normal voice. They film the kill, then the show gets filmed.

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