I have read few books about hunting "down under" but I don't recall ever seeing a mention of using either the lean-to ladder type highseats or the free standing tower style?? What about the climbing tree stands favoured by our American friends? Anybody make or import them into Oz?

Regards,

Pete

Pete

I know of one goy locally who has one and several hog deer hunters who have them as well.

I imagine they imported them theirselves from the US. One is definitely homemade.

So No, I have not heard of any being available or imported.

Are you interested in trying?

While a good idea, I do not know how successful it would be as very few Australian's I believe have the patience to sit still in a stand long enough. Indeed one local hunter on sambar I know was claiming it was unethical to stand hunt sambar! Also with greater area and lesser population the safety factor of shooting in a highly populated area and knowing the safe shooting "lanes" or directions is not so acute.

Tell us more about your highseats.

Nitrox,



It was British service men who served in the British Army on the Rhine in post war germany who imported the notion of woodland stalking to the UK in thw 1950's and 60's.



Because of that our stalking lore is much closer to the Continental style than American practices.



One of these ideas we borrowed was the use of the higheat which takes the form of either high tower (think concenration camp towers!) or a wooden or metal ladder with a seat and shooting rail around the top. The picture below is ironically from cabela's but you get the idea...Ours are generally lower than the American versions with the shooting rail being at the 3.5m hight where as many American stands are 4.5m to 6m tall!







At best these seats can be thought of as "moveable" and tend to be put in one place for at least a season or two.



Lightweight ones based on folding aluminium ladders are available here however. These are usually German made, weigh around 15kg, and cost a fortune...�250 to �300 being the normal price range!



You could carry one of these in on a day hunt and set it up for an evening but I think its a lot of hassle. Last year I saw a folding aluminium ladder for sale of �35 and I bought it with the view of adding a seat and making one of these. I envisage seting it up on a Friday and leaving it in place for two or three days; I think that might be worth the hassle.



Our American friends have pioneered the use of climbing tree stands and like the idea of these, but of course you must have suitable tress on your hunting area.



Most I have seen are heavy at 15kg (no lighter than the folding ladder style) and quite bulky and complex bits of kit which just look un practical if you know what I mean.







However, there are a few designs such as the one below which are light and simple and look quite appealing. However because many are built by a smaller makers its hard to find anybody to give them honest reveiws based on expirience.







The stand above is light at 6kg but a somewhat radical design..Its also fairly expensive at �300, certainly too expensive to import to find the makers are really snake oil salesmen!



Regards,



Pete

Guys - I have to say that tree stand shooting has never caught on in New Zealand . I dont know a single person who has tried stand shooting here , so I guess we dont have the hunter per hectare population or the patience to sit still long enough . I suspect more of the latter , we like to cover as much ground as possible in a hunt , which may well be the reason for sore feet and no meat ...

There sure is some intrigueing (sp) equipment involved tho. I guess you need the bottle of deer piss to coat yourself in as well , although most Aussies in a tree stand would probably piss on themselves anyway....

Hey Muzza mate, come on, at least us aussie blokes root human females not f&%ken sheep mate we know the difference, you blokes put ya wellies on,slip on the old velcro gloves and away ya go, known around the bloody world mate, I was in a Bombay many years ago and heard kiwi jokes all night long at a local pub, but the funny side was they were all true...I love you bastards....Les

Well Muzza you opened tyour trap mate so i decided to post a pic of a typical friday night root in NZ hahahaa

Now Les ( thats not short for Les Bian is it ? ) we Kiwi blokes freely admit a preferance for sheep when we are in Australia. Lets face it , your sheep have much better personal hygeine standards than your sheilas , they kiss better , give better head , are far more adventurous , and to top it all , you can have an intelligent conversation with them after the marathon shag-a-thon has ended . Why , pray tell , would anyone want to shag an aussie chick after all that ? Unless of course , that was the best some
one with a microscopic willie such as yourself could do....

God , I love the international relationship we share - the spirit of Anzac and all that ...

Hang in there mate , one day you will appreciate the merits of a good merino ewe for yourself - after they get a bit old and ugly we give them back ....And besides , with your tree stand you will have the best seat in the house to watch and learn

Muzza,

And I thought it was just us welsh who were the butt of sheep jokes!

Anyways, getting back to the topic, I suspect that stands of one sort or another were/are popular in Europe and the UK simply because we don't have the same acreage to hunt over...For instance a mate of mine takes a handful of deer a year off a about 10 acres from highseats. He has permission to hunt just those ten acres and the only way you can really do that is using highseats.

Actually, highseats are a very effective tool for taking deer but as you say you do need patience to use them...

Regards,

Pete

The perfect tree stand should include a shitter, magazine rack, bar fridge, doona, small TV (with headphones of course, don't want to make a noise do we!)Smokey Dawson chair.....yep that should do it!

Oh, Pete, do you know why Kiwi horses run so fast?....They've seen what happens to the sheep

EWE GUYS ARE SOOO FUNNY

Muzza,

You have PM!

Regards,

Pete

Probably one reason tree stands are not used more here for deer is they are too hard to carry when jumping over the back fence in the middle of the night AND while you might have a great view in the middle of the day from one, the land owner probably will get a great view of you too.

Oops have I let a cat out of the bag!

'The perfect tree stand should include a shitter, magazine rack, bar fridge, doona, small TV (with headphones of course, don't want to make a noise do we!)Smokey Dawson chair.....yep that should do it!"

Bakesey you forgot to mention the flat headed sheila to gnaw on ya naana as well,why a flat head....somewhere to rest your stubby mate hahahahaaaaaaaaaa

Thats the ticket Mickey!!!

Gryph
I didn't forget her mate.......just wasn't going to tell you guys about her Flatheaded women are hard to find

Let the Yank who's stumbled into this forum say a word



I dont know anyone who hunts whitetail deer in my part of the US without using a stand. Stand hunting and deer hunting go together like, well like .30-06 and deer hunting. I actually know very little to nothing about stalking. Stalking is an exotic concept to most North Carolina deer hunters. I really dont see how someone could even do it, as the woods are covered in dry crunchy leaves during deer season ( I guess you could on a rainy day?). The open land isn't so open around here, usually just farmland or hay fields and almost all are bordered by trees. The deer rarely come in the open when the trees provide so much protection. So instead we get up in the wee hours of the morning, get in our stands before daylight, and wait there untill about 9:30 or 10am. Then go back about 4pm and stay untill dark. Hunting hours are from 30 minutes before sunrise untill 30 minutes after sunset (however its still somewhat light then).



I have been out to the American Southwest though, on the great praries where stalking is about the only way to hunt.



Climbing stands work great, most have straps so you wear them on your back like a backpack, then get to a tree. They especially work well on our tall and straight pine trees which dont have any low hanging limbs. Most hunters I know carry a small folding saw with them too if they do a lot of climbing stand hunting. They're also very handle for changing the lightbulb on outdoor telephone pole mounted floodlights



Hunting from a stand ensures there is a good backstop (the ground) to limit rifle projectile travel. It also gets up up, where deer rarely look, although in high pressure areas you will see deer that look up.



It also gives you a lot of time to think of everything. The eletrically heated rifle stock patent I saw on ebay was probably from someone who sat in a stand with cold hands.



However, one thing I semi-lament is the vast majority of whitetails shot in NC are over corn. Hunters pour out big (50-200 lbs worth) bags of corn on the ground, usually starting before the season and more and more as the season progesses and the corn crop comes in. They of course put these in easy shooting lanes from thier stand, and near known deer trails. Then the deer get in the rythem of coming to the corn pile to eat, and one day he gets shot over it. Stands and corn piles are also very very popular with the bowhunting crowd. In many states baiting like this is illegal.



Over the past few years people have been baiting for black bear with large (100-1000 lbs) blocks of sugar and candy. The bears were getting addicted to the candy, and many were suffering huge amounts of tooth decay and demostrated very abnormal traits. Then of course they were being shot as they went to feed on the candy blocks. So candy-baiting is now banned in my state.



Stalking seems rather impossible when the forest floor is covered in dry crunchy leaves and visilibility is from 20 to 150 yards depending on the type of forrest you're in. Much easier to sit over a known trail and let the deer come to you. That and running them with dogs is popular in some areas, and especially in the southern parts of our northern neighborstate, Virginia. The land there is much more open and flat, and baiting with corn and rifles are illegal for hunting. So running them with dogs and shooting them with slugs or buckshot is a very common method used there.

The current Guns and Game discusses high seats for sambar hunting. Thre is a manufacturer here in Australia according to the article.As I get older the mountains seem higher and steeper and the sambar have much better senses than me , so the idea of me staying still and letting the deer move around has merit.I wonder if there will be a change of hunting technique with less walking them up.
Mark

I don't think sambar from a tree stand would be that successful as there is not the deer per acre here like in the USA, it maybe different on private land in a few places.

I have hunted hog deer from a tree stand and now hunt from a hide 10' up also have another 3' up they are permanent so the deer are used to them. This year even had a small stag walk under neather the 10' hide while I was in it. Both hides have wooden floor, tin roof and solid benches to shoot from. 2 years ago made my longest shot on a hog deer 308yds from the hide. I still do some stalking as well. The hog deer hind in my signature was from the 10' hide 2003 with the xbow in the pic.

I've hunted hoggies from tree stands too.

About the only method that worked in that country and thick bush.

However these didn't have nice wooden floors, but did have wood boughs and forks in the branches where your foot could be wedged into etc. Used quite a few "antique" ones there too.

One of these portable ones would come in handy however the hoggies did look up a lot.

A friend of mine used to hunt out of the 2nd floor of a run down farm house

I think it's neat being up in the trees, looking the squirrels and birds eye to eye. Sometimes the game is so oblivious I just watch them and let them pass.

416SW,

What is the difference between hunting Sambar and Hog deer?

As to the difficulty in selecting a suitable site due to the low polulation density of sambar deer, I think that is important. To me, this aspect counters others who say treestand hunting is "easy" or "unethical". Selecting effective stand locations is a hunting skill as much as any other as is having the persistance and patience to stay on stand long enough to give it a go...

Regards,

Pete

Being a once removed Brit-I will chime in
I for one use a ladder stand locked to the tree anywhere between 15 to 20 ft up- with limbs around top of stand-
Self-climber stands are good but if you do a lot of hunting they can wear you out carrying them in an out each time- or you can get yourself a beach chair with arms and a set of shooter sticks [which can be carried in the chair case] this does not weigh much and is very portable-
I hunt the mountains of North Carolina, USA which gives a shooting range of feet to < 100 yards- also hunt in Tennessee [next state over to the west]-
shoots out to 400+yards that is where I use the chair

whtailtaker

Pete
The hog deer are in the coastal country, mostly flat, and mostly tee tree.
The sambar are mostly in the mountains.
Which is strange because in their native countries hog deer are from the foothills of the Himalayas, and the sambar are in the lowland swamps being chased by tigers.
The sambar have a greater home range than a hog deer (lack of food plants in the mountains), but both deer will readily move on if disturbed.
With sambar you are talking so many acres to the deer as opposed to the whitetail in the USA where it is so many deer to the acre.
On a nice sunny afternoon the hog deer will come out o feed and when the weather goes to crap they hide in thick cover, whereas the reverse is true for sambar, if it is raining go hunt sambar(this sambar info is from my mate who has shot over 100 sambar).
I have shot more than 30 hog deer while this doesn't sound a lot you are only allowed to shoot 2 a year, in the month of April, you get 1 stag tag and 1 hind tag, all my hog deer have been tagged.

416SW,

Thanks for that...how wide spread of these deer in Australia? Can the average Aussie hunter get a crack at them, or are they considered "specialised" hunting?

Regards,

Pete

Pete here's a site for you to check out

Australian Deer

There are hog deer in eastern vic, sambar in the mountains from Vic to Canberra and Coburg peninsula NT, fallow deer Tas, Vic and NSW. Reds Vic and NSW. Rusa NSW.
There are escapees all over the place and farms with deer in paddocks of over 1000 acres. There is a place in SA Brinkwater(spelling) it's either the guys name or the area I forget now, it's a huge property with all sorts of deer on it and originally it had very few boundry fences.
These are just the ones I know of but basically for sambar and hog deer Vic is the place to be, there is public land to hunt them on in Vic.

What is the difference between hunting Sambar and Hog deer?


One species occupies an incredible amount of area counted in the millions of acres the other (hoggies) a small coastal strip.The sambar deer is probably the premium antlered game of the world for sheer "huntability" and combined with its incredible ability to evade hunters in its home area its something i agree with...........generally speaking there are often many hunters with many of the other 5 species of deer on their walls but often not too many sambar stags as they are bloody hard to obtain in most cases.

gryphon
I have a mate the first time I took him sambar hunting he got a 23" stag, next couple of times he went by himself first trip saw hind not quick enough, second trip got a hind, third trip fired a shot but missed. Then he went up to Bahmah forest pig hunting for a week saw lots of sign got one small pig, next pig trip saw no pigs. You'll like this he then made the statement "sambar hunting is easier than pig hunting"
Well I guess for him it's true not long after he moved to Darwin and hasn't bothered hunting since.
Not that I've done a great many trips but I'm yet to get one.
Always have a chuckle to myself when I remember his comment, when I tell other hunters they look at me funny

So other than my mate that would disagree with you about sambar being "the premium antlered game of the world for sheer "huntability"" I would tend to agree with you.

True about the hunting area, unsure about Hoggies easier to get, only if you've got access to private land or are a poaching bastard. On private land it can be as easy as shooting rabbits. Now if you quote me please include whole sentance

Thanks for the explanation gents...

I think all things considered,you guys have actually got some of the best hunting in the world between Oz and New Zealand!

Regards,

Pete