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What could you be doing that your not doing?

redblood said:
what is the attraction of ladder stands? i have never understood it. they are big, cumbersome, obvious to sight and almost impossible to get high enough. i am amazed so many people like them so much.
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The are easier, quieter, faster, and safer to climb in and out of. They are roomier, more comfortable, and safer to hunt from.

Yes, they are easier to spot, but I continue to be shocked at how little deer care about them (until they've been hunted from too many times, then deer avoid them).

Lack of elevation has never been a problem.

They are also much more cumbersome and difficult to transport and put up. But for me, the positives outweigh the negatives. We try to overcome the negatives (lack of mobility) by having a lot of ladder stands up so that each stand gets hunted little during a given year. Then we move 1/3 to 1/2 of them every year. A pain in the butt yes, but worth it to us.
 
BSK said:
The are easier, quieter, faster, and safer to climb in and out of. They are roomier, more comfortable, and safer to hunt from.
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i feel much safer and comfortable in my summitt than any ladder stand i have been in.
 
I love my summit viper Stik! I sleep better in it than I do my own bed. That reminds me of something else that would help me. I could stay awake more. LOL
 
I could stay out of the woods a lot more during summer and leading up to opening day,but I love checking my camera! I normally don't see the mature deer I get pics of anyway so I figure I might as well enjoy getting the pics.
 
1. Not listen to what everyone else thinks or "knows" about when the rut is going on in my area. What is happening on my farm is totally different than some farms just a few miles away. (Note: This isn't a jab at anyone here, but is for the locals that hang out at the local butcher's and sporting goods shops that claim when the rut is over or hasn't started yet).

2. Not overpressure my buck cruising stands during bow season.

3. Hunt other areas on my small 27 acre farm that have been traditionally dead areas.

4. Hunt as much as possible during the cold days during the week of Christmas.
 
Football Hunter said:
I hate to say it,but probably hunt less.Or at least find a few other places to hunt and not pressure my place so much before Nov.
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i think that is one of the biggest problems many hunters have. they dont leave prime areas alone until prime time. i have gotten much better about it, but when i was in my teens and early 20's i had to be hunting, even when the time was not right.i believe bow hunters are the biggest offenders.
 
I also do not use climbing stands, I know they give you more options but I am just not comfortable climbing any longer. I have 6 laser stands on the property I hunt. I share the property with another hunter who does not get the opportunity to hunt as much as I do. I need to careful not to over hunt the property. I really need to find a second place to hunt. I have just been lazy and haven't looked.
 
I'm getting better at not hunting my prime areas until prime time but still need some tweaking. I really ought to hunt more afternoon hunts than I do at present. I've seen some good bucks on the few occassions I have afternoon hunted.

Since I can't do any scouting until just before season starts I need to be more careful in the way that I do it. It seems that I'm discovering areas about the same time the bucks are moving into them during the rutting phase and I need to be more careful in how I go about hanging my stand.
 
This yr I have a great big buck stand that I plan to leave unhunted till November. I also am goin to pic bucks from 3 or 4 locations on the property as opposed to being narrow minded, obsessing on one deer, and pounding one area over and over. This led to making me very frustrated last season. This yr I am also goin to take a leaf blower and make paths to my favorite locations from the correct wind direction,to help me get to and from stands undetected. I am also goin to try and be more strategic with my camera placement....
 
Headhunter said:
Andy, yes, but I am for what I believe would benefit the deer, not myself and that is for sure a shorter gun season.
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If you truly believe a shorter gun season will benefit the deer, then why do you continue to hunt every day or parts of every day? I am having a hard time grasping that you truly believe, or care, it will benefit the deer, but you continue to hunt and pressure the deer more and more with each passing day of the season. My gut feeling is you think it will benefit you in the long run as mature bucks with big racks will be more abundant, thus increasing your odds of reaching your goal, that is harvesting a big racked mature buck. I was raised to practice what you preach and I am having a hard time seeing this in your approach when I reread your posts. :confused:
 
Andy, I do not know you but you seem to be interested. Why do I hunt all the days that are open for gun hunting even though I TRULY BELIEVE AND IN MY OPINION AM POSITIVE that a shorter gun sesaon would be better for the deer herd? First, becasue I love to hunt, I love to just be in the woods, at anytime for however long that may be. Second, if I did not hunt all through the season I would hear is I do not know what I am talking about because I am not in the woods hunting during the part of the season I believe needs to cut out so how can I have an opinion.

In my personal experiences (there have been many of them, I have been very blessed to hunt a few really nice places and help cull does on many places) and there is no doubt the effect guns have on deer and with the difficulty of terrain in much of Tennessee gun pressure really turns our deer into vampires, also the does as well as bucks. I guarantee you when you start truly killing does and I mean culling to get the population down to whatever level is deemed necessary, they become as hard to kill as bucks. I love it when I am told by someone they could kill does every single day of the season, but they never shoot any. Start culling does and see how consistently they show up.

Andy, I beyond the shadow of a doubt believe some changes could help our deer herd. I could care less what someone kills, but with so many hunters and so much pressure it makes no sense to allow someone to kill 3 young bucks in one season. At a minimum, there should be a restriction on the second and third bucks (NEVER on the first one) of some kind to protect young bucks, even a little and to help kill more does. I know not all of the state can do this but the majority could.
 
Do you believe a longer gun season is detrimental to deer? If so, use facts from TN to illustrate and support your position. You cannot use the words "KY, or any other state" since we are dealing only with TN.

Use may use the back if you need more room :)
 
Headhunter said:
Andy, I do not know you but you seem to be interested.
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I am interested in the truth, whether it be for the benefit of the deer herd or purely self-serving. I have no problem with either as we are all entitled to our opinions and ways of thinking, but in the end, I like to know where the truth lies.

Headhunter said:
Why do I hunt all the days that are open for gun hunting even though I TRULY BELIEVE AND IN MY OPINION AM POSITIVE that a shorter gun season would be better for the deer herd? First, becasue I love to hunt, I love to just be in the woods, at anytime for however long that may be. Second, if I did not hunt all through the season I would hear is I do not know what I am talking about because I am not in the woods hunting during the part of the season I believe needs to cut out so how can I have an opinion.
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I see where you are coming from but I still would personally put more stock in your agenda if you practiced what you preached. Again, this is just how I perceive your true intentions; it may or may not be a fair assessment of them, but it is my assessment based on what I have read here (not just this post, all of the others you have been a part of).

Headhunter said:
I guarantee you when you start truly killing does and I mean culling to get the population down to whatever level is deemed necessary, they become as hard to kill as bucks. I love it when I am told by someone they could kill does every single day of the season, but they never shoot any. Start culling does and see how consistently they show up.
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I agree 100%. I have lived it at Ames where I hunt. Starting in 2005, we were advised to shoot 1 doe per 100 acres which equals 180 does over 18,600 acres. We punished them for several years, to the tune of 200-235 does a few consecutive years, and then we scaled it back to 180 then down to 165 or so last year. The effect was noticeable in some places, but not all places. One could hunt the typical places he or she had in the past (easy 10-20 minute walk to stand, readily hunted areas, easily accessible ) and see very few does in daylight, and basically zero in wide open fields until the last 10-15 minutes of light. However, if one would put the time in to get deep and off the beaten path, voila, the doe sightings would be at or above pre-pressure sightings, in the daylight. These places were not the easiest places to access, but if one did, deer and doe sightings would be good to great depending on weather and time of season.

Headhunter said:
Andy, I beyond the shadow of a doubt believe some changes could help our deer herd.
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Possibly, but at what expense to everything else?

Headhunter said:
I could care less what someone kills, but with so many hunters and so much pressure it makes no sense to allow someone to kill 3 young bucks in one season.
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I am surprised to hear that you know for certain several hunters who truly kill three young bucks in a single season. As I have previously stated in other posts, I cannot for the life of me name one deer hunter who has killed 3 bucks in one season, even if I look back over the last decade. I talk with a lot of hunters in the fall, mainly from west TN and a few from middle TN. Do you really know this assertion you are making to be true or do you just think a lot of people kill 3 young bucks every season?

Headhunter said:
At a minimum, there should be a restriction on the second and third bucks (NEVER on the first one) of some kind to protect young bucks, even a little and to help kill more does. I know not all of the state can do this but the majority could.
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I do not feel this way and here is why. All of the more seasoned guy/gals I know set self-imposed goals that rarely allow for more than one buck to be taken, sometimes two in a season, if they are lucky. All of the newbie deer hunters (less than 5 years deer hunting) I know and talk deer hunting with kill one buck in the fall just to get the monkey off his/her back and blood on their hands, and then they either wait for a bigger buck (bigger than the first one) or one they will mount (115" or bigger for most). This self-imposed limit, plus their relative newness to the game of deer hunting sometimes keeps them from tagging a second buck, and as I have stated, I do not know one who has shot three in a single season. Furthermore, most of these newbies are looking for a 6 point or better to be their first kill, which further pushes the odds of protecting the 1.5 year old cohort. In summary, I just do not see or hear of all these deer hunters slaying young bucks, and not a single hunter killing three young'uns a year for consecutive years as you claim in many of your posts.

I often times wonder if the big differences we see/experience and debate here are region related? Is one group of hunters in a particular area practicing trigger restraint at a higher rate than hunters in another area? I do not know for sure, but I am starting to think so. Furthermore, I am not passing judgement on either preference, just trying to better understand the huge disparities in preferences/behaviors/etc us hunters across the state are seeing and thus debating.
 

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