This may sound a bit silly to some of you that hunt large parcels of land, butplease hear me out.

I use ladder stands and don't usually move them around much from season to season. I hunt a small parcel of posted land and basically just have them setup so I can pick and choose depending on the wind direction. The small aspect is working against me and has become a major contributing factor in recent years as they keep developing the land surrounding the property.

Theissue I'm running into is that every time I move a stand and cut an access trail to it the deer take it over as their own. In as little as a fewweeks in some cases. So come opening day I have to walk down what's now a major deer trail to get to my stand.

I do my best to use scent control but as soon as I set foot on the trails the mature deer hit the bricksand I end up spending the rest of the season watching yearlings walk by. So basically my stands are almost turning into one shot deals now if I want to take a mature deer.

Has anyone else run into this? Any suggestions?

--> Let me clarify a few questions some of you may have.

- I don't use climbers for personal reasons.
- The property is behind my folk's house and once the leaves drop you can glass portions of a lot of the trails. This is one reason I know the mature deer are hitting these trails.
- They're not skipping out as part ofa regular patternbecause instead of trail A they'll just move to trail B once I've hit trail A. Which is why my stands are one shot deals.
- I do get the occasional rut buck seeking out some hot does once the dominant buck(s) have eventually gone nocturnal because of my presence.
- Health conditions now keep me from a sunrise-sunset stand hunt.
-Cutting my way in on opening day to avoid them taking over the trail before the season isn't an option.
-Last but not least,I've been hunting these deer for so long now that I think they scout and pattern me instead of the other way around.

And as a disclaimer, I'm not complaining. Just looking for advice. I know there are people out there who don't even have an opportunity to sit and see deer, yearlings or otherwise. I know there are people out there who don't have their own private parcel of land to hunt on. And I know there are people out there who would probably love to have this problem.