I am going to discuss some of my strategies that I use to pick stand locations on a new property. I would like to hear yours as well. I am always looking for something new to implement into my own strategies

First and foremost, for me it starts in the winter months as we all know winter shows the past seasons buck sign the best. Igo slow and try to take in as much as I can inthe area. I will even take notes along my wayin attempt tonot over look anything.I try and examine even the most miniscule sign and take note of it. I will use this information to determine whether this is an area I want to hunt in the futureor not.

I put most faith into the terrain and not so much on deer sign. Deer can and will roam most anywhere so sign basically only tells me there is / was deer in the area and to a degree the potential number andsize (based on track and rub size) of the bucks.

After going over the property and all the terrain features / signthe best I can, I move onto the key decision of most of my setups. This iswhen Iwill take everything I had seen (terrain andto a slight degree sign) and try to relate it to a common place.

Once I can relate and tie as many ofthese different areasto one specificsetup (using my observations along withaerial and topos maps) I know I usually have a hot spot. I feel by doing this I am putting myself in the common denominator of the particular set of woods I am hunting. I will then set stands to take advantage of the other areas of interest andthe different wind currents / thermals.

This is the gist of how I will setup on and hunt a new property for the first time. Next, I let the deer observations dictate the fine tuning of my stand placements.

Let's hear your strategy now!



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