Alright, another long winded post but bear with me.

Keep in mind I can use the property to the north of this for access to my hunting, but I can't hunt on it.

Alright, once again........
[ul][*]Large pink dots are current stand locations[*]Large yellow dots are spots trimmed to put up a ground blind when the wind is right[*]Small red dots are apple trees[*]Green dots are foodplots that have different seed types and produce forage summer/fall/winter[*]Blue outlined areas are known bedding areas[*]Orange is property line[*]Light blue is an old logging/access road that runs the bottom of that sidehill[/ul]


The two stands furthest southwest were already covered in my last post.....just as reference.

The stand furthest northwest is in an open patch of mature oaks that is right between a very thick 25 year old patch of hemlocks (west)and stream crossing (east). That patch of hemlocks is polluted with rubs of massive size that are seriously in excess of 10". Everytime I hunt that stand I get winded.....I want to move it to somewhere that won't happen. The wind usually blows towards the northeast there and they come from the east and wind me everytime headed in the direction of that bedding patch right next to the main road. I have not seen any big bucks there but the sign is there and I know I am not seeing them because the wind is wrong. Lots of sightings there but I know it can be hunted more effectively. I stopped hunting it 2nd week this year because I knew I was just educating them. I usually hunt it mornings. They are in those hemlocksEVERY time it rains or the weather is bad. Any thoughts on this patch would be appreciated.

The stand just east of the yellow blind location. This is VERY close to where Buckeye put his white dot for an area that bucks run does. He was spot on. I shot my 6 point this year there and while I was gutting him a HUGE chocolote horned 3.5 year old ran a doe within 30 yards of me.........[8D][:@]. There are scrapes in the VERY thick stuff there all over the place that appear in the same spots everyyear including one that remained open all winter/spring/summer/fall in 06 that was big as a car hood. I have only hunted this spot once because I try not to stir it up too much, but plan to save it for late Oct/early Nov next year.Ihaven't pressured this at all outside of the rut and only hunted it once this year. It is perfectly between the 2x most heavily used bedding areas on the property and there is a huge creek crossing there as well where they come from the north fields headed to bed in the mornings. IMHO one of the best rut stands on the property but time will have to prove that I guess.

The stand that is on the north side of the creek closest to thewhite spot Buckeye picked is a good condition wooden ladder stand that trespassers built before I posted it in 2005. I haven't hunted it but have found stands of theirs in other locations that were good producers. It is on a good crossing for the stream and I may hunt it as an evening stand in early season next year to see what happens there.

The stand furthest northeast on the property just inside the woods off the field has never been hunted and was hung in summer 06'. I have glassed several bachelor groups of bucks in that little piece of field we own including one that looked nice from about 800 yards away. Lots of rubs in there and a nice little draw coming up out of the creek that funnels them into a staging areathere just by the stand. Wind should usually be right, but I have to hunt it I guess and see what happens there. Lots of oaks there too.

The stand furthest east on the south side of the creek has been called "the sweet spot". There is a major crossing there that looks like a cowpath plus it is VERY close to a bedding area that is polluted with lots of rubs that is so thick you can't see more than 10 yards unless you are on your hands and knees. It is young hemlocks. I only hunted this 2x including 1x evening sit on opening day in the evening back in 05' where I saw about 15 deer including a 2.5 year old buck. The second time I hunted it was a morningsit andI saw nothing.

The two stands in the furthest southeast corner of theproperty justnorth and south of the foodplot are awesome stands for killing does and I bet will produce a good buck someday. The one just north of the foodplot has produced tons of sightings 1.5-2.5 year old bucks and all sorts of doe family groups. APAJaws killed 2x does there this year and one morning had 4x different bucks (all 1.5-2.5) chasing does in front of him like something out of a movie. The deer move through this spot leaving the neighbors plots to the east on their way to the bedding area just to the west of the stand. This is an awesome producer, and an area Davidmil highlighted as well. During normal wind conditions it blows wind right off the side of the sidehill so they never pick you off or wind you there. This spot has been hunted quite a bit but no one has ever been winded or picked off there that we know. The other stand just south of this is coined the "Taj Mahal" where we have a permanent stand built in and where most of my game cam pics have been taken. They use this as staging to go into the neighbors field before dark as it is an oak flat there. They move through there all day long and this produces more deer sightings than any other stand on the property. No big buck sightings but a great doe killing stand and out of 30+ sits in the last 2x years someone has seen an antlered deer every time except for 2. This is my dads favorite napping spot and he hunts it hard so I dont sit there often at all.

I actually screwed up and didn't cut that patch out of the property line, the neighbor actually owns that andkilled a nontypical 17 point buck that grossed in the 160's back in 2003 right there with a rifle.

It is fun to hunt but we are still figuring it out and I don't have the time to put in to really learn it as fast as I want because it is a 4 hour road trip and you can't hunt Sundays. This is good because everything (except my dads Taj Mahal stand) is unpressured when I get there, but bad because I still don't have the bigger buckspatterned 100% even after 2x years. The neighbors w/ plots to the east practice QDMA and have produced 2x bucks of P&Y class in the last 5 years during rifle season, and I haveglassed deer during off season that are 120" and better. I have had a handful of encounters with good bucks too but haven't closed the deal yet. In reality I should have passed the 6 I shot this year but decided to take him because of how the hunt unfolded and how perfect the scenario was.

Any other thoughts are great........I appreciate the help.