Alright, there's a spot on our property that has been screaming at me to give it a whirl this fall. I've never hunted it, but it's a textbook-looking pinch point/funnel that splits a cornfield in two. A few of you pointed it out as being a location I should be paying attention to when I last posted an aerial of my property. So I went up today, and found two possible locations, and cleared shooting lanes for each. When I get around to ordering my climbing sticks, the stands will go in, and I need to pick one of the two locations. So, first, let me start you off with an aerial of the location, and a brief description of what I've found scouting this winter.



Ok, the "finger" in the center of the image is the spot I'm refering to. You'll notice that it splits two cornfields apart, and the strip is only about 10-15 yards wide. Corn is in again this year (mind you this is about the 7th year with this particular crop rotation, so deer have had plenty time to adjust. Anyways, the two red dots indicate my two potential stand locations. They are also only about 15 yds apart, but this is why I'm torn between the two. My goal this year is to hunt spots that ONLY give me solid entry/exit routes. I've never worried about this before, and I've payed the consequences every year busting a deer leaving my stand or climbing down.

The white lines indicates a trail I cleared last spring, and after monitoring it with a Cam last year and scouting the area, deer have begun using this as a main trail into the corn fields (the area surrounding the trail is very thick and overgrown). The green line indicates what's left of an old sheep fence that runs along the top off a steep ridge. The point where the white line and green line intersect is where the fence is down, and obviously deer are crossing at this point heavily. I don't want to set a stand up here for one major reason: No good exit route, and not a very good entry route, as the deer are very likely to cross my path that I came in on, as they work their way into one of the corn fields. So that left me with the two red dot locations. The red line is an entry/exit route I cut/cleared this afternoon to allow me to slip in and out of the stand, keeping brush on both sides of the path, and not ever have to enter/scent the corn field. Right now I'm leaning toward the northerly dot ONLY for the reason that I think I can slip out of this one a little better, because of the fact that I'm a bit north of where the deer seem to be entering either corn field, whereas the southerly red dot is right on top of a major entry route for both fields. If a straggler (most likely a nice buck decides to enter right after legal shooting time when I'm coming down, I'm liable to be busted, wheras the other stand location keeps me close enough to the activity, yet far enough away to slip in and out indetected.

My only issue is that I will be hunting this when the corn is standing, so the the Notherly stand may not always present me with a shot as deer slip into the fields. That's where I'm hung up right now. What are your thoughts?