The president of my club just called me and let me know that one of his portable stands has been stolen off our private property. Lets see, thats at least 10 stands in the last 3 years. One of our members has lost 5 stands. I'm thinking its someone from a neighboring property. We found one of our stands behind a neighboring farm house a couple of days after it was stolen-that was about 3 years ago. I knocked on the door after we found it and the guy living there said he knew nothing about it. I should take another walk behind that farm house. I would like to think that its not another hunter stealing stands but it sure seems that way. We lock them to the tree and they cut the locks. I thought about putting a trail cam out but they would probably steal that too. Just had to vent!

Doesnt that suck. I have lost three(locked)stands that were on my own property and never found them. Unfortunatley I also think it is other hunters. Do the trail cam thing but be careful that they dont take that also.

My very first tree that that I built was stolen by another archery hunter. Opening day was Thanksgiving day (Florida early 1980's) I climbed up before daylight and another bow hunter came in about 9 and climbed a tree about 60 yards from me. I had to leave about noon so I climbed down and covered the stand up with limbs. I came back the next day to hunt and the stand was gone.[:@][:@][:@][:@][:@]

As I have stated here a few times, I really believe that, if these people get caught, that they should lose their Hunting AND fishing priviledges for 5 years for the first offense and Lifetime for a second offense.

I am encouraged by the amount of motion sensing cameras out there.
Hopefully someone will post a picture of a tresspasser or someone actually stealing a stand.

We must put a stop to this madness.

That sucks man.

I've taken to usingmetal stamps to stamp my driver's license number on all my stands in inconspicious places . I read an article that said alot of thieves don't really pay attention to the stamps, because they look like they were applied at the factory, as opposed to using an engraver. And according to this, it's "safer" than putting your social security number on there, and if a cop were to see it, it will register with him that it's a driver's license number, and he can look it up.

How about puttina small tracking device, like the use on vehicles, on one of the stands. The money spent to catch them will be worth it.

http://gpsinformation.net/main/vehicletrack.htm

Or camoflage some trail cameras next to your stands, and hope the tresspassers don't see them. If it were me, after the 2nd stand, I would've started some preventive action against the theives.

I hate thieves! I would put your trail cam elevated up in a tree across from your stand. One might not think of looking up there, to busy stealing things and wants to scram![8D]

A friend told me a story of a guy that had a trail cam set up facing his home made wood treestand. Well you can see where this is going.... yup he got some pics of a guy destroying his treestand.

It's a shame that you can't even leave your stand on private property without worrying someone will steal it. [&:] I hope the people not only get caught but have something similar happen to them some day.

Rig the stand so that if someone climbs up in it it will fall and hopefully severly injure the thieving B#*%@RD!