How do you find your stands and/or your way outin the dark?

Check all that apply.

EDIT: Rybo brought up a good point about how hunting the same land for extended periods of time can give you a lot of familiarity - vitiating the "need" for a crutch to help find your way. So, in light of that, I guess this discussion applies moreso to hunting "new" properties every year or accessinga wide variety of different and/or revolving stand sites.




If I get into an area where I might miss my tree - I break out theglowtacks. But, I'm actually so cheap and shady that I refuse to tack the whole way from the car to the stand. So, I follow the natural boundaries in as far as possible, then tack my way through the best point of ingress/egress.

Maybe I'm ultra noided out by such things, but I tend to think that if you tack all the way back to the parking area, you're just inviting other people to follow the tacks all the way in to your stand sites. So, for my more convoluted hikes, I might have a 1/2 mile walk, but only 50-100 yards of tack lines.

Also, for the early season hunts, I stack the tacks closer together to make them easier to follow through the dense foliage.

All from memory

The natural boundaries help my memory.

I use a red lens flashlight but only if absolutely needed.

I'm a tacker, too....to an extent (same fears you have).

But this was PRICELESS!

Here's the scenario, shooting light is gone and the wolves have been howling for an 1/2 hour. I start heading back to camp at dark, forget about the glow tacks and turn on the flashlight. It looks like eyeballs all around you until you remember your emmer effer hunting buddyput glow tacks up and down the trails. Return to camp, curse hunting buddy and change pants.

I use natural boundries and memory. Although there was one time that I just could not find my stand in the morning so I just sat down on the ground. When the sun came up, the tree was less than 15 feet away[&:]

No flashlight option?

I just wait until it's light enough to see and go in. I'm such apansy.

I am very much like you, I use memory and natural boundaries and then normally tack from there. I did purchase a very cool GPS this year and have all my stand locations in there. I have been playing around with the GPS to find my way to/from camera locations (not that I don't remember, but I need the practice with the GPS) and it seems that this approach will work really well. I love the glow tacks, but like you, I have always been afraid that they are nothing more than a billboard advertising a free stand or camera.