Please help me find a good stand
 

Hi everyone,
I'm a relatively young hunter, at 19, especially in bowhunting experience and it would be great if some of you older, more educated hunters can help me out. I thought that i picked some great stand locations for this year but i've been out everyday almost and i have yet to even see a young doe or anything except turkeys! I've put down some maps of terrain and satellite showing the new location im hunting this year. If you guys could explain where to set up a stand or even better copy my pictures and repaste them showing areas where you would put up a stand you guys would really help me save myself and make this a great sucessful season for me. I've tried hunting inside field corners, bottlenecks and funnels, saddles, benches....the works. But i have a hard time identifyying these and a hard time placing stands in general. I marked out in red the area i can hunt and the blue dots are my current stand locations. If you guys can lend a helping hand I'd be eternally grateful.....so i can put up that picture of that nice buck i shot or send you guys some delicious doe venison. Any help would be appreciated for helping a new hunter out. Thanks everyone!!!

Locations
 

It appears that there are many draws coming up through the property. I hunt a lot in south east ohio in the hill country. Our best stands are at the head of the draw, or find the heavy used trail running across the draw on the face of the hill. If you walk the draw from the very top of the ridge down till it ends or where your permission ends you'll find good crossings. Deer are lazy and will find the easiest way to get from A to B. Not every draw is the same. You'll put in some miles up and down, but it will be worth it. Remember to use the thermas for picking your stand locations on the face of the hill. Good luck!

I'll leave you and the others to pick out your spots on your property. My advice is completely different. Go to your neighborhood/state parks that have deer and scout them out daily. The same spots and same areas you need to go over on a regular bases. Read and re-read the deer sign and become a custom to what fresh and old sign looks like. You'll get real good at telling the difference between fresh, few hours old, 12 hours and days. If you do this, your stand locations will fall into place. This will be really helpful come rut time. Not sure where you want to go, walk in quietly and find fresh sign and then climb just off the trail. Mature bucks are always traveling around looking for the fresh @#$%^&*%T#.

What is planted in the fields? Do you know of any bedding areas on the property?

Always hard to tell the best spots 'remotly' like this... But here's a few spots to check out. That strip of trees could be awesome if they are using it to travel between the different areas... Good luck!

Attachment 4179

I would say your best bet is to look for heavily used trails and invest in a trail cam. This way, you can see what times they're used and by how many. If this is private property and you feel comfortable leaving a cam out there, I'd go with that option. As for this year, once the rut starts and the deer seem to throw caution out the window, you'll start to seem them. Nothing we can say can match a good scouting effort. Still hunt the morning and evening, and take 3 or 4 hrs to scout different areas. Mark the bigger trails along the property line and see where they lead. Once you know the area like the back of your hand, you'll feel comfortable knowing which stand will produce, with what wind, and what time of day. Good luck and let us know how you made out this year.

get a few game cams...your best chance...no pics...move em..

+1 I agree with south dakota....that looks like a good funnel!

I also agree with southdakotahunter with that woods line separating the two fields. Even if they arent traveling it a lot now, the bucks will be once the rut starts heatin up more. It would definitely help to know what is planted in the fields. Have you tried finding a vantage point where you can watch one or two fields and see if and where deer are entering the field? that could help you in placing stands.

Looking at the elevation pic, I like the lower right corner of the picture. It looks like there is a gully there. I assume the top of the map is North. With prevailing west wind, I would get off the corner of that field in the lower right to get them on the way to feed in that field. If you do some exploring there, I'll bet you find some good trails going to that field from the gully. With the "chasing phase" of the rut a couple weeks off, it is best to hunt their feeding patterns right now. Good Luck and post the results!

Let me start by saying that it is very hard to "pick" a spot just from the map. With that being said, I always start my scouting process looking at topo and aerial maps first. I identify several spots I want to look at and get an idea of what I think might be happening and then I go put my boots on the ground. Based on that, I have picked out several spots that I would go look into if this was new ground I was going to hunt, as well as a quick explanation of why I am looking at those specific spots.

1. The deer could be using this cover to move between the timber and the fields. If that is the case, this could be an awesome evening location.

2. Same as #1. I picked these spots as 1 and 2 just because it would be very quick and easy to slide in and tell if it would be worth while to hunt.

3. It appear this is some of the thicker cover on your property and it also appears from the aerial that there is a creek or ditch running thru it. If that is the case, the deer (bucks) like to use terrain features like this to travel while searching for does. Get in there with the right wind and you very well catch a good buck cruising here in a few weeks. Very similar to my favorite stand location here in Illinois.

4. It looks that there could be two creeks or ditches or water sheds connecting here. Again features that deer like to use to travel and with two creeks meeting, it could be a gre 360 stand.

5. It appears that this cover is thicker that the rest of the timber around it. One piece of the thick timber goes east, why the other goes north. Could be used as a travel route for deer accessing the fields to the east and north.

6. Same as 5.

Good luck and keep us posted. Please remember, without time in the stand, you will never learn your property well or connect on a deer..

let some arrows rip at some turkeys

Thanks for all the help guys. And marlin like you said this is an amazing spot for turkeys, i let it rip alrite. already got my limit on fall birds w a bow here because i see turkeys everytime out. weird that i never even bump deer or anything though. not a one yet. and like some of you guys said in the beginning posts that strip of land connecting the two fields on the left middle side of the map seems like a great spot, but theres some problems. It borders another hunters land and im worried about getting chewed out (big problem here....guys love posting property) and theres tons of sign and trails, beds, rubs and scrapes but the brush is too thick and tall for a ground blind but the trees are too small for a stand. any ideas?