Opening day was perfect as far as the weather was concerned,but my months of preperation yeilded a no show for the deer. A spot where I have over 2000 pictures of at least a dozen does and 4 bucks consistantly coming in produced nothing. I had Monday and Tuesday off and moved to a site where I did nothing but hang 2 stands. At 8:30 A Doe with to very small fawns for so late it the season came in down wind at 30 to 40 yards. I decided to pass on her because the fawns where to young,she never busted me after being so close for 5 minutes. I guess I did the scent control thing pretty well,I was 15 feet above them. They moved on and another doe showed 10 minutes later but was 50 yards out. That was my morning. That evening we saw one doe my buddy droped it for the first meat of the year. Monday morning I saw nothing,that night I had a spike buck and a doe come in and hang around under me for 15 minutes at a third site. The doe was skinny I passed hoping for something with some meat on it. 20 Minutes later 10 minutes before dark was set in 2 mature does caught me looking the wrong way as I turned to see what was behind me one saw me and blew,game over. Tuesday morning not a deer in sight so I spent the afternoon moving the stand I got busted in into better cover because the falling leaves left it exsposed. My Nephew droped a big doe in it on Sunday but he was fortunate to have it come in at an angle favoring him. If your stands are exsposed due to a thining canopy above save yourself some frustration by getting it better placed in cover. I think these few hunts taught me some good lessons for the rest of bow season and I am hopeful even though I harvested no deer.The story continues this weekend,take care and good hunting to everyone.

Keeping your silhouette concealed is a must! Good lesson and at least it wasn't a mature buck busting you! Good luck on the new set-up!

that sux, always a good thing to take a good look around in the winter time, looking for cover, and then hope for the next year ya can get one close to some good sign.
bein 15 feet up in the woods even with no leaves is not a bad thing....the main thing is how the sun cast yer shadow, even at 5'2" you can cast a 30 foot shadow, eveytime you move, so do the woods....a lil added cover to your stand is a plus...and old plastic xmas tree's work wonders to help conceal a tree stand, even a lil camo burlap.(walmart)
one time i moved my stand because of basically your same story, my buddy went in right behind me and decided it was good enough for him, adding xmas tree and burlap to his stand.. asking me why i gave it up....well...sob got a 142" prime texas whitetail. lesson learned for me...go with your gut, and dont change your mind later..stick it out..fl this weekend

hope it works out in your favor. good luck!

I will find out tomarrow on our hunt,we let the area rest for 4 days and i bought some camo material this morning at Walmart.The Chrismas tree thing is a good Idea,I can get that real cheap as well as some fall plastic leaves at the Hobby lobby. Thanks

I've had a few spots where trees offered no real good options. A good natural ground blind can be the ticket, even in bow season. You do need to be careful of the wind though.

I was in a natural ground blind last night looking at a bean field and I love hunting this way when possible. The wind was good last night for it and the deer began moving out on cue.They got spooked off by something out of my control, so I went home confident that if I can get in there again I might get a shoot at them.

usually find old plastic xmas tree's right around or after xmas...people get new ones and ..out in the trash with the old.