I am having a delima on wheather or not to hunt my best stand on opening morning or not. It is by far better during the rut but I did take a nice 10 point there Oct. 6, 4 years ago. Northern is coming in tonight, I will have a north wind tomorrow so that is perfect but I have told myself that I am not going to hunt it until the rut.

What should I do??

the stand is inbetween a bedding and feeding area, good natural funnel

Keep your scent to the bare minimal, be cautious on your ingoing and outcoming from the stand and get your arse out there......like you said, it produced early.....

I would try it out a couple of times early and then give it a rest for a week or so before rut and hunt it again. (If needed)

thanks for the reply, I am always scent catious, ie- rubber boots, clothing, cover scents. So I think I will give it a try and not hunt it more than 2-3 times before the magic time. thanks!!

If anyone else has there opinions give them.

Tough call. I find myself with the same problem. I am going to stay out of the stands I hunt for at least the next 2 weeks. I'm going to be pretty hard to be around for the next couple of weeks. In my past experience I just end up educating more deer than anything else. The temptation is enough to drive you nuts. Just say NO!

If that stand gives you a shot at a nice buck then you should hunt it. The rut is a month and a half away, if things dont go as planned and you alert the deer to your presence you can still leave it alone and let things settle, down by the time the rut arrives things will be back to normal. Just make sure you dont overhunt it, thats how you can screw up a good spot, just hunting it once you will be fine.

I would give it a shot a couple times as well, really paying attention to your scent and routes to/from the stand ~ don't disturb the area too much and see what you see. Plus during the rut the boys are usually going crazy all over the place, traveling 4 or 5 times what they normally do this time of year.

Always a dilema. However my take is this. If there is a chance someone is going to be in that woods and maybe even in your spot. It may as well be you.

Yeah ideally we could let an area sit for a while before we hunt it, but I don't own that much land. So I rely heavily on private and public property where others may hunt also. Sure we don't want to disturb an area too bad, but the sad fact is someone is most likely there at least on the weekends. The last thing you wanna hear is that old man so and so killed a P&Y buck from the old stand in the holler (Yours).

Go hunting!