Tree stands on public land

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It's time to make sure you treestands are out of the woods - see the link below.  It seems like a lot of hunters are treating the $29 treestand as disposable and leaving them up.  I took about a mile walk last night on public land and saw 3 treestands and a fabric blind still in the woods.  The blind was caved in from the snow so it was obviously abandoned.

  http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIDNR/bulletins/fdeb4a

[Jon Stewart]

Agree.  Last fall I removed a handful of screw in steps  that was left in the tree from the year before.  The steps were there but there was no stand.  There is also an abandon tree stand that is going to be removed later next month.  That thing has been up for 3 years now.

When I do an antler drop walk I remove all flags and tree tacks that I run into.

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I was in the Manistee National Forest a few years ago mushroom hunting and a Forest Service employee stopped by as I was coming out of the woods and asked if I had seen any tree-stands.  She indicated that they have collage students working for the summer and they use tree stand removal as part of their work.  She was out interviewing people so she could put a map together for the removal.  They are concerned with trees growing around steel steps, nails, chains etc and then damaging the wood cutting/chipping machinery when the trees are harvested (after all lumber and pulp are the primary reason for the national forests existence).  So it is costing us tax-payer money to clean up after people that are to lazy to take their stands down.