I am wondering how many of you pass by old treestands (usually home built with wood) and wonder about who hunted it and what they saw/harvested from it?
I have a spot back home (as I call it) on public land with an old wooden stand in a big forked Oak. I've shot several deer out of it and had to replace pieces to keep it safe. I haven't hunted it in 5 years, but everytime I did , I always wondered who built it and how they did from the stand.
Now, I still see them but rarely (usually never) sit in them. I carry my own stand in and out and try to stay mobile. But, I still wonder about those old stands and fond memories of my 'spot back home' with that old wooden stand.
I often pause and reflect, too, when I encounter an old stand while out scouting a new hunting area. And I make note of the spot and will hunt nearby the following season. The stand is there for a reason, and the reason is that it usually is productive spot. Sort of like having someone else helping you with scouting an area.
I found two on a new property I have permission to hunt on....Old woodies with old aluminum extension ladders.....old school.
QuoteOriginally posted by ronp:
I often pause and reflect, too, when I encounter an old stand while out scouting a new hunting area. And I make note of the spot and will hunt nearby the following season. The stand is there for a reason, and the reason is that it usually is productive spot. Sort of like having someone else helping you with scouting an area.
Spot on without a doubt. I have said "it's there for a reason" too many times to count.
Well put and nice thread.
I always pause and then try to figure out if the location is still a good one or not. Many times I find myself thinking, what were they thinking when they put that there???? :confused:
I set up my stand once in what looked to be a good spot. After a couple hours I noticed an old board nailed to a tree about 15ft up. I sat and pondered who might have hunted there before me. The land had been in my family a long time right up until about the time I was born. Later that day I took my first trad deer in that spot. I like to think a past hunter in my family was helping me out on that one. :)
Rob
I always stop,look around to decide why here.It usually don't take long to figure out.
Yeah I do, but half of them are mine and I think how stupi......er brave I was 30+ years ago. :p
I do notice them in other sections of woods and quickly try to determine why and if it was/is a good choice.
An old skeleton of a wood stand helped me find one of my favorite stand locations. If somebody else thought enough to build a stand there, it's worth investigating.
What isn't so cool is finding old metal stand junk, rat infested chairs, a pile of old beer cans (usually with pull tabs), and other assorted junk from someone's old honey hole.
:wavey: me , me, me!
I often ponder those thoughts. I also look around to see why its was there because when it was built, the wood probably wasn't hauled in by 4 wheelers. Not many people would put in the effort to haul all that material in the woods on a whim.
I look to see if it was used ads a bow or gun stand. Neat to see but sometimes can be an eyesore as well when you see a lot.
I have 1 on my property about 50 yards from my back door and have the same thoughts every time I go past it.It is on a major trail that I hunt
those type of stands always make me stop and look around. Just to try to see what that hunter saw.
i do, at one time someone took the time to put it in that exact spot, cause it was good area. bad thing alot of those are broken backs waiting to happen! i like the ones that are so old only thing left up in the tree are a couple nails or a single board left, and if you wasn't watching closely you would have never know it was there.
I always take a moment to have a look around and try to see why that stand was placed in this location... always hoping to learn from people who came before me. I've learned a lot...
Yeah, I also reminisce and ironically for the past couple years or so have been taking pictures (when I have a camera on me) of these icons of the past. In my area most are dilapidated to the point there is not much left but some make unique photos.
I hunt by spot and stalk; when I do see them they provide interesting clues about what others have seen.
everytime I hunt and see one of the old stands, I know that if must be a good spot. Then i do think of how it was back then and if they enjoyed it as much as me.
I always wonder if the hunter saw anything from the stand or just put it there because he or she thought it might be a good spot. Some are just barely able to tell they were even stands now. Been there a long time.....kind'a neat to think about.
I came across one this season did some wondering my self about the old wood platform . Hung a lock on up higher about 10' killed a cow horn spike out of it. I noticed I could hunt almost any wind direction out of that old oak tree.
I love finding old stands and am amazed at how low they usually are. They're often located near where deer still travel and if you can't find sign promising a better place to hunt, go with what might have worked before. Climb higher to improve your chances, and use modern equipment and a good harness and life-line to improve your safety.
When I first started bowhunting in the late 80s it was pretty common to see old stands nailed up on public land. They have been illegal here so long now that they have pretty much all rotted away.
Lots of old tree house type stands nailed into huge old oak trees. Must've been the place to be when the acorns dropped!
The problem with the locations is most were built as rifle stands and were designed to cover large areas that deer used during the rifle season. I find you need to really pinpoint a trail within those areas to get a good bowshot at a deer.
I've passed by them with them with the same wonderings as to their history. I also look for trails in the area.
I've seen some to that made me scratch my head wondering what the heck the hunter was thinking. One stand on a piece of property that I used to hunt had an old disk from a harrow for the seat. If there was any more to the stand, that is all that was left. The harrow had grown into the large pine.
A friend hunted a property that had an old stand that was a metal folding chair simply bungee strapped to the tree. It took some kind of brave stupidity for somebody to hunt from that contraption.
Any Pictures?
I see series of old wooden stands on public land in NJ - clubs are pretty common around here so I often wonder about the group of guys that must of hunted the area years ago
(http://i39.tinypic.com/2vkesus.jpg)
Heres one of the many on the Mountain we hunt. This one isnt as old and was built by my Uncles oh about 20 years ago. They have killed alot of deer from it. Its HIGH about if you cant tell from the pic. This stand is on a Pipe Line and the deer just thrive there. Infact I killed my best buck this year sitting across from this old stand :)
Up in my little woodlot there was a death trap hanging on a tree for as long as I can remember. It was just an old kitchen chair on a few boards. No railing, no platform, no steps, just a chair about 20' up. I can't imagine anyone being stupid enough to use it. But, then again, people do some pretty dumb things just to shoot a deer.
I was still hunting the area last week and noticed it had fallen. It's been hanging by a thread for the past few years and I guess the last nail finally pulled out. I'll have to go back and check out the chair, it would be great to use it in a natural blind or something.
Neat thread.
In my teens (early 70's) when scouting a new place I have to admit, old stands were very attractive to me -- I figured everyone knew more about where to hunt than I did. I killed the first live deer I ever saw with a Pearson Cougar from such a stand in 1970.
These days I see very few and most are so decayed they are only old steps and maybe a brace or two in a tree. I imagine some of these are at least 15-20 years old. Of course I don't hunt them but I do look around to see why they were put there. I usually find a much better place to put a stand than these locations -- hopefully my scouting has gotten better?
On December 30th while recovering a Doe I passed a homemade stand I had never seen but knew existed. It is about 120 yards from one of my stands. An elderly rifle-hunter killed a 152 in 2010 from this stand. I measured the buck. The stand is less than 10' feet high. It is a homemade wooden ladder with a small platform on top with a 2"x2" brace lashed between the two boles of this tree for support and a rifle rest. The wood in this stand, except for the brace, is very old and weak-looking.
There are a few on the property I hunted this year. The land owner cleared a large field and they discovered a fairly elaborate one in a grove of trees, even he didn't know it was there. My nephews found two more in more remote areas, neither useable.
One of these proved to be very well placed; it literally sits in the Y of a heavily used set of trails. I frequently go back to that area to still hunt. The odd thing, though, is that it is barely 6 feet off the ground; I don't know if the landscape has changed a great deal since it was put up or what, but it's very low -- and it sits so close to one of the trails you could literally leap forward and just grab a deer walking past... if you were so inclined, heh.
Neat thread! I always take a look and try to figure out why they are where they are. Sometimes I have put up a stand and then realized that there is an old relic nearby. That always makes me smile.
But sometimes I am left scratching my head like Bowhunter GA...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/Killdeer/Hunting%20and%20Camp/2007%20November%20Hunt/Img_5060ClydesPoint2-1.jpg)
This is where I killed my first deer.
Killdeer
Then, just as now, some hunters just knew what they were doing. They took time to scout the best spots they could find and then build a stand after determining that a place was worth the effort. Bag limits were often one deer per season and the seasons were often only a week or two long. I knew a man whose wife told me after he passed that in 25 years he had collected 25 deer, all from the same tree. I hunted the same property years later as member of a deer camp and those old stands were always a good indicator of a pattern.
That is so crazy that you posted those reflections. My father in law just bought a new farm this year and I did not have time to put up many stands. Luckily the people that hunted there before never felt the need to take their stands with them, so I hunted their stands all year long. I never got a shot this year but a fellow trad ganger and my father both harvested deer out of the same old 10' high plywood boarded ladder stand.
Great thread, great memories.
There is one such stand on our place that was put up by my cousin years ago. He died at 18 yrs old in a car accident, and that was in 1988. Our neighbors nicknamed the stand the "bloody bucket" because he took so many deer from it. I got my first deer from it about 18 years ago, and walked past it last weekend and found 6 active scrapes within shotgun range (our rut is just starting to wind down). Might just have to string up the Double BB and go sit Saturday...
Killdeer - Cool pic...
I have some photos, but don't know how to post them here (I don't do photobucket).
(http://images.imagelinky.com/1326295033.jpg) (http://images.imagelinky.com/1326295033.jpg)
this was the strangest thing I have ever seen, this tree is like 6 feet thick,supported by a 2x4, it is at least 25 feet off the ground. The only was you could get this up was using a 32 foot ladder, I don't know how you could climb this tree. Only thing I can come up with is it was a joke played on someone
I found one in a large tri-truncked oak on a small plot I hunt in VA. I set my climber up near it and had buck chase a doe right under me through a natural choke point between some thick stuff and a creek...couldn't get either one to stop long enough to get a shot....I guess that stand was there for a reason.
well, back in november, I set a young guy up, who I got into hunting on a site, where I seen deer of course, but there was an old busted down stand 40 yards away, he harvested his first deer. Fast forward to tonight, I got home from hunting and he had a car problem and needed a lift to his grandpas. So, I took him since he lived closed, I new his granddad in passing. We got to talking, about longbows and how he hunted years ago a little with them. Then he told me he finally took his first deer from a new technique of tree standing with the bow. his buddy who helped him build it took a picture of the deer on his uncles property. We talked and he described the area,and I finally asked if he had the picture. He thought a bit and said yes, after 15 minutes he came back and showed me. Yes, the stand was there in the background of him smiling over a nice small doe. I shook my head and he asked what was wrong. I called his grandson in and told them both. Talk about history and legacy only the native americans really fealt. The grandson shot his first deer with a recurve, the same place as his granddad had took his first deer with a longbow. yes, I had a tear in my eye.
I run across them every once and awhile and always wonder the same thing. Always give those areas a good look.
Eric
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj93/ruger1970/IMG_2623.jpg)
Many years ago I was stationed at Quantico Va as an MP. I was out hunting on base one morning. Saw nothing for a while then noticed some tracks that were new since I had passed earlier. I looked around a saw a wooden tree stand just off the trail a bit. I checked it for sturdiness and climbed in. 20 minutes later a had a nice 7 point buck down. I thanked whoever built it.
On Corporals pay back then meat wasn't often in the budget for the family.
BigArcher
At the club I used to belong to in GA we leased the 85ac next to us. It was previously least by some guys that used pallets for the platforms with wood ladders up to them. They were quite sturdy and very roomy. We didn't use them much but each one of about 6 or 8 were placed in excellent hunting areas. We used climbers in these areas so we could play the wind right.
Another old stand I saw once was an old metal tube kitchenette chair nailed to a tree about 15' up. Looked like a good place to die! d;^)
Nice picture killdeer! i shot my first deer out of my mothers stand.
There were actually 4 different old, old wooden stands in a 50 yd proximity of my tree I was in. For that day we were all wrong, needed to be back & to the left 75 yds.
http://www.youtube.com/user/DAKOTABOWINWV?feature=mhsn#p/u/4/inBpTl090wI