Archery Hall of Fame Recipient Hugh Blackburn Tells His Tips to Better Hunting for Deer
Day 4: Bowhunter Hugh Blackburn on Positioning Your Tree Stand to Bag Deer
Editor’s Note: The late Hugh Blackburn, a member of the Archery Hall of Fame, won many field-archery competitions in his lifetime, hunted deer with a bow for over 40 years and was one of the masters of the sport at a time when most hunters never hunted with bows. As a manufacturer’s representative for the Fred Bear Archery Company and an instructor at the Westervelt Lodge Bowhunting School in Aliceville, Alabama, Blackburn taught thousands of sportsmen the fine art of bowhunting. This expert’s tips are timeless even today and may be just what you need to put a buck on the meat pole this season.
Placing Your Tree Stand:
  Many ingredients have to be considered when determining where to put your tree stands. Notice I said tree stands and not tree stand. To be an effective bowhunter, you should have more than one stand in a region where you plan to take a deer. Then no matter which way the wind is blowing you can get into a stand there where you think the deer will appear and have your scent blowing away from the deer’s approach trail. Food is another consideration in determining where to put your stand. I’ve seen biologists’ lists that rate the different foods deer prefer. When you look at the lists, just about everything deer eat are weeds or nuts – a wide variety of food. But to put your tree stand in a feeding area where the deer is likely to show-up when you are hunting, you have to be able to determine which weed, fruit or nut they prefer during the time you’ll be hunting. The best thing to remember about tree-stand placement is to put your tree stands close to food or trails that deer will use. And, position your tree stands, so that no matter which way the wind is blowing, you can get into a stand, and your scent will be blown out of your hunting area.
Being Conscious of Back Cover:
 I ’ve seen hunters who have had on camouflage from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes, and they will stand out on the side of a tree silhouetted against the skyline, where they are as easy to see as an elephant in a flea circus. For some reason, people often believe that when you’re in a tree the deer don’t look up, but that’s not true. You have to be conscious of back cover, unless you have the sun right at your back. If the sun is at your back and shining into the deer’s face, then the deer won’t look into the sun, and you don’t have to be as concerned about back cover. But if the sun’s not in the deer’s face as he comes to you, you must have some kind of cover behind you to break-up your silhouette. You can and will spook deer if you’re silhouetted against the sky.
You’ll learn more about deer hunting in the new Kindle eBooks, “How to Hunt Deer Like a Pro,” “PhD Whitetails: How to Hunt and Take the Smartest Deer on Any Property” and “Bowhunting Deer: The Secrets of the PSE Pros” by John E. Phillips. Go to http://www.amazon.com/kindle-ebooks, type in the names of the books and download them to your Kindle, and/or download a Kindle app for your iPad, SmartPhone or computer.
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