John's Journal...

Click to enlargeHOW TO PICK A STAND SITE

Green-Field Stand Sites

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can’t bag a buck if you don’t see the animal. The key to seeing more bucks on every hunt is knowing how to choose the most-productive stand sites. Many hunters choose their stand sites using too little information.

The most-obvious green-field stand site is on or near a trail that comes from the woods to the green field. The best time to hunt this stand is late in the afternoon when the deer are coming to the green field to feed. Since many hunters know that information, most of them hunt there. The second-best stand site in a green field will be 50- to 100-yards down the trail that leads to the green field where you find some type of browse the deer can feed on Click to enlargebefore they enter the green field. Usually, many green field hunters already will have found this location. Instead, go past this point further down the trail to where you find two or three other trails intersecting the main trail leading to the green field. All the deer that use a particular trail to enter a green field don’t stay on that trail all the time. They generally come from other trails and other regions to reach that main trail entering the green field. More-experienced deer hunters will look for those trail heads - often 200- to 400-yards away from Click to enlargethe green field - where several trails come together on the main trail leading to the green field. Near that intersection of trails is where I prefer to place my tree stand. I want to go to that stand site in the middle of the day.

Most other hunters will take a stand about l: 30 or 2:00 p.m. after lunch on the edge of the green field or 100-yards down the main trail where the bucks stage before they enter the green field. If any bucks are in the green field in the middle of the day when these hunters go to their stands, more than likely they will spook those deer out of the field and down the trail where I am sitting. By hunting well behind the other hunters who are taking stands on the edges of the green field or down the main trail leading to the green field, I make sure I see the bucks that may be coming to the green field before the other Click to enlargehunters do. Also, by being further away from the green field, the chances of seeing a buck in the woods before dark are much better than if I am hunting closer to the green field.

To learn more about Bo Pitman and his expert hunting tactics, you can purchase John E. Phillips’ book, “How to Take Monster Bucks – Secrets to Finding Trophy Deer”. To learn more about this book, go to http://www.nighthawkpublications.com/hunting/hunting.htm. You can send a check or a money order to Night Hawk Publications, 4112 Camp Horner Road, Birmingham, Alabama 35243, or use the PayPal address nighthawkpub@mindspring.com.

TOMORROW: ESCAPE TRAILS


Check back each day this week for more about HOW TO PICK A STAND SITE

Day 1: Stadium Seats for Bucks
Day 2: Public Land Stands
Day 3: Green-Field Stand Sites
Day 4: Escape Trails
Day 5: Water Stands

 

 

Entry 322, Day 3